New Year’s Resolution: Use Timebridge to Make Appointments Fast and Easy

January 1, 2010
By: Joshua Ferris
Author's Website: http://www.housemeetsowner.com

Lately I’ve been revisiting my goals from 2009, setting new ones for 2010 and trying to find ways to streamline my workflow to make things more efficient. One web-based trick I’ve been using to do that is Timebridge.

TimeBridge

Timebridge gives you the power to set up a meeting without all the typical back-and-forth emails trying to hammer out the perfect time and day. You can send as many invites as you need and you can either propose up to five times on different days to meet or have attendees choose based on your availability. There are multiple meeting options to choose from including web conference, phone conference or a simple in-person meeting.

Check out an example of a meeting invitation I sent out for next week:

Meeting Example

One of my favorite features is the way meeting attendees can reply to your meeting requests: Instead of having to register so they can respond Timebridge lets attendees click the ‘Reply’ button in their email and adjust time/confirm the appointment without registering.

Learn more about Timebridge by visiting their website. The service is free to use with a premium service offered at around $8.95/month. For in-person meetings the free service is all you’ll need.

What are your business resolutions for the New Year?

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Categories: Communication, General, Office Technology

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Sharon

Neatcall has a great scheduling app as well. The app easily finds the optimal time slot for any interaction and connects all users when time arrives www.neatcall.com

Home Mortgage Kansas

Thank you for this, Josh. I had just heard about Timebridge from a friend of mine, and stumbled upon your blog. It sounds like you are completely sold on this. It is so frustrating to play phone tag for days on end... Any drawbacks to the program?

Marissa Myers

One drawback that frustrates me is that Timebridge will only sync up with your primary Google Calendar. If you have multiple calendars on gcal (for the kids, spouse, etc), you're in trouble. But Timebridge has promised to support multiple calendars in the future. Hopefully soon!

Josh Ferris

Glad you liked it HMK. I haven't found any drawbacks to it other than that some people may be uncomfortable using a service to make the appointments because they like the back and forth of email or the phone. I'm definitely going to continue using it in the foreseeable future.

pierrebatbatian

great system, do they have multi language support? We are forced to work in 2 languages here :(

Josh Ferris

Hey Pierre,

I believe Timebridge is English-only as of this writing. Try getting in touch with their staff (http://timebridge.com/pages/contact-us) and see if they plan to offer support for multiple languages in the future.

John Stormer

Hi Josh,

VP of Marketing for TimeBridge here...

We currently only support English in the app itself though do support international date formats. And users definitely use TimeBridge with their own language (non-English)-- over 1/3 of our users are outside the US. We do expect to support multiple languages. No date for that right now though.

Thanks for your great post!

John

Marissa Myers

Love Timebridge! I'm helping a small brokerage to integrate Timebridge into its agent recruiting efforts. We're expanding the broker's reach through a recruiting website and email campaign to local real estate agents that he'd like to hire [website mockup at http://www.slideshare.net/DreyfusProperties/dre...>. By setting up Timebridge on these web and email channels, prospective agents can easily schedule one-on-one coffees with the broker. First, there's a "Have coffee on Mike" call-to-action on the recruiting website. The link sends agents to Mike's Timebridge calendar to schedule coffee with him. Second, Mike includes his Timebridge availability on his email signature. His sig reads like this: Join me for a cup of coffee. Let's talk. See <Timebridge calendar URL> my real-time calendar and automatically schedule coffee with me.

Josh Ferris

Marissa,

That is an excellent way to integrate Timebridge into your business and by far the most creative I've seen yet. Your website mockup is coming along quite nicely and the Coffee with Mike idea is killer. Have any other services that you like using for brokerages?

Marissa Myers

Thanks, Josh! My broker client and I are really excited about about ways we're leveraging technology to reach out prospective agents.

We're also using Twitter in a unique way: we've created a house that tweets and integrated the twitter stream into his website. There's now a stream of tweets coming from the house on the broker's single property website. It's a great way for the house to tell its story. Check it out: http://www.355santarita.com

Josh Ferris

I think the use of Twitter for a single property site is innovative but I'm not convinced of the long term value it would have for the broker. A broker property stream similar to what Dell does with their outlet deals could be a great way to give all of their properties additional exposure.

IMO Twitter demands that you be compelling in order to get followed back. It can be done with property streams but it's a little tougher than just being yourself since houses can't talk. If walls could talk... that would be an interesting tweeter. :)