If you are from the GTM team and you're using Calendly, you likely need something that is more than just a calendar tool. One that takes out the manual and tiresome work of routing and distributing your leads.
And Calendly delivered.
Calendly recently launched a new product capability called Calendly Routing Forms, which is said to help you close deals faster by scheduling meetings with high-value leads on the spot.
But how exactly does it work, how much is it priced at, and more importantly does it have all the key functionalities you need for you to double your pipeline and book more qualified meetings?
These are the questions that are on top of your minds while you make the all-important decision of choosing an inbound conversion tool.
So to #MakeBuyingSimple for you, we put together the answers to all these critical questions and more in this article.
Let’s get started.
Calendly’s Routing Forms: The new kid on the block
Calendly’s Routing Forms is a new feature that helps you book qualified, meetings directly from your website using HubSpot, Marketo, or Calendly lead forms. What it essentially does is connect with prospects and close deals faster by coupling website scheduling with lead routing.
As the newest routing solution in the market, let’s take a look at the value proposition that Calendly is offering through its Routing Forms:
- Connect prospects to the most suitable rep faster by routing them based on their expertise or availability. This helps reduce manual efforts and accelerate response times.
- Prioritize qualified leads by scheduling directly from Marketo, HubSpot, or Calendly forms based on company size, industry, or any custom criteria you may have.
- Look up accounts in Salesforce and book them with the right rep to match accounts in real-time and skip manual reassignment.
- Increase website conversion rates and book more meetings without having to change your existing tools and workflows.
Using this new Routing Form capability, you can create routing rules for teams in a wide range of industries and across many use cases.
Be it for sales teams who want to design their intake form to help connect with and close high-value leads faster. Or marketing teams who want to direct qualified website visitors to the right sales rep. Or even customer success teams who want to route customers with a technical or billing issue to a support team member’s Calendly booking page. The options seem to be endless.
Currently, this feature is available to customers on the Professional, Teams, and Enterprise plans. And can only be used by Owners, Admins, and Group Admins.
A lot to explore and experiment with. Although only time will tell if this is a make-it or break-it feature for Calendly.
How exactly does Calendly’s Routing Forms work though?
This question is definitely what we put our heads together to understand and answer. And we totally get it if you jumped to this section right away.
According to Calendly, there are 3 simple steps from start to finish when it comes to get Routing Forms up and running. (you’ll basically be adding scheduling routes to your marketing forms)
Here’s how it works.
#1 - Qualify
First things first, Calendly’s Routing Forms works with your marketing lead capture forms. This could be either HubSpot, Marketo, or Calendly’s native forms only.
It starts by screening and qualifying new leads you get from the form submission data. It can also take into account inputs from hidden fields and enriched data that tools like Clearbit and ZoomInfo provide.
So when a lead meets your qualifying criteria, they can book a meeting right after submitting the form.
If you’re already using existing HubSpot or Marketo forms, the process seems fairly straightforward. Your forms stay the same. All you need to do is import them into Calendly and start building scheduling routes. You’ll then have to embed the forms on your website by adding a snippet of the code or sharing them as links in emails. And based on the form responses, you also get to choose which booking page shows up.
In the event that you don’t use Marketo or HubSpot, you’ll need to build routing forms in Calendly first before you set up routing rules.
#2 - Route
Next up is actually setting up the routing rules. By letting you route and assign leads in real-time from your website, it helps you seize more high-intent opportunities, increase conversions, and generate greater deal momentum
You have 2 ways to set up your routing rules - one by looking up account ownership in your Salesforce CRM, or two by employing Calendly’s native routing logic.
Routing leads by Salesforce account lookup
As a feature, Calendly’s Routing Form is specifically designed for Salesforce CRM users. Here’s how it works for existing leads. You can use any Salesforce standard object (such as email domain) in your form field to match leads with their existing account/contact/opportunity owner. This way known leads and customers can schedule a meeting directly with the right rep via Salesforce lookup. And avoid any manual reassignment.
In case it’s a new prospect, Salesforce automatically creates a new lead/ contact/ opportunity in the CRM and then routes the lead based on the account owner assigned.
Reps will love using the integration to get back more selling time, and management will love that Salesforce data is always accurate without having to chase down their reps for updates.
The benefit here is that reps get more time to actually sell since manual routing work is eliminated and you can rely that your Salesforce data is accurate.
Routing leads by Calendly’s native routing logic
This is where it gets truly interesting. Calendly has 3 different routing rules that you can choose from.
- Screening routes
This helps filter out qualified prospects that you don’t want to meet with. Instead of letting them book a meeting, you can redirect them to a custom URL or show them a custom message that informs them of the next possible steps.
- Booking routes
This is to be used for qualified prospects you want to meet with or you’re interested in but want to redirect to a custom booking URL. (such as intro call and demo call)
- Fallback routes
This applies to all prospects whose responses don’t match a screening or booking route. You can choose to either offer them a meeting or show them a custom message.
Before we move on to the last step, I’d like to quickly touch upon Calendly’s lead distribution rules, especially via round-robin.
We all know that round-robin is a great way to increase your team's flexibility, as it allows the rotation of which team member is booked for the meeting and lets qualified prospects pick a time when any of them are available.
But how flexible is Calendly’s round-robin? Let’s find out.
You can essentially set up a round-robin event in one of two ways - Team Round Robin event (amongst members of a pre-set team) and Shared Round Robin event (amongst specific individuals).
When it comes to distributing the leads, here’s how Calendly allows you to do it.
- Based on pooled team availability
To enable this, you’ll need to choose “Optimize for Availability” under Round Robin Distribution. Prospects get to see the pooled availability of all the assigned team members. If any one team member is available, the corresponding time slot will be offered.
But when more than one team member is available for a particular time, it assigns the meeting to the team member with the highest priority. Priority is set by filling up stars next to the team members' names in the event type. If everyone on the team has equal priority, the meeting gets assigned to the one who has been scheduled least recently for this event type. - Based on equal distribution
For this type, you’ll be required to choose “Optimize for Equal Distribution”. What Calendly does here is monitor how many events are distributed to each team member. If someone has been assigned too many meetings of a specific type, their availability will be hidden from the scheduling page until others catch up.
Keep in mind that under this type, some time slots may not show up if the only available team members have received too many meetings. And if you want to see the time slots that have been removed from the scheduling page due to unequal distribution, you’ll have to use the Admin Mode.
- Rescheduling round-robin events
Here you get the option to either assign a specific team member to that event or have the meeting be rescheduled through round-robin again. The initially assigned team member, the new team member, and the invitee will all be notified of the updated event details once it is rescheduled.
#3 - Schedule
And finally, we are at the last step of the process - letting qualified prospects book meetings on the spot with the right person on your team.
Qualified prospects are presented with a specific booking page or landing page, so they can schedule a meeting immediately. Here you’ll have to use Round Robin Event Types to examine the availability of every team member, and then auto-assign the meeting based on customizable event logic such as availability, equal distribution, and team priorities.
You can choose to have different Round Robin booking pages for the different sales teams in your org.
We understand that this can seem like a gray area, with lots of uncertainty. But that’s considering Calendly is still finding its footing in the space of lead qualifying and routing. That being said, you might want to think it through before you choose to make a big investment.
How much does Routing Forms cost you?
Calendly is renowned for being affordable to the extent of having a free plan.
And if you’re thinking that their basic plan which starts at $8/seat/month can get you its newest routing capabilities, we are sorry to burst your bubble.
Far too many Calendly features are gated behind its most premium plan, which includes its Routing Forms and aspects like priority support which can dampen the experience of customers on any other plan.
While Calendly has 5 pricing plans, only 3 of them get access to Routing Forms.
For monthly subscriptions:
- Professional: Starts at $15 per seat/month
- Teams: Starts at $20 per seat/month
- Enterprise: Custom plan for which you’ll have to get in touch with their sales team
Now, even with these 3 plans, there’s a whole bunch of components that are reserved for the premium plans. Let’s take a look.
Guess it’s safe to say that if you’re a Calendly Enterprise customer it’s all smooth sailing. If not, you might want to rethink how affordable Calendly actually is and if you’re actually getting a bang for your buck.
What’s missing in Calendly’s Routing Forms?
There are always 2 sides to a coin. As is in the case of Calendly’s Routing Forms.
So far, we’ve seen its features and understood how it works. But for now, let’s take a step back, identify the parts where it lags behind and find out what’s truly missing in its newest routing capability.
- No lead-to-account matching if you’re not on Salesforce: One of the major downsides to be considered here is that if you’re on any other CRM apart from Salesforce you won’t be able to use Calendly’s Routing Forms to route leads by looking up account ownership.
- Enterprise plan focussed: We’d also like to highlight here that routing leads by Salesforce account lookup is only available for Enterprise customers and can only be used by Owners and Admins. So if you are on any other Calendly plan, once again this feature is beyond your reach.
- Confusing pricing structure leading to higher pricing: In the event you are thinking of upgrading to the Enterprise plan, you should be aware that it comes at a huge cost. Which is, you’ll be required to pay for everyone in your entire organization and can’t implement it just for your GTM teams.
- No strict round-robin: Strict round-robin is completely out of the question on Calendly since it works on showing the entire team's calendar and not bringing a person's calendar in rotation.
- Cannot redistribute leads: If you’re hoping to redistribute leads who don’t book a meeting via Calendly routing, tough luck. When a prospect submits a form but does not book a meeting in Calendly, you can’t redistribute the lead. And not just that. Suppose a lead books a demo and then decides to reschedule, the lead will go back to your existing routing rules and round-robin distribution.
- Lack of proper marketing attribution: One of the ways that Calendly lets you set up its booking widget is by opening the scheduler on a new page with a Calendly domain. When visitors move to a different page/instance to book meetings, it causes marketing attribution to get missed. Plus, tracking campaign performance, and gaining insight into how channels are performing, and what is actually driving business is impossible.
- Does not provide routing logs: Many SalesOps & MarkOps folks are constantly questioned on why a lead didn’t get assigned to them. Unfortunately, Calendly does not have a routing log that’ll allow you to backtrack all the steps that a lead went through in your system, exactly via which rules they matched, or why they were routed/disqualified the way they were. This ends up being frustrating for both sales reps and sales ops.
How does RevenueHero stack up against Calendly’s Routing Forms?
Now that all the facts about Calendly’s Routing Forms are laid on the table, let’s show you how RevenueHero stacks up against it. And why we feel you need to have all this information in hand before you choose the right revenue acceleration solution for your business.
- Pricing
RevenueHero’s pricing is designed to be in sync with the value provided to your sales teams — booked meetings. You only get billed for the people who get meetings booked on their calendars. Our platform fee is charged only for customers in the GTM Enterprise plan and is very nominal at $79/month when billed annually. And even more so our license fee doesn't apply to admins.
- ROI
Let’s get something out of the way, straight up. You don’t have to pay extra and upgrade to a higher plan to use our lead qualification, routing, and account matching capabilities. We consider ourselves to be an all-in-one inbound conversion and revenue acceleration solution. So, regardless of your chosen plan, you get access to it all.
- Instant lead qualification
With RevenueHero’s instant qualification capability, you get to drive more demos by qualifying and engaging leads instantly after they hit 'submit'. In a matter of seconds. You can prioritize buyers with the most potential as it helps you analyze your form-fills faster and categorize your leads more efficiently. The bottom line being it helps you increase booked meetings but with the same budget.
- Lead-to-account-matching
Automatically match every lead to the right sales rep who is best equipped to convert them. This means matching prospects to account owners based on similar prospects, companies, or any other custom properties you may have. It’s your key to fast-track sales cycles for your target accounts and your ABM list.
- Lead routing
Plus you can set your distribution logic to round-robin leads based on territory, ownership, or any other custom logic based on your sales process. It also lets you take into account custom attributes like company, location, or any enriched data to ensure all leads are directed to the right teams, every single time. And lastly, you can manage your team’s workload efficiently by easily adding, removing, or balancing meeting weightage for each rep.
- Campaign router for retargeting campaigns
RevenueHero’s Campaign Router is here to help turn your retargeting campaigns into a pipeline-generating machine. When you send a nurturing email with a Campaign Router link, RevenueHero will instantly know which prospect of yours clicked the link. This means, when they finally book a demo with you, they get to skip refilling their details in a boring form and are given the fastest route to your sales rep. This means more conversions from your retargeting campaigns and more meetings for your sales team.
- Personalized meeting links and communication
Nudge buyers to the next meeting with a booking experience that stands out. And by this, we mean so much more than sharing just a personal meeting link. With RevenueHero’s personalized communication, you can create a unique experience tailor-made for every prospect at every touch point. For every meeting. Every time.
This includes generating and sending personal meeting links with targeted messaging and including embedded recaps, inline collateral, and customized content in your booking pages. Your link can be customized to your brand’s style and also carry value through the collateral you choose to share.
- CRM integrations
Whether you’re on Salesforce, Zoho, or HubSpot CRM you’ll have absolutely no hiccup in setting up RevenueHero and integrating the platforms. You can easily connect your forms, look up account ownership in your CRM, and route leads based on it. - Widget load time
And finally, our booking widget is optimized to always load in under 1.5 seconds to ensure interested prospects never drop off after a form fill.
Want to dive deeper into how RevenueHero stacks up against Calendly? We put together a detailed guide to take you through it.
And don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what our customers have to say.
Source: G2
The choice is yours
It all comes down to this:
- Are you ready to invest heavily in a tool that’s not purpose-built for GTM teams?
- Are you ready to put the time and effort into understanding what seems like a very complex and confusing routing process?
- Are you ready to forgo the flexibility and functionality of your routing and distribution logic?
If yes, then it might be worth checking out Calendly’s Routing Forms and giving it a try.
But if not, then we’d love to give you a taste of the RevenueHero experience. Book a demo with our team, who’ll give you a walkthrough of our solution and show you how you can accelerate your revenue with the most simple, seamless, and state-of-the-art inbound conversion solution.
