Google has partnered with payments processing firm Stripe to launch a feature that allows businesses to offer customers paid appointments on Google Calendar, according to a blog post by the internet search giant.
The company says the new feature is an improvement to the current capabilities of appointment scheduling, the Google Calendar feature that allows users to share their availability via a booking page.
“Making appointment booking and payment ridiculously easy for customers means less administrative work and more revenue for businesses,” says Mike Clayville, chief revenue officer at Stripe.
According to a Stripe statement, the new feature enables businesses to connect their Stripe account, set a price, and then offer clients the ability to book and pay for services in Google Calendar. A new Stripe account can also be created through Google Calendar.
“Stripe makes it incredibly easy to accept payments directly from Google Calendar, so customers can complete bookings and make payments in seconds,” says Ilya Brown, vice-president of product management at Google Workspace.
“Requiring payment upfront can help small business owners reduce no-shows and grow their businesses further. Additionally, the feature enables businesses to manage their time and payments in a simple and seamless manner,” Google says.
It adds that individual users or admins of a Workspace account will be able to form their own cancellation and refund policies, but Google will have no role in that process.
The tech company also specifies that it is not charging any platform fees and will not store or process any payment info – all that workload is handled by Stripe.
“The person booking the appointment will visit the booking page, choose their preferred time and enter their credit card information,” Google says.
The company notes the new feature will be available to people subscribing to business standard, business plus, enterprise standard, enterprise plus, education fundamentals, education standard, education plus, the teaching and learning upgrade edition, non-profits and workspace individual plans over the next few days.
Last week, the company introduced a feature for hybrid workers to indicate their working locations, like office or home, during the day to help others choose a suitable slot for a meeting.
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