Google Instant Booking lets customers book an appointment straight from Google Search and Google Maps, wherever your business is listed. Zoho built the feature in partnership with Google. When someone searches for a service such as a salon near them and your business appears, there is a booking option alongside the usual directions option. Clicking it opens your Zoho CRM Calendar Booking form, so the customer can schedule an appointment without first going to your website.

What you need

• A Google Business Profile for the business. The integration does not work without one.
• An appointment booking form in Zoho CRM Calendar Booking. Calendar Booking has two kinds of form: appointment forms, which are built around the services your business offers, and Team Booking and User Booking forms for meetings and calls. Google Instant Booking works only with appointment forms.
• Access to the Google account that is linked to the Business Profile.

Existing booking forms can be linked directly to the business's Google profile, so you do not need to rebuild them. If you do not have an appointment form yet, build one first, as described next.

Build the appointment booking form first

Appointment forms are built for services, such as a haircut at a salon or an oil change at a garage, and the bookings customers make are recorded in the Appointments module in Zoho CRM.

1. Enable Services in the Services module, then create the services you want to offer. You cannot build an appointment form until the services exist.
2. Go to Setup, then General, then Calendar Booking. Under Appointments, click Create Calendar Booking.
3. Enter a Booking Form Name, an optional description, and the Service Name.
4. Set which appointment details are collected from the customer, and which are not collected but are still needed to track the booking in CRM.
5. For the customer's own details, the form collects name, email, and phone number. Choose which module the booking customers are tracked in, and whether a new contact should be created automatically if they are not already in CRM.
6. Set the scheduling rules, described below, and then customise how the form looks if you want to.

Scheduling rules

• Minimum notice: how far ahead a customer must book, for example no less than 2 hours in advance.
• Maximum scheduling window: how far into the future they can book, for example no more than 30 days.
• Maximum appointments: a cap per day or per week, to control workload.

These rules apply however the customer arrives, so they also govern what Google shows. A customer reaching your form from Google sees the same available slots as one arriving from your website.

Customising the form

The form can be customised in Canvas, with four screens: the booking screen with the calendar, the appointment and customer information screen, a booking confirmation screen, and a booking failure screen. Because customers coming from Google have not seen your website, it is worth checking that each of these makes sense on its own.

How it works for the customer

1. They see your business listed in Google Search or Maps.
2. They click the Book online button in the listing.
3. They are taken to your Zoho Calendar Booking form.
4. They complete the form and confirm the appointment.

The process is the same as a normal online booking. The only difference is that the form is reached through Google.

After the customer books

• An email goes to the customer with a summary of the booking. It includes links to reschedule or cancel. Rescheduling takes them back to the booking page to choose a new slot, and cancelling confirms the cancellation there.
• You can customise four emails from the form's details page: confirmation, modification, cancellation, and reminder.
• The appointment is recorded in the Appointments module in Zoho CRM.

Set it up

1. Authorise your Google account

1. Go to Marketplace, then Google, then Google Instant Booking.
2. Click Authorize Google Account.
3. Choose the Google account linked to your Business Profile.
4. Grant the permissions requested.

Once you have authorised, every business profile linked to that account appears in the interface, and you can start linking booking forms to the right listings. You only need to authorise once, unless you want to switch accounts.

2. Link a booking form to a business profile

You can do this from the Google Instant Booking section, or from the form itself:

1. Open the appointment booking form you want to use.
2. Click Add Booking Form to Google Instant Booking. If you have not authorised yet, you are prompted to do so.
3. Select the Google account and the business profile.
4. Save and confirm the link.

3. Check the links

Once a form is linked, the link is visible in the Google Instant Booking section, and on the Booking Form Details page, which shows which Google Business Profile the form is associated with. That page also shows how the form is performing: the number of visits, appointments booked, reschedules, and cancellations, along with the appointments themselves. The announcement does not say whether bookings from Google are shown separately from other bookings.

Limits to know about

A note on the other booking limits

Zoho states that you can have 25 active Team Bookings and 3 active User Bookings. Those limits apply to the meeting and call forms, which Google Instant Booking does not use. The page we read does not give a limit for appointment forms.

Related

• Zoho CRM Services Module Update: New Appointment Booking, Scheduling and Permission Features