Using Setster you will acquire new customers and retain existing customers while maximizing your availability and time to focus on your business. Setster will only be able to accomplish this if you are willing to engage and participate in promoting your appointment scheduling solution for your customers to use.

Just like any online customer management and marketing platform, Setster is a tool and you actually need to use it to be successful with it. Below are 5 tips that you need to do now to start engaging your existing customer base to use your online scheduling solution so you can be on your way to maximizing your availability and accessibility to your customers.

Tip #1 Put a link to your Setster URL (http://myaccount.setster.com) in your email signature line of your email client.

Tip #2 On your Blog, write a very quick blog entry that says “To all our valued customers, we now accept online appointments to make ourselves more accessible and available. Click here to schedule an appointment with us.”

Tip #3 On your FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media profiles, add an additional link to your Setster URL (http://myaccount.setster.com) with the title “Book an Appointment With Me Now”.

Tip #4 On your website, add a new graphic, banner or paragraph with a large legible font with a clear message spelling out “Book an Appointment With Me Now”. Make sure that this link or banner is a compliment to the Setster appointment button that you’ve already embedded in your website.

Tip #5 In your next newsletter, mailer or client communication (and continuing for the next 3 months), promote that you are accepting online appointments 24 hours a day and that people now have access to your availability through a very cool online scheduling tool called Setster.

Yes, it is just that easy to spread the word! And did you know that Setster customers that have actively promoted their online availability to their customers report to us an average increase of 50-100% in appointment bookings in the months that follow?

It’s not magic, it’s Setster!

Wishing you success,

The Setster Team

Some of the new features:

• Multiple Locations
• Support for Multiple Service Providers
• Multiple Service Provider Log-in
• Group Sessions
• Partial Deposits for Service
• Client Cancel/Reschedule
• Padding Between Appointments
• Automatic Appointment Reminders
• Enforced Cancellation Policy

We hope you enjoy and keep the feature requests coming!

Did you know that you can put a book now button directly into the Criagslist posting.  Now, when readers of the listing see your add, they will see a button that directs them to your site where they can book an appointment 24 hours a day.

Whats great about using the book now button in Craigslist is that you are completing your online marketing circle.  It started with creating awareness about your services.  Next, enticing potential clients to use your services.  Finally, use Setster to require payment or deposit for your services and you’ve made a sale.

Putting the book now button in Craigslist is simple.  Go to your Setster account and select the “Get Widget” tab.  Scroll down to the third widget down and click the “Get the Code for this Widget” button.

With your cursor, highlight the text inside the box and copy it.

On to Craigslist.  Simply open your Criagslist account, write up your post and paste the text from Setster into the post.  A book now button will be automatically placed in the posting.

Here is a posting we did on Craigslist for our book now button.

1. Go to the “Availability Tab” in Setster

1. Under Export calendar to: use the drop down box to choose Google
2. Copy the URL provided
3. Open your Google calendar.

1. Under the “Other Calendars” Section, click Add
2. Select “Add by URL”

1. Paste the Calendar URL from Setster into the space.
2. Click Add to Calendar

That’s it.  You now have a Calendar that imports all your appointments automatically into Google from Setster.

How to Sync Outlook and Setster

1. Open Outlook and go to the Calendar section.

2. Select your calendar and click on Publish My Calendar

With Outlook 2007, you can publish for free to calendars.office.microsoft.com. You’ll need a Live ID account. If you don’t already have one, a Live ID is useful for many other services too. To get one, start at login.live.com and click the “Sign up for an account” link.

3. If requested, sign into your Live ID account.  Enter the email address and password of your Live ID account.

4. Check “Remember my password” so that Outlook can send calendar updates to the server automatically.

5. In the detail section, select Availability only.  You only want to publish your free/busy times

6. In the permission section, select “Anyone can view and search for this calendar on Office Online

7. Click OK

8. You will get a notice saying your calendar has been published.  Click OK to see the invitation.

9. On the invitation, there is a calendar address.  Highlight and copy the text to the right of the words “webcals”.

10. Sign into your Setster account and go to the Availability Tab

11. Select MSN in the Import Calendar from source drop down menu

12. Paste the copied URL into the space provided.

13. Add “http” to the front of the URL

14. Click Save

That is it.  You Outlook calendar and Setster are now synced.

1. Sign into WordPress
2. Under Admin, Go to design.
3. Go the theme editor.
4. On the right sidebar, under Templates, select footer.

Inject code by pasting the copied code between body and html:

</body>
Widget code goes here
</html>

Save your work.

That is it, the appointment widget is now on your blog and you are ready to accept appointments.

If you see this text under that editor box, “ You need to make this file writable before you can save your changes. See the Codex for more information.”

This means that there is extra security on your blog and you will need to edit the file directly with an HTML editor or send it to your web master.

In this case, write it here:

/wp-content/themes/<themename>/footer.php

Set up is simple.

1. Log into your Google account.
2. Click on the Calendar button on the top left.
3. Choose your Calendar under the my calendar section and select “settings”.
4. Choose the “Shared:Edit Settings” button in My Calendar Section.
5. Check “Share this Calendar with others”.
6. Check “Make this Calendar Public”.
7. Using the drop down menu, select “see only free/busy (hide details)”.
8. Save your work.
9. Click on your calendar in the “my calendars” section it will bring up the “Calendar Details” section.
10. Scroll down the page to the Calendar address section and click on the green “ICAL” button.
11. A pop up will come up with your Google Calendar URL internet address. Copy the entire address.
12. Log into your Setster account.
13. Go to the Availability tab.
14. Under Import calendar from, select Google in the calendar source drop down menu.
15. Paste the Google calendar URL that you copied from a previous step.
16. Save your work.

That is all you need to do. To make sure it is working, you can set a busy time or appointment in Google, open your widget and try to book the same time in Setster. You will notice that the time is unavailable for booking.

Here’s how it works. Every time an appointment is set up, an email is sent to both the service provider and the client that includes an .ICS file. ICS stands for Internet Calendar Standard. The ICS file is used for exchanging calendar information between calendar programs the run on your PC and online.

When an appointment is made, an email is sent to both the service provider and the user. The email includes all the information about the appointment and an ICS file that again, has all the appointment information. The ICS file is automatically imported to your calendar application where the appointment is available to view.

Once you publish your calendar, Setster is able to view and subscribe to the published calendars updates, which will let us know your available/unavailable times and blocks or opens times for your clients.

You must have a Pro Version subscription to use this option.  The following blogs provide specific insutuctions for each Google, Outlook and iCal calendars.

It’s a new generation. In the past, to build a website you had to rely on yourself to write the code or hire someone. You also had to generate the content and decide what the site is going to do. Today, free website creating services compete to provide a rich, functional drag and drop User Interface. The technology is practically invisible with no need to write code.

You can add features and upgrades when it make sense and can generate some sort of return. Setster integrates with many the best free web site builders on the web. Some are easier than others but each allowed us to put the tab layover where we wanted it on the website.

The following is a list of free websites that have our free widget and how to do it.

• http://edwardlujan.viviti.com/
• http://edwardlujan.jimdo.com/
• http://edwardlujan.squarespace.com/
• http://edwardlujan.webs.com/
• http://edwardlujan.yolasite.com/
• http://edwardlujan.weebly.com/
• http://edwardlujan.doodlekit.com/blog
• http://edwardlujan.grroop.com/
• http://edwardlujan.blogspot.com

This list is by no means inclusive, we are adding more. If your platform is not on the list, let us know and we’ll add it.

The Setster team.

The big question is; how can you save money, while still marketing and providing customer service in a way that keeps your clients happy?

Over the last six months, I have been talking to a lot of professionals. Each one has been feeling the crunch of the downturn and each has been affected in a different way. When we started to develop this product, we knew we had to focus on the customer experience, but had no idea the economy was going to force such radical staffing decisions. Take the example of a photographer.  Since the start of the recession most have seen clients really pull back.  A good photographer has to go out of their way to create a special moment for these clients and when they are in a session give that client 100% of their time.  Whether at a wedding or a product shoot, the photographer is focused in a way that makes the client feel good about the attention and service they are getting.

In the mean time, no one is there to answer the photographer’s phone.  In the past, she may have had an office manager who would book appointments and send invoices for her.  The last year as business keeps droping, businesses like this have had to make the difficult decision to run the show on their own. The danger in this is customer service starts to lag. In a photographer’s world, while on a photo shoot, they are off the grid for 4 to 6 hours or more. She could forward her calls to her cell phone, but then she’s interrupting her current clients. If she doesn’t answer her phone, she may lose a new client. This was truly a dilemma.

Our clients have started to look for a more efficient way to communicate with their clients. First and foremost in every one’s mind is customer service and the biggest fear is losing the connection with clients. Saving money over hiring a new staff member is a close second.

We suggest giving online appointment setting a try. It gives the service provider the ability to set their schedule and availability online. When a client needs to book an appointment, the client can set it without having to call. This is a perfect solution for when a photographer is “on set”.

We’ve also integrated an invoicing system that can invoice for services when the appointment is finished. This again saves time and the need for an office manager.

While service provider’s bookings may not have increased over the last few months, they are still able to give the superior customer support to their clients that keep them coming back and getting referrals. Service professionals are able to manage her business professionally and efficiently with less cost. Making more money through bottom line cost savings or keeping the old adage alive that “a penny saved is a penny earned”.