What is Live Booking? – The Definitive Guide

By Setmore Appointments

Free, powerful online customer scheduling for businesses of all sizes.

Live Booking is a live call answering service that’s fully integrated with your Setmore account. We answer your business phone and help your customers book appointments directly to your Setmore calendar. Note: Live Booking is currently only available in the United States.

Who it’s for

Live Booking is ideal for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs who simply can’t afford to miss client calls, or let client calls go to voicemail. In short, all sorts of businesses can find an essential tool in Live Booking:

• Barber shops, salons, spas, massage therapists
• Consultants, creatives, freelancers, salesmen
• On-site service and repair technicians
  …and more.

Who are the receptionists?

All Live Booking receptionists are based in the USA and have years of experience in customer service, ensuring that you get high-quality responses to your customer calls every time.

How the subscription works

Your billing cycle starts the day you sign up, and automatically renews every month thereafter to ensure continued access to your Live Booking number.

$1 to start, then $89/month
90 minutes of call time per billing cycle.
(+$1.25 per minute after 90 minutes)
Calls under 30 seconds are FREE.

Pieces of your account

These are the pieces of your Live Booking subscription. We’ll go over each one over the next few pages:

• Resource menu
• Your Live Booking phone number
• Minutes and Messages dashboard
• Email Receipts
• Your Setmore Calendar

You heard it here, folks: Setmore is the only online appointment scheduling calendar with a fully integrated live call answering service.

The Resource Menu

The resource menu gives you tools and information to help you get the most out of your Live Booking subscription. To access the menu, click the shield icon from the left navigation bar and select Live Booking.

Your Number
This is the number your customers will call to reach a Live Booking receptionist.

Already have a phone number?
Instructions on how to forward your calls to your Live Booking number.

Minutes used and messages
A dashboard that shows detailed call summaries and service usage graphs.

Support
Links to our Live Booking support website and frequently asked questions.

Your Live Booking Phone Number

The moment you sign up for Live Booking, you’ll be issued a phone number that’s unique to your account. The number is activated instantly, so share it with your customers or post it on your website to start taking calls.

Make a test call

You can make a test call to see what the experience is like for your customers, and we highly recommend you do! Simply call the number and pretend to be a customer. At any time you can tell the receptionist, “This is a test call, thank you.” It’s a standard procedure for our team.

Pro tip: If you’re not satisfied with the test call, you can book a 1:1 call with a Live Booking expert who can fine-tune the experience for your customers.

Call Forwarding

With Call Forwarding activated, calls to one number will instead ring to another phone number of your choosing. As a Live Booking subscriber, you can either use your Live Booking number as your primary business phone (all calls will go to our receptionists), or you can forward your existing business number to your Live Booking number.

Setmore gives you step-by-step instructions for how to forward your calls, depending on your phone carrier, in the resource menu.

Pro Tip: For iPhone and Android users, you can forward calls using the hardware settings on your phone. Click to learn more >

Minutes and Messages Dashboard

The dashboard gives you detailed call summaries for every call our receptionists receive. You’ll see a line-by-line breakdown for the customer’s name and number, whether they booked an appointment, the date of the appointment, and any questions from the caller if applicable.

Clicking on Usage will bring up real-time data about your account. This will show you a line graph of all calls, minutes used, and average call duration over a specified date range.

Pro tip: Calls under 30 seconds are free and don’t count towards your 90 minute total each billing cycle.

Email Receipts

Call summaries will be emailed to your inbox for each customer call. You’ll be notified in the summaries if the caller had any questions, messages, or requested a call back. And of course, you’ll be able to see when they booked their appointment.

Your Setmore Calendar

This is where any appointments scheduled by your Live Booking receptionists will appear. Click on an appointment to bring up the details menu, then scroll to “Booked From” to verify its source.

Live Booking receptionists use a designated “agent view” that lets them find the best appointment time for your customers. You as the account holder will still have total control over your service offerings and staff working hours.

Pro tip: You can still use & book your Setmore calendar while also receiving appointments from Live Booking receptionists.

What’s Next?

Live Booking can help you eliminate distractions from customer calls, while helping you get more appointments to boost your business. We get that it might seem complex or novel, so continue your journey with one of the following actions:

• Post a comment below – Ask a question, request a feature, or share your experience! We respond to blog comments daily and your input helps inform other users.
• Download the PDF – Download the PDF version of this blog post straight to your computer. Share with a colleague or someone who you think could benefit from live call answering >
• Sign up for Live Booking (US Only) – You’ll have instant access to your Live Booking number and can start taking calls right away. Log into Setmore first, then click the button below:

Try it out for just $1, and experience first-hand the value it can deliver to your business. You can also reach the Live Booking sign-up screen by logging into your Setmore account and clicking the shield icon in the left nav bar.

 Thanks for reading 🙂

Categorized in: Features, Resources