Part 4 of Scheduling Meetings: One-off’s and Ad-Hoc

We are in the service business (or relationship business or concierge business or whichever adjective you’d wish to use). Odds are your market differentiator is quality of service and you are not competing on being the lowest cost provider. That means we simply must be there for our clients when they need us. Which means even if you have a perfect prospect process or a perfect Meeting Surge process that you will have meetings come up as clients have life events. So, our operations, specifically our scheduling process, must be ready to handle this. This post will cover the key areas, including our foundational scheduling philosophy, as to how to master your ad-hoc scheduling process.

Step 1: Define your Scheduling Rules and Philosophy

As stated in the first post of this series, my scheduling philosophy is to offer clients the smoothest and cleanest experience as possible while simultaneously setting our team up for success. Because by making scheduling easy for the client, we increase the likelihood that clients schedule a meeting, which increases the likelihood we meet with our clients, which increases the likelihood that our clients fully participate in our service calendar, which (in my opinion) maximizes the likelihood of clients achieving their financial goals.

We also have a few key rules pertaining to scheduling, but none more important than every meeting is scheduled through Calendly regardless of how the client secures the meeting time – through a Calendly link, by calling our office, or via email.

Using Calendly to formally schedule the meeting each time ensure that our workflows, which are embedded into the various Calendly Meeting Types, are followed each and every time.

Step 2: Prepare your Scheduling Software

We have quite a large number of Meeting Types in Calendly, which are posted at the end of this blog. We have a specific Meeting Type for every single type of meeting we can have – Surge, Prospect Process, Ad-Hoc, or peer/COI/Professional. This way each meeting contains the specific Calendly workflow that ensures all meeting prep and follow-up are completed in a timely fashion. 

Step 3: Train your Client

This part is important to reduce the back-and-forth you can have with a client on securing a time to meet and for rescheduling. I have identified XXXXXXX key items in which having your client comfortable and trained will reduce time spent on scheduling and also, in my opinion, improve the client experience.

Get them familiar and comfortable with Calendly.

Older clients may not intuitively understand, or enjoy, a scheduling tool. A huge way of getting them comfortable is to actually schedule with them on Zoom. At the end of our meetings we do our best to schedule the next meeting. By sharing my screen and walking through Calendly with them the client gets more and more comfortable with the technology. This way they will be more apt to using the tool when they need to reschedule or they need to schedule an Ad-Hoc meeting.

Teach them about the Reschedule Link

In our CRM, Quivr, we have a series of Email Templates that can be used over and over again for the same time. One of these templates is for rescheduling a meeting. When a client emails us (which is how most of our clients will ask to reschedule) that they need to reschedule, we send them the email template that, in a professional and kind tone, provides them with the link to reschedule their meeting BUT also contains a screenshot to a Calendly Meeting (how it appears in their calendar) and highlights where the reschedule link is and provides guidance on how to reschedule meetings in the future. Once we added this last part, I’d estimate that clients are now rescheduling 50-75% of the time through the link and without even contacting us. Is this impersonal? I don’t think so. I had to reschedule my haircut a few weeks ago and that involved 4 texts over a span of about a day with the woman who cuts my hair. I would have loved for her to just have a link that I could have clicked to instantly move my haircut to a time that worked for me. 

Ad-Hoc Meetings are going to happen. And they should, that’s where we shine as advisors. But simply defining your philosophy and rules and then creating your scheduling ecosystem, combined with a few nudges to your clients, could drastically reduce the time spent on scheduling.

Until next week,

Steve

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What’s Quivr?

I’ve received quite a few questions about Quivr since launching this blog. As promised in the first few posts, I strive to make this content applicable and valuable to all readers regardless of your tech stack. But Quivr is a real thing and a real community. Our mission is to be the CRM built for the small but mighty financial planner that does real financial planning. Below are a few key features and how to learn more if you desire.

• Access to the Quivr Community where we discuss all things operations and host weekly Office Hours to assist with implementing efficiencies in your practice. I’m an open book about my practice and so are the other community members. A rising tide lifts all boats.

• Workflow Engine to create multi-person, multi-role processes natively in your CRM prepackaged with 30+ workflows that my firm uses

• Task Template builder to create simple, repeatable tasks in an instant prepackaged with 25+ prepacked Task Templates that my firm uses

• 35+ client-friendly, compliance-approved reports summarizing specific financial planning data

• Meeting Module that decreases meeting prep to five minutes

• Store, retrieve, and report on all financial planning data

​Schedule a demo to see Quivr live.

Calendly Meeting Types

Prospect Meetings

• 20-Minute Introductory Call – This link is only used on our website.

• 60-Minute Informational Zoom – This link is private and can only be scheduled through a link that only we have. Thus, only prospects in this phase of the prospect process can schedule this meeting.

• 60-Minute Plan Foundation Review Zoom – This link is private and can only be scheduled through a link that only we have. Thus, only prospects in this phase of the prospect process can schedule this meeting.

Surge Meetings

• 2023 Fall Planning Session - This link is private and can only be scheduled through a link that only we have. Thus, only client meetings that are in the 2023 Fall Surge are scheduled with this link.

• 2024 Spring Planning Session - This link is private and can only be scheduled through a link that only we have. Thus, only client meetings that are in the 2024 Spring Surge are scheduled with this link.

We always have the Meeting Type for the next two surges built into Calendly. These meetings are also set so they can only begin at certain times to keep Surge as efficient as possible. For example, on Mondays the time slots are 8:00-9:00, 9:15-10:15, 10:30-11:30, etc…

Ad-Hoc Meetings

• 15-Minute Phone Call, 15-Minute Zoom, 30-Minute Phone Call, 30-Minute Zoom, 60-Minute Phone Call, 60-Minute Zoom – These are separate links that are public, although not advertised, and can be scheduled by those with our company Calendly link. Most often, we email the client the link that we need them to schedule for. For example, a 401(k) rollover would be a 30-Minute phone call. Or an ad-hoc meeting for a client who changed jobs would be a 60-Minute Zoom.

Peer/COI Meetings

• Coffee/Happy Hour Meeting – This link is very limited on start dates and times and I also include three options for locations that are convenient to me and my house. Selfish? Maybe. But it also makes it super easy to find a time and location.