Calendar management is something that I haven't previously considered offering. Now that I know more about it, I definitely want to offer this service to my clients.

I've done client appointment scheduling for a nutritionist on Google calendar, very easy.

I use google cal similarly to how Dawn uses it; scheduling upcoming events, daily tasks/booking appointments etc. Instead of emailing I send a quick text in the morning or night before letting them know the cal is up to date (due to be synched with their mobile calendar) for the week or day or whatever and maybe touch on some major updates. Many small business owners have great ideas and products but just need a little extra help managing their time, that's what calendar management is all about

I will definitely be adding this to my services. I've been an assistant for years, but find for most people "calendar management" comes easy. Just be sure you know how long your client's appts should usually take, and don't forget about travel time, etc. (something often overlooked)

Dawn,
In trying to decide between Airset.com and Google Calendar, you have helped tremendously. Good to know that Google syncs with iCal and Outlook.

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Laraine Montgomery
Expert Virtual Office Services

Calendar management is something that I haven't previously considered offering. I definitely consider offering this service to my clients.Thanks.....I'll look into Google Calendar.

Vangardm:

That's a great idea to consider travel time when setting up appointments. Thanks for reminding us of that - I would not have thought of it. A VA could log in the clients starting location and end location on mapquest to get travel time and factor in traffic patterns too.

I have a client who wants a web calendar that publicly shows only her free/busy times (no detail) so customers can select and request appointment times. Tungle says it will sync with many different primary calendar sources. It has synced easily with Outlook, but I'm having a hard time getting it to sync with an iphone calendar. Does anyone have experience with this or can suggest another web calendar other than Tungle?

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Jacqulyn

Calendar management is one of my strengths; I have had a lot of experience with it in my career as a corporate executive assistant, so it was a natural fit for me to offer it in my business as part of my Executive Assistance services package. There is a lot to consider when managing executives calendars, and can be tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it's a valuable service to offer to clients and can save them a lot of time.

Here are some quick tips for successful calendar management:

If it's an outside appointment, always include travel time (30 minutes) before and after the appointment.
If it's an internal appointment, always block off time before and after the appointment to allow for preparation before the appointment, and time afterwards to process the notes, get reorganized, and to provide a buffer for meeting "overtime".
Don't forget to add appointments in your client's time zone (or if they are traveling in the correct time zone of where the meeting will be held).
Consider the 12 noon to 1:00 pm slots for Lunch appointments, 7:00 am to 8:00 am for breakfast appointments, 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm for coffeehouse appointments.

There's a lot more to it, but those are some quick tips off the top of my head.

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Lisa Salem
Monarch Virtual Assistance LLC

Lisa,

I have a potential corporate client and would like to know what tool you utilize for (outlook) calendar management. I would also take calls, if you have any suggestions on that I would greatly appreciate.

Thanks

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Janet McIntosh
Vista Office Solutions