It’s great for any email content that you regularly send, but we get a lot of questions from our customers asking how they can put their scheduling link in the body of their email or signatures without having to add it to every email. Quick Parts makes this simple – and it’s a real time saver.

Check out the video below for a walk through on using Quick Parts with TimeTrade.

Learn the secrets of Apple’s retailing success at this informative webinar with customer experience expert Mike Wittenstein. Apple’s foray into retail has broken new ground, shattered traditional metrics and has changed the face of the retail industry forever. If you are involved in retail, or any customer-facing business, this webinar will take you behind the scenes of Apple Stores and teach you the strategies and techniques Apple uses to delight their customers.

About the Speaker

For two decades, Mike Wittenstein, has helped business leaders around the world differentiate their brands by dramatically improving their customer experience. He has helped retailers like Party City, Kinko’s, Best Buy, Alternative Apparel and SOHO Office, to elevate their customer experience, while making it a lot more engaging – and even fun – for all involved. He has given clients like Apple, IBM, McDonald’s, and iPay Technologies a looking glass view into how their company is perceived by everyday customers.

Before PowerInbox, people interacted with emails by hitting reply or forward, or by clicking on URLs to open a webpage, thus leading users away from the email. “All this back-and-forth drains productivity and effectiveness,” says Matt Thazhmon, PowerInbox CEO, in a statement that reemphasizes a point we make at TimeTrade every single day.

We know that “back-and-forth” is one of the least productive things a business professional can engage in, so we thought that creating a PowerInbox “PowerApp” for TimeTrade was a perfect fit.

Take a look at some of the screenshots below for an idea of what TimeTrade’s app for PowerInbox can do for you or your contacts. To take advantage of this capability, your contacts will need to have PowerInbox installed. It’s easy to install (literally two clicks) and you can include it in the scheduling invitations you send to your contacts (example below). That way, not only are you offering them a fast, easy way to schedule time with you, but you’re also giving them a way to be more productive themselves.

See below for an example of an email you might send inviting one of your contacts to schedule time with you. Nothing new except the added call to install PowerInbox. You’ll see, when more of your contacts use PowerInbox, your click through rates increase and more people will book time with you.

When a contact who has PowerInbox installed receives the email, they will be able to interact with TimeTrade right inside the email, without ever having to open a new webpage.

We’ve found a great new tool called Yesware that helps you create and categorize your email templates and track their performance all through Gmail.

We love that the template creation is extremely easy (just compose an email and save it as a template) but what really floats our boat here at TimeTrade is Yesware’s direct integration to Gmail and popular CRM systems such as Salesforce, Highrise, Sugar, PipeJump, etc.We know the power of integration and how the purpose of using tools like this is to make life easier and to streamline processes, so when we come across solutions like Yesware that fit the bill, we are quick to find ways to use them with TimeTrade.

If you don’t already have a TimeTrade account,
click here to get started.

See a screenshot below of some of the analytic capabilities you can now get with Gmail using Yesware:

You get insights into how your customers and prospects are reacting to your message through the analytics that are viewable right from within Gmail.

Take all this cool functionality and couple it with TimeTrade and you’ve turned your Gmail account into a sales prospecting arsenal.

Check out our video below on how to get set up using TimeTrade and Yesware in no time.

Now, TimeTrade is part of your mobile toolbox for productivity, increasing sales and keeping your customers happy.

The TimeTrade Mobile iPhone app is now available in the Apple iTunes App Store (US and Canada) and it’s free to download. If you are currently a TimeTrade Professional or Workgroup Edition customer, all you have to do is log in and start scheduling, but if you are new to TimeTrade, you can sign up for a free trial here.

Here are some of the features you get with TimeTrade Mobile:

• Invite contacts to “Click to Schedule” right from your iPhone
• Use the in-app calendar to choose times to make available for meetings
• Use the “Follow-Up List” to instantly contact those who haven’t responded to your invites
• See a detailed overview of your activity from the app dashboard

Here’s a brief overview of how to use TimeTrade Mobile for the iPhone. Click here for more detailed instructions on using the app and to access our support knowledge base.

	The Dashboard Quickly and easily set and follow all of your scheduling activity. From the dashboard, you can send invitations to schedule meetings and appointments, monitor your recent activity, and see how many invitations haven’t been responded to.
In-App Calendar Control You can access any of your existing TimeTrade Activities or, choose multiple days and times to offer for meetings or appointments using a quick meeting. The easy-to-use interface will display the existing appointments so you don’t have to worry about double-booking. Tap the times you want to offer and they will automatically be included in your TimeTrade meeting invitation.
	Fast, Easy Email Invitations You create your email invitations, access your contacts and choose your availability right in the app. You never have to navigate away to another email application or calendar and each email sent is tracked so you know who has confirmed a meeting and who hasn’t.
Keep track of contacts who haven’t confirmed appointments yet The Follow-Up List lets you monitor who hasn’t clicked to schedule with you. Just tap the name on the list and you’ll be brought to the contact information screen where you can email or call to send a gentle reminder that they are just a click away from picking a time for your meeting!

Don’t Confuse Your Prospects and Customers
If you ask a customer or prospect to click a link, it’s important to make sure you’re specific and clear with your intent. Explain what they can expect to experience and where it is they’ll be headed if they do decide to click.  Including a welcome message and/or your company logo in your scheduling process lets your customers and prospects know they’re still in the right place once they’ve clicked your link and to proceed to book an appointment. Reduce the unknown and you’ll reduce hesitation or confusion.

Earn Their Trust
Fresh relationships are also fragile ones, and when you’re prospecting, you probably have a lot of fresh relationships. It’s important to build trust with those you interact with and show them that you’re a professional.

People can be wary of links in emails and if you use TimeTrade, you probably send hyperlinks pretty regularly. So once someone clicks, you can counteract any inherent “friction” or “stress” by letting them know they’re still interacting with you, and not some other vendor or third party. Including your branding and a welcome message as part of the TimeTrade scheduling process is a good way to retain, and even build trust with your customers or prospects. You’re showing them that you are a professional using technology to make both of your lives easier.

Watch the video below to learn how to add your company logo to customer-facing TimeTrade pages.

If you are a TimeTrade Professional user, you will need to add the Branding Option from your “My Subscription” screen under the “Admin” dropdown menu.

But what about your existing calendar? It’s a lot of work to manually take inventory of your schedule and plug in times you want to make available, especially because as appointments flow in, you have to manually monitor your calendar and remove those time slots so no one double-books. It’s nearly impossible to stay on top of it all and you’re bound to double-book something somewhere.

If you’re using TimeTrade online appointment scheduling, you can set up your account to connect directly to your Google Calendar. TimeTrade works 24/7 to automatically update your schedule as meetings roll in and will only offer up times that are open on your calendar. This basically lets you “set and forget” TimeTrade and be sure that meetings will only show up on your calendar when and where you want them to. You’ll be more efficient and more productive.

For a quick step-by-step explanation of how to connect your  TimeTrade Professional or Workgroup Edition account with your Google Calendar, visit our FAQ or click the image below.

Click the image to learn how to connect TimeTrade to your Google Calendar

This is a quick and easy way to give you that little extra productive boost and to stay on top of your online appointment scheduling activity in Outlook 2010 (click here for Outlook 2007). Watch the video in full screen mode to see the full detail.

When you set up your TimeTrade activities, you can use this method to color-code each one. So at a quick glance, you can see how many Introductory calls, 1-hour demos, or any other activity you’ve set up. It’s also a great way to track how often each TimeTrade activity is being used.

1. Add a “Click to Schedule” Link In Your E-mail Signature Line

Offer up as many days and times as you’d like in a link that gets sent in all your e-mails. Watch this short video to see how – expand to full screen if it’s hard to see:

2. Offer Appointments Through LinkedIn

Put a Published Availability link in your LinkedIn profile so your LinkedIn contacts can request a call or meeting with you.  Remember that the Timetrade Activity lets you customize which part of your calender gets used:

3. Put a ” Schedule a 15 Minute Call”  On your Website or Blog “Contact” Page

Replace the Information Form on your website or blog, with a “Click to Schedule a Call” link for more effective outreach to customers and prospects:

TimeTrade gives you the ability to offer up carefully selected sets of availability based on who you are scheduling with and the nature of the appointment. You have control over what times you select to offer up and on which days. However, if TimeTrade doesn’t know what times you’ve already got booked in your Outlook calendar when someone clicks to schedule with you, you run the risk of double-booking. That’s where the TimeTrade Outlook Connector comes in.  By enabling the Outlook Connector, you let TimeTrade and Outlook talk to each other, ensuring that both are updated each time an appointment is booked.

It also gives you the capability to click a button right in your Outlook account and automatically insert a “Click to schedule” link for email recipients. Once you’ve set up the Outlook Connector, you can get all the benefits of TimeTrade without ever having to leave your Outlook account.

Adding TimeTrade to your Microsoft Outlook account turns Outlook into the perfect appointment scheduling machine. Once you’ve set it up, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it!

Visit our Knowledge Center for details on how to set up the Outlook Connector.