Letting prospects book a meeting themselves
How a prospect books a meeting with the right person at the firm from a private link, without e-mails going back and forth, and what happens after.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The partner offers Tuesday afternoon. The prospect cannot do Tuesday and suggests Thursday morning. Thursday the partner is at a client, so Friday is proposed. By the third e-mail, a prospect who was keen on Monday has started to cool, and some never reply to the fourth.
Accounting firms lose a surprising number of new clients in this gap between interest and the first meeting. The prospect is busy, the partner is busy, and the back-and-forth of finding a time makes the firm look slower than it is. A booking link removes the negotiation: the prospect sees the times that are actually free and picks one.
The private booking page
Each staff member can set up their own booking page in Achekam and send a lead a private link to it. The lead opens the link, sees free times, picks one, and the meeting goes into the host's calendar.
Two design points matter for a firm:
- The page belongs to a person. A prospect books with the partner or manager who will actually meet them, not with a generic firm diary. Decide who should host first meetings for each kind of work before handing out links.
- Each page starts paused. A page is paused until its owner switches it on, so nobody discovers that a half-configured page was sent to a prospect. Before switching it on, open the page yourself as a prospect would and check what it offers.
The link is designed to be sent privately to a particular lead rather than published on the firm's website. For capturing new enquiries from the website, the firm has web forms instead.
Free times from the host's calendar
The times offered come from the host's calendar. The usefulness of the whole feature therefore depends on that calendar being true.
Many professionals keep their real diary in Outlook. Each person can subscribe Outlook, Google or Apple Calendar to a private feed of their Achekam meetings, and a firm can read members' Outlook calendars in through Microsoft 365, which needs an administrator to consent to the Calendars.Read permission. Private Outlook items arrive as busy. Achekam does not write meetings back to Outlook. How the two diaries relate is explained in the firm calendar and Outlook.
Before sending any booking link, test it against reality: open your page, note the times offered for the coming week, and compare them with your actual diary. If the page offers a slot when you are at a client, fix the calendar before a prospect finds the problem for you.
Clashes are refused
A time just taken by someone else is refused. If two prospects open the same host's page and both choose the last free slot on Thursday, the second is told the time is gone and picks another.
That small rule protects the firm from the most embarrassing outcome of self-service booking: two prospects arriving for the same meeting. It also means a host can send links to several leads at once without worrying about double bookings.
The confirmation and calendar file
When the lead books, they receive a confirmation with an .ics calendar file, so the meeting lands in their own diary in whatever calendar program they use. The meeting sits in the host's Achekam calendar like any other.
Meetings in Achekam can be linked to a client or an engagement, and colleagues can be invited. A meeting is cancelled with a reason rather than deleted, so if a prospect cancels, the record of the arranged meeting and why it fell away remains.
A short checklist for the host after each booking:
- Open the lead's record and read what they have told the firm so far.
- Invite any colleague who should attend, such as a tax specialist for a tax-heavy enquiry.
- Prepare the two or three questions that will decide whether the firm can help.
- After the meeting, record the outcome and the next step on the lead.
A booking stops a sequence
Firms that use follow-up sequences gain one more benefit. A firm can build sequences of tasks and AI-written e-mails that enrol leads and stop when the lead replies, books a meeting, is won or lost, or says it is not interested. Booking through the link counts: once the lead has a meeting, the automated chasing stops.
That matters for the firm's reputation. Nothing looks worse than a prospect receiving an automated "just checking in" e-mail the day after booking a meeting. With replies, a firm can also switch on a check of its sending mailbox in Microsoft 365 or Gmail, so that an e-mail from the lead stops the sequence too; the detail is in follow-up sequences that stop when a lead replies.
Personal information on the booking page
A booking page collects personal details from someone who is not yet a client: a name, an e-mail address, perhaps a phone number and a few words about what they need. Treat that like any other personal information the firm holds. In South Africa, the Protection of Personal Information Act sets the conditions for processing personal information lawfully and regulates direct marketing; Nigerian and Kenyan firms have their own data protection laws to apply. Ask only for what the host needs to prepare for the meeting.
Set up your own booking page this week, test it against your real diary, switch it on, and use it for the next prospect who asks to meet. One conversation without the back-and-forth is usually enough to convince the rest of the team.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
