Have you purchased something recently at a retail store or coffee shop or paid for a service where your credit or debit card was swiped through a small white attachment to a cell phone or iPad? That small white square was probably the Square. Yes, that is the actual name of the device and card processing service.
I avoided the Highway 127 Sale (the longest stretch of garage sales anywhere!), but I would bet there were a number of vendors with the Square attached to their phones to process payments. Even once-a-year vendors at craft shows and garage sales are using the Square for their credit and debit card customers. My massage therapist in Illinois was one of the first service providers I knew that adopted the Square in her business. 
The cofounder of Square is also the cofounder of Twitter – Jack Dorsey. Dorsey launched the Square startup in 2010. The company launched Register – software that transforms an iPad into a point-of-sale terminal that you may have also seen in use. In August of 2012 Starbucks invested in Square as they chose Square to process all their credit transactions in 7,000 US stores. Square has launched a number of other products, some quickly adopted and others not quite as successful.
On Monday, August 11th Square launched a new product, “Square Appointments.” Described as an e-booking system with a “built-in receptionist” it may be just what we’ve been looking for. The calendar system allows customers to request an appointment time online (you define available times) and if the appointment request is confirmed, will send out text and/or email reminders so that clients won’t forget their appointments. (https://squareup.com/appointments) We don’t have many CBI clients that forget their one-to-one coaching sessions. What we sometimes have are a few people who forget they signed up for a class or workshop weeks in advance. Bonnie and I will be looking at Square Appointments to see if it will work for group appointments like ours, sending reminders to everyone signed up for a class or workshop. Would it help you show up if you got a text reminder of the time and place a few hours prior to the start of the program?
Square Appointments offers a 30 day free trial. In that time Bonnie will test it out to determine if it will work for us. If your business is an easy one-client-at-a-time business the answer is much easier – it seems to do what you’d need it to do for a monthly fee after the free trial period. Schedule managing for 2 – 5 staff and unlimited staff are available at higher monthly fees along with a manager dashboard to track appointments booked.
If you try Square Appointments please let us know if it works for your business. If you use something else successfully, let us know. If you get a reminder message after signing up for one of our workshops, it may be from Square Appointments or from something else we found that meets our needs even better.
Isn’t technology great when it helps you grow your business?
All the best –
