If you're in sales, you know how crucial it is to capture the interest of potential clients quickly and effectively. Prospects who want to schedule a demo with you are showing a high level of interest in your solution.
But if you drag them through the hassle of back-and-forth emails or calls just to set up one meeting, you risk losing them to frustration and competitors.
Instead of closing deals, you'll be left staring at missed opportunities and potential revenue loss.
But here's the good news: it doesn't have to be this way.
You can use demo scheduling software to eliminate the scheduling chaos.
In this blog, we’ll cover what is a demo scheduling software, how it can enhance your scheduling process, and give you the list of top 7 tools available in the market today.
What Is Demo Scheduling Software?
Demo scheduling software automates the process of arranging and managing demo meetings with prospects. It automates various scheduling tasks, such as sending invitations, setting up reminders, and integrating with calendars.
The goal is to minimize manual effort, enhance the demo scheduling experience, and improve overall scheduling efficiency.
Why Do You Need Demo Scheduling Software?
Demo scheduling software is essential if you’re seeking to enhance efficiency, increase booking rates, minimize no-shows, and reduce booking errors.
Let's delve into the key reasons that make demo scheduling software a must-have:
1. Improved Efficiency
Manually scheduling demo meetings involves a lot of back-and-forth communication—emails, phone calls, calendar checks, etc.
This not only consumes a significant amount of time but also distracts from the most important thing: engaging prospects.
Demo scheduling software simplifies this process by allowing your prospects to view available time slots and book directly, saving hours of administrative work. This allows your sales team to focus more on preparing for demos, following up with leads, and closing deals.
2. Reduce Booking Errors
While manually scheduling meetings, you are prone to making errors such as entering the wrong prospect details in the CRM, double-booking, and time zone errors.
Demo scheduling software minimizes these risks by:
- Displaying the available time slots to prevent double-booking or any scheduling conflicts.
- Updating the calendar instantly with accurate information (names, dates, and times) to avoid outdated information.
- Adjusting for different time zones automatically to prevent confusion regarding the meeting time when booking with clients in different locations.
3. Increased Booking Rates
The easier it is for prospects to book a demo, the more likely they are to follow through. By simplifying the booking process with the tool, you remove potential obstacles that could cause them to reconsider or delay.
Demo scheduling software offers round-the-clock availability, allowing prospects to book demos at any time, even outside of your business hours. This flexibility can significantly increase the number of meetings booked, as prospects are not restricted to contacting you during specific hours.
4. Minimize No-shows
Demo scheduling software simplifies the follow-up process by sending automatic reminders to both you and your prospect, minimizing cancellations and no-shows.
For instance, if you schedule a meeting for next Thursday, the software can send a reminder on Wednesday and then another a few hours before the scheduled demo.
This consistent outreach potentially reduces the chances of your prospect forgetting or changing their plans at the last minute.
5. Hassle-Free Rescheduling
If a prospect needs to reschedule, demo scheduling software makes it easy. They can choose a new time that works for them without the back-and-forth of emails or calls, leading to higher satisfaction and better meeting retention.
The schedule changes are instantly reflected in your calendar as well, ensuring that you’re always aware of the current schedule and can adjust your plans accordingly.
7 Best Demo Scheduling Software for Your Sales Team
Now that we've covered the importance of demo scheduling software, let's explore the top 7 tools available in the market today that can book more demos efficiently:
1. Schedule IQ
Schedule IQ by Klenty is an end-to-end meeting scheduling platform designed to help sales, marketing, and customer success teams book meetings faster.
From scheduling demos to onboarding meetings, Schedule IQ helps you organize, plan, and distribute every lead that comes in, ensuring that no opportunity is missed.
Here are the key features of Schedule IQ:
- Website calendar embed. Enhance your website's ability to capture and engage leads. With Schedule IQ, you can embed the calendar link directly into your website, allowing prospects to schedule demos with you effortlessly.
- Seamless calendar integration. You no longer need to exchange emails or calls to find a suitable time. Simply link your Google or Outlook calendar to Schedule IQ for effortless demo scheduling.
- Customize availability: You can set availability by specifying the days and times open for meetings and blocking off unavailable times. This helps you avoid double bookings or any scheduling conflicts.
- Time zone support: Schedule IQ automatically detects time zones of your prospects to ensure that demos are scheduled at the correct times, regardless of their locations.
- Automated reminders: The tool automatically sends meeting reminders to your prospects, reducing no-shows. This also frees you from the hassle of manually following up with every prospect for attending demo meetings.
- Create a customized booking page. Schedule IQ offers customization options, allowing you to brand your booking webpage and form fields with your logo, colors, and messaging.
- Deep CRM integrations. Schedule IQ comes with deep integrations with top CRMs in the market like Pipedrive, Zoho, HubSpot, and Salesforce, enabling a seamless flow of information.
- Lead routing techniques. Assign the right leads to the right team members automatically based on your routing conditions. Schedule IQ offers 4 types of lead routing:
- Form-based routing: Route leads based on their form answers
- Owner-based routing: Route leads based on their owners in the CRM
- IP-based routing: Route leads based on their geographical location.
- CRM-based routing: Routing based on CRM insights on an account/ lead
Schedule IQ's pricing options:
- Free: $0
- Meeting Booker: $12/seat/month (billed annually) and $15/seat/month (billed monthly)
- Lead Router: $20/seat/month (billed annually) and $25/seat/month (billed monthly)
2. Chili Piper
Chili Piper is a platform that offers a suite of tools and features designed to streamline and enhance various aspects of sales and marketing operations. It is primarily used to optimize scheduling, lead distribution, and customer engagement for businesses.
Key features:
- Book meetings instantly. Prospects or customers can book meetings instantly through web forms, email, or other channels without communicating back and forth.
- Create your own workflows and rules. You can define your workflows and rules for meeting scheduling, ensuring that meetings are scheduled according to your business needs.
- Personalized meeting links. You can create personalized booking links that allow your prospects to schedule meetings with specific sales reps.
Pricing:
- Instant Booker: $15 per user/month (billed annually) or $22.5 per user/month (billed monthly)
- Handoff: $25 per user/month (billed annually) or $37.5 per user/month (billed monthly)
- Form Concierge: $30 per user/month (billed annually) or $45 per user/month (billed monthly)
- Distro: $30 per user/month (billed annually) or $45 per user/month (billed monthly)
Discover 10 effective Chili Piper alternatives here.
3. Calendly
Calendly is a popular meeting scheduler tool that simplifies setting up and managing meetings and demos. Sales professionals, businesses, and organizations commonly use it to streamline their scheduling processes.
Key features:
- Calendar integration. Users can connect their calendars (such as Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCloud) to Calendly, and the platform will automatically check their availability to suggest suitable meeting times.
- Time zone conversion: Calendly automatically converts time zones to ensure that meetings are scheduled at the correct times for all participants, regardless of their locations.
- Flexible scheduling. You can set your availability and define your work hours, making it easy for others to book meetings during times that work for you.
Pricing:
- Basic: Free
- Standard: $10 per user/month
- Teams: $16 per user/month
- Enterprise: Custom
Check out the top 10 Calendly alternatives here.
4. RevenueHero
RevenueHero is a tool for businesses to manage appointments and meetings more easily. It assists sales teams in organizing their demo schedules, automating follow-ups, and connecting with customers faster.
Key features:
- Personalized booking links. You can generate personalized booking links to share with prospects and customers, making it easy for them to schedule meetings at a time that suits them.
- Automated reminders. The platform can send automatic email reminders to prospects and sales reps to reduce no-shows and increase the efficiency of scheduled meetings.
- Data insights: The software provides data on your scheduling patterns and meeting history. By looking at this, sales managers can assess the performance and productivity of the reps.
Pricing:
- Inbound Essential: $25 per user/month (billed annually) or $35 per user/month (billed monthly)
- Outbound Essential: $20 per user/month (billed annually) or $25 per user/month (billed monthly)
5. Doodle
Doodle is an online appointment scheduling tool that helps people plan and organize their schedules and meetings. It allows users to collaborate when setting up appointments and can be used on computers and mobile devices.
Key features:
- Customize booking page. Doodle allows you to customize the booking page on your website for a better booking experience.
- Personalized meeting links. You can add the meeting link to your email signature so people can schedule meetings right from their email.
- Define meeting types. It allows you to define meeting types, such as demo calls or technical consultation calls. This helps avoid confusion when you have different teams in your organization.
Pricing:
- Free
- Pro: $6.95 per user per month paid annually or $14.95 per user/month billed monthly
- Team: $8.95 per user per month paid annually or $14.95 per user/month billed monthly
- Enterprise: Contact the sales team for pricing.
6. BookIt by LeanData
BookIt, by LeanData, is a sales scheduling tool that helps companies improve the process of managing meetings and distributing leads to the right sales rep, ultimately enhancing the experience of booking a meeting.
Key features:
- Set availability. BookIt allows users to set their availability preferences, such as defining specific hours and days when they are open for booking a meeting.
- Routing rules. It allows you to set up rules and criteria for routing leads to the most suitable team member. It can consider factors like geography, product knowledge, communication skills, etc.
- Integrations. It integrates with popular tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, and Google Analytics.
Pricing:
- Standard: $39 USD per user license/month
- Advanced: $49 USD per user license/month
- Premium: $59 USD per user license/month
7. MeetFox
MeetFox is a platform designed to simplify and optimize online scheduling, video conferencing, and appointment booking, primarily targeted at professionals and businesses that rely on appointments, consultations, and meetings as part of their services.
Key features:
- Web embedding: With MeetFox, you can embed the booking page into any part of your website. This lets your leads book demos effortlessy from your website.
- Time zone detection: It supports multiple time zones, making it suitable for sales teams dealing with prospects across different regions.
- Automated reminders: MeetFox sends automated reminders to both you and your prospects to reduce no-shows and ensure that everyone is prepared for their scheduled demo.
Pricing:
- Free
- Pro: $10 per user/month billed annually or $15 per user/month billed monthly
- Premium: $35 per user/month billed annually or $42 per user/month billed monthly
How To Choose Demo Scheduling Software?
So far, we’ve covered a lot of ground on demo scheduling software—what it means, how it simplifies the process of scheduling demos, and the 7 best tools available in the market today.
But, how do you choose the right demo scheduling software for you?
Here are 6 factors you need to consider before you choose the right demo scheduling tool:
Website Embedding
If you want prospects to book meetings through your website, the scheduling software should offer an option to easily embed a calendar on your website without the need for technical expertise. This allows them to book meetings without leaving your site, making it convenient for them.
Customize Availability
Look for software that allows you to customize demo scheduling. The tool should enable you to specify meeting lengths, buffer time durations between meetings, and availability based on your business needs.
This ensures that meetings are booked for only available slots and that your prospects don't have to wait hours for a response, enhancing the likelihood of better interaction.
Intuitive UI/UX
Choose software with an easy-to-use interface that's simple for you and your prospects to navigate to prevent confusion and frustration during the booking process. The more intuitive the software, the sooner you’ll have the demo meeting booked.
Integrations
You can have top-notch group scheduling software but is of no good if it doesn’t seamlessly integrate with your existing tools. You’re prone to make errors while switching between different tools, which can lead to missed opportunities.
Your scheduling tool should integrate with all the tools in your current tech stack, including CRM, calendar, and email marketing, to enhance your entire workflow.
Time Zone Support
If you deal with prospects across different time zones, the demo scheduling software should handle time zone conversions automatically. This ensures that meetings are booked at the right times for everyone, preventing scheduling conflicts and confusion.
Flexible Lead Routing
Look for a tool that lets you automatically assign the right reps to the right leads at the right time based on the routing conditions of your choice, which increases your speed-to-lead.
The platform should also allow you to visualize, review, and edit your routing strategy. Make changes to your routing logic in seconds, and visualize your routing strategy easily.
Wondering which tool checks all these boxes?
Schedule IQ by Klenty is a meeting scheduler tool that helps you streamline your demo scheduling process.
Whether it’s product demos, 1:1 meetings, or onboarding calls, you can schedule meetings without any hassles using this one platform.
Book a demo now to experience firsthand how Schedule IQ optimizes your scheduling workflow!
FAQ
What features should you look for in demo scheduling software?
- Website embed
- Customizing availability
- Intuitive UI/UX
- Integrations with CRMs and current tech stack
- Time zone support
- Flexible lead routing
What are the benefits of using demo scheduling software?
- Improved efficiency
- Reduce booking errors
- Increase booking rates
- Minimize no-shows
- Hassle-free rescheduling