Sales enablement service Outreach now offers a meeting scheduler for Outlook and Exchange. The service, currently in beta, is scheduled for general availability in early April. Features include integrated calendaring, reusable meeting templates, Salesforce synchronization, and available meeting insertion into emails. A Google scheduler was previously launched.

Templates provide sales reps with reusable meeting setups and confirmations. Thus, information such as conference call details can be automatically included in confirmation messages.

By including public calendar links in emails, “prospects can easily find a time that works for them or reschedule meetings without additional back and forth,” blogged Chelsey Feldman, Outreach Product Storyteller. “You can even manage multiple schedules with the ability to book meetings on behalf of someone else, and reassign meeting owners without creating a new invitation.”

Calendaring can be a huge waste of time for sales reps. By integrating calendar functionality into Outreach and Google, sales reps have time freed up for more valuable account planning and sales activities. “Outreach Meetings enables salespeople to focus on closing deals rather than wasting valuable time managing the logistics of scheduling – and rescheduling – countless calls and meetings,” said Outreach CEO Manny Medina. “Now that Outreach Meetings is integrated with both Google and Microsoft platforms, salespeople can instantly schedule appointments – and get back to the business of selling.”

Outreach claims that the Customer Success Team at Jitterbit, where reps schedule around 45 meetings per quarter, saves an hour or more per user each week due to the scheduling functionality.

Additional time savings will be achieved as Outreach builds follow-on capabilities into their meeting scheduler. Feldman listed the following roadmap features:

• Intelligent automation for perfectly-timed reminders and no-show follow up
• Features enabling you to follow up on meetings in a timely and actionable way
• An integrated note taking solution so you can run your meeting with fewer extra tools
• Analytics and insights on: the meetings you’re booking, holding, and rescheduling; upcoming meetings; and which emails are most successful at helping you book meetings

One feature, not mentioned, is round-robin scheduling.

Outreach noted that 20% of meetings fail because the prospect cancels or does not show up. Thus, managing this scenario in a future release will improve sales rep efficiency and reduce the number of lost or delayed opportunities.