More collaboration, more ROI: Choosing a scheduling automation platform for your enterprise organization

Over the last several years, “Feel free to suggest some times that work for you, or if it's easier, here's my scheduling link!” has become a common refrain in the business world. Scheduling automation has changed the way we book meetings — with a simple link instead of lengthy email back-and-forths.

For enterprise organizations, scheduling automation goes beyond a booking link — big teams require more sophisticated platforms that include shared availability, extensive integrations, security features, and more. Investing in the right scheduling automation software means closing more deals, retaining more customers, and hiring more top talent — without sacrificing security or compliance.

This guide explores what to look for in a scheduling automation platform, so you can choose one that drives value for your business.

What to look for in a scheduling automation platform

When we talk to enterprise IT leaders about evaluating scheduling software, they list four common goals:

• Goal 1: Create more efficient and productive teams

• Goal 2: Improve business performance and customer experience

• Goal 3: Reduce total cost of ownership

• Goal 4: Keep the organization secure

Goal 1: Create more efficient and productive teams

You want to: Deliver intuitive scheduling software that makes it easier for employees to spend less time scheduling meetings, and more time doing great work. No more getting bogged down with manual processes, admin tasks, and fragmented tools.

You need: A scheduling platform that integrates with your teams’ existing tech stack and is easy to use wherever and however they work. 

What does this look like in action?

Let teams keep the apps and processes they already use and love, so they can boost productivity without having to reinvent the wheel.

Your scheduling platform should integrate with your teams’ existing tools:

• Calendars: Google Calendar, Outlook, Office 365, Microsoft Exchange

• Sales: CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot

• Marketing: Marketing automation tools like Marketo, ActiveCampaign, Typeform, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Constant Contact

• Recruiting: ATS like Greenhouse, JazzHR, and Zoho Recruit

• Communication: Email providers, messaging apps, and video conferencing tools like Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, and GoToMeeting

• Project management: Asana, Monday.com, and Airtable

• Analytics: Google Analytics and Meta Pixel

Flexible features like Calendly’s mobile apps, browser extensions, and Outlook add-in also make it simple for employees to use scheduling automation wherever they work. Employees can easily share scheduling links and meeting availability in emails, LinkedIn messages, tweets, and more. 

Integrations and automation go hand in hand. Automation creates faster, more reliable communication internally and externally.

Messaging workflows help automate, standardize, and manage communications that should happen before and after meetings — and automatically update customer records using CRM integrations. And automated routing from marketing forms lets revenue teams instantly qualify, assign, and book high-value leads.

Automated routing means less time spent on admin tasks like sending reminder emails, and more time doing strategic work that helps teams meet their goals. A Total Economic Impact study conducted by Forrester Consulting found that Calendly saved organizations more than 9,000 hours booking external meetings over three years.

“When we presented [scheduling platform] options, Calendly was the one that was simultaneously the easiest to use and the friendliest. It had the best UX, but also, it was the thing that resonated with people the most: ‘I like to work in this application.’”

Zlatko Unger

IT Director at Alation, Inc.

The Total Economic Impact™ of Calendly

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting found that Calendly provided customers a 318% ROI over three years. Read the full study for real customer insights about the benefits of using Calendly.

Goal 2: Improve business performance and customer experience

You want to: Do more than just save time on scheduling — drive business growth, too. Improve meeting outcomes for every department, from closing high-value deals to hiring top talent.

You need: Features designed to help your external-facing teams hit their goals and delight your customers.

What does this look like in action?

Sales teams use scheduling automation to connect with prospects sooner, close deals faster, and work more efficiently. Scheduling automation makes it easy for prospects to book meetings with sales reps — and keep that momentum going throughout the sales cycle. More than 93% of sales teams achieve faster sales cycles with Calendly.

Marketing teams apply scheduling automation to deliver and convert more qualified inbound leads. Automating the handoff from marketing to sales prevents missed opportunities, keeps revenue teams on the same page, and creates a faster, better experience for prospective customers.

“We’re seeing an incredible 26% increase in demos booked through the form. The experience is clearly resonating with customers and it’s driving better end results for our sales and marketing teams.”

Bryce Kropf

Sales Enablement Manager at Smith.ai

For customer success teams, scheduling automation makes it easier to create a consistent, responsive customer experience. This leads to more retention, less churn, and long-term value for your company. With Calendly, HackerOne’s customer success team realized a 169% ROI in a 12-month period.

Recruiting teams use scheduling automation to hire top talent, speed up the hiring process, and offer a better candidate experience. Automation means less time trying to match candidate and interviewer availability, and more time sourcing and connecting with top-notch candidates. Muck Rack uses Calendly to automate scheduling, reduce manual tasks, and free up capacity for more impactful work. With scheduling automation, the Muck Rack team reduced time-to-hire by eight days.

What about collaboration within and across teams? Some enterprise scheduling platforms limit users to one-on-one meetings. Look for collaborative scheduling features like group (for hosting webinars and training), collective (for pooling co-hosts’ availability), and Round Robin events (for distributing meetings across your team). Managed Events let admins create, assign, and control the events teams use, so everyone stays aligned and on-brand.

A collaborative, standardized experience across teams creates a consistent, delightful experience for customers — no matter which team customers interact with.

“Calendly is the way forward. Every customer will have a smooth experience. Any automation we can do to make our customer’s life better is our new standard.”

Chris Williams

Head of Customer Success UK and EMEA at Vonage

Goal 3: Reduce total cost of ownership

You want to: Spend fewer resources and less time procuring and managing scheduling software. When each team uses a different combination of tools, that's a pricey and time-consuming commitment.

You need: A single scheduling platform that can standardize and scale across the business.

In many all-in-one enterprise platforms, scheduling automation is an afterthought, with limited functionality not designed to drive revenue. On the other hand, many scheduling tools only focus on one team, like sales or marketing, which means each team needs their own platform.

Your software should have department-specific features and be something you can apply across the entire organization, so you don't have to manage — or pay for — different apps for each team.

Most importantly, you need a platform your employees will actually use. 

What does this look like in action?

Choose a platform that’s easy to implement, offers onboarding and training resources, and scales as your organization grows.

When all users in your organization work from the same platform, admins can align all users with company standards and best practices. Central governance means you can distribute critical updates at scale without implementation delays.

“Whether it’s a CSM sitting in London, Singapore, or San Francisco, they’re all having success meetings, quarterly executive business reviews, and program syncs. Having a template for each that we can share with the press of a button is really powerful.”

Alek Relyea

Manager, Customer Success at HackerOne

How do you measure the impact of scheduling automation on your business? Look for a platform with robust analytics and reporting dashboards. You can monitor account health and identify key trends per department, like popular meeting days, top performers, and in-demand meeting types. This information helps you demonstrate the impact of proposed scheduling changes and get crucial buy-in from stakeholders.

Goal 4: Keep the organization secure

You want to: Safeguard your organization’s security, minimize risk, and ensure regulatory compliance — all while scaling scheduling automation. 

You need: A platform you can trust to keep your customer data secure with enterprise-grade admin management, security integrations, data governance, compliance audits, and privacy protections.

One centrally managed platform means reduced risk exposure — and less time spent wrangling rogue accounts.

What does this look like in action?

A scheduling platform built with security in mind gives you more control over customer, employee, and business data.

Keep your organization safe while making admin work easier for your IT team with enterprise security features:

• SAML SSO: Avoid weak passwords and give admins greater control over the authentication experience.

• Domain control: Claim your corporate domain and establish how new employees request access to your centralized, IT-managed account.

• Advanced user provisioning (Okta, OneLogin, Microsoft Azure): With SCIM enabled, employees are automatically removed when they leave the company, saving admins time and reducing the risk of former employees retaining access.

• Automated group provisioning: Integrate with your company directory to automatically map new users to their teams in the platform, so they have access to the features and info they need — and your team doesn’t have to spend time manually assigning them.

• Admin governance: Free up IT by designating group admins to handle day-to-day team management. Use role-based access controls to automatically grant different levels of admin control depending on role. 

• Activity log: Monitor and quickly react to security incidents.

Your scheduling platform also should align with the latest data standards and regulations — including for highly regulated industries like financial services.

For example, Calendly is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and PCI, CCPA, and GDPR compliant. You can even create an auditable record of all customer communications and initiate customer data removal with just a few clicks.

Above all, you need a partner who invests in people, protocols, and processes to integrate security measures into every part of your business.

Calendly has a 24/7 trust and safety team, internal security training and protocols, and a secure SDLC. We work with enterprise IT teams to conduct security reviews and ensure we remain compliant with each organization’s standards.

“With Calendly SCIM and SSO offerings, the barrier to entry is so low. The less work my IT team needs to do — and less work that the individual using the tool does — is where the benefit comes in.”

Zlatko Unger

IT Director at Alation, Inc.

For more information, check out this technical summary of Calendly’s approach to security and compliance.

See how Calendly for Enterprise stacks up

You don’t have to choose between business performance, customer experience, cost reduction, and security.

Calendly is the only enterprise-grade scheduling platform that does all of the above. Teams that subscribe to Calendly's Enterprise plan have seen results like 160% more customers reached and 22X increase in interviews scheduled. A Total Economic Impact study by Forrester Consulting found that Calendly provided enterprise customers a 318% ROI over three years.

Your scheduling automation platform should be a part of your business growth strategy — not a time suck or security risk. With Calendly, you can support scheduling automation and boost team productivity throughout your company while maintaining governance and meeting security standards.

Over 100,000 organizations rely on Calendly to close deals, hire talent, build relationships, and grow their business — including Dropbox, Fidelity, Indiana University, Glassdoor, and L’Oreal.

Ready to learn more about what Calendly can do for your organization? Contact the sales team today.