I currently use Calendly for internal staff who book clients into my calendar and I use my own bespoke booking system for clients who want to book in with us directly (i.e. they go on our website, click to book an appointment, choose their appointment time and pay for the service either at the full rate or a discounted rate on the screen or if they have a discount code, they enter this and the RRP price reduces accordingly).  They pay £83 or £147 to book in but I offer discount codes of 20% off and also other codes to sell for a flat £60 or £90 etc.  I have around 100 re-useable codes and tens of thousands of one-time codes.  I also have third parties selling our service (such as Groupon) and so I want to give them a special code whereby they can book the £147 service for £0 – these clients receive the one-time use codes.

I am looking at changing our CRM and other services to Zoho One and since our bespoke booking system is no longer supported, I will be stopping using that once I’ve built the new system.  That said, I’ll also be requesting Zoho Bookings introduces the same but won’t be holding my breath as whilst they have a full suite of apps, each app looks to me to be 3 or 4 star rated at best – still sufficient for most needs to small businesses but with limitations – some I can work with and some I can’t, such as the need to offer discount codes to clients to encourage them to book their appointment time via our website.

I love using Calendly - it would be perfect for our needs if I could create the following discount codes:

• Re-useable codes that allow clients to purchase with a 20% discount (such as SUMMER25)
• One-time codes that allow the client to purchase with a 35% discount (such as TDL234541)
• Re-useable codes that allow clients to purchase for say £60 (such as SPECIAL60)
• One-time codes that allow clients to purchase for say £60 (such as 46857TDL60)
• One time discount Codes that allow us to reduce the price to £0 or 100% discount (such as 34585TDL0)

I would prefer to create my codes within Calendly and to be able to generate thousands at a time.  I would also like to be able to choose the prefix of the code, suffix of the code, number of characters, type of characters i.e. letters or numbers, capitals or lowercase.  I also want to be able to bar certain characters such as I, I, 1, 0 and O to avoid confusion when typing the code as opposed to copying and pasting it.  If this can’t be done, I can create them outside of the system and import them in – Voucherify is a good system to create different types of codes that can then be imported into Calendly however at the time of importing in, I’d want the Calendly system to be able to check for duplicates to avoid giving the same one-time discount code to two different clients.

Ideally, Calendly would introduce a system that achieves the above and I have to say, with so many huge firms competing in a competitive marketplace, I’m surprised that Calendly don’t do the above.  Everyone loves a deal right?  If someone can book a service at a reduced price with a discount code they are more likely to book that service there and then as opposed to think about it and perhaps book with a competitor instead.

When Calendly have responded to previous requests for similar, I’ve seen it said that the payment processors don’t allow for this.  I’m unsure the mechanics of building such a system but in my mind, when you choose your appointment time, the back-end of the system is then populating the price of a product on an invoice or quoting tool.  By inputting the discount code, the invoice price is then reduced and when a client inputs their card details and pays for it, Calendly’s invoicing system then requests that the payment processor collects the invoice amount, I.e. the discounted amount.  Ignoring the fact I don’t know how to code, I can’t see the above is complex for someone who can code.

As it stands, the only other Booking System I’ve found that allows clients to input a discount code is Acuity Scheduling however I don’t like that software having explored it for a month or so.  It does link with Zoho for free though (via Zoho Flow) and so I’ll have to cancel Calendly and start using Acuity if Calendly can’t introduce this feature that clearly, so many clients are crying out for.

• If the feature can be introduced, please confirm a likely release date.
• If the feature can’t be introduced, please explain exactly why to help my understanding.

Please don’t suggest a workaround or cloning pages - it isn’t viable for my businesses or millions of others.  For others, cloning would work but for me, no.  I’ve tried having different pages for different prices and all I get is loads of people phoning in because they can’t book their service for £0 having purchased via a 3rd party (Groupon) already.  We have to keep it simple.  One page where anyone landing on our website can go to choose their appointment time, enter their discount code and then either pay to book in (if chargeable) or book in at no extra cost (if £0).

Leaving Calendly would be difficult as it is great but I don’t need to payment for two different booking systems so I’ll leave.  I’ll then come back on this thread and explain exactly how to achieve the above in Acuity so all others who enjoy your service but want discount codes can see how they can achieve the above with an alternate provider.