By Laura Harkness, 25 Jan 2024

Looking forward – Our 2024 Product Direction

Welcome to our product update! In 2023, we invested in some big under the hood upgrades, ensuring a faster, more stable, and reliable experience. In doing this, we’ve laid the groundwork for some exciting developments. This year, we’re all about innovations that simplify your life and boost your business.

We know you’d like to hear from us more. With that in mind, we’ll be sharing quarterly product updates, here on our product blog. Product development seldom follows a straight line, so be aware these plans may change, particularly as we consult with you, our lovely customers. However, we’re excited to give you a look into what’s happening at Timely.

Now

Our team is currently putting the finishing touches on projects that we started last year. We’re working hard to get these new features ready and launched for you very soon.

Consult updates

In December, we released Consult forms with booking. This highly requested feature automates your client forms so they can be sent when a booking is made, when they receive their reminder, or both! We also added the option to send forms via email. 

With more ways to send forms to clients, they’re more likely to complete them without you having to remind them. Our team is finishing off a few final things to round up this release. Read more about Consult with booking.

Mailchimp integration

We’ve been experiencing some thorny issues with our Mailchimp integration. This week our team rolled out another release aimed at addressing the problem and we’re keeping a close eye on its performance. 

Surcharges – TimelyPay terminals

Many of you mentioned that passing terminal fees to clients would improve your cash flow. We’ve listened! Our Payments team is adding a surcharge option to TimelyPay terminals. This feature is aimed at helping your business financially and should be ready for feedback soon. Due to current legislation, this update won’t be available in the UK.

New calendar opt-in

Our calendar is the foundation of our product, and over 70,000 people rely on it to manage their week. We’ve undertaken a massive under-the-hood upgrade to improve its performance, plus made a few small changes to improve accessibility and speed-up key calendar tasks. We know that you like to have plenty of time to get familiar with changes to our product, so we will be giving all customers optional access to try the new calendar before we fully transition later this year.

Next

While our teams are focused on delivering everything mentioned above, our product and design teams are actively deciding what to work on next. These plans are in their initial phase, but they’re quickly taking shape to give you a glimpse of what’s coming soon.

Improvements and customer suggestions 

We love getting your feedback and suggestions. We’ve got a long list of great ideas that are being weighed up and assessed. We’ll be prioritising ideas that have the biggest impact on the largest number of customers. This includes getting rid of workarounds, fixing bugs, adding new functionality, and just improving what’s already there. 

Increasing bookings

We know it’s tough being a small business owner right now, which is why we’re dedicated to helping you keep your calendar full. We’re exploring new marketing tools to make it easier for clients to find and book your services online, and we’re working on better ways for you to communicate with your clients.

Faster, easier payments

We’re committed to helping you get paid faster and more consistently. We’ve seen what an impact simple, integrated payments can make to the running of your business and this year we’re taking things even further. We’re focusing on new ways to support on-the-go payments, so you can easily accept payments anywhere, anytime.

Want to get more involved?

We value your feedback to help us improve Timely’s products. While we can’t address every request, our product teams prioritise tackling issues that will help make the working day more seamless for as many of our customers as possible. 

To make sure we’re getting it right, and that we hear your voice when it matters most, we rely on your input during our User Experience Research sessions. Sign up here. 

I want to thank everyone who has shared product suggestions, feedback, or pointed out areas for improvement. We’re incredibly fortunate to have such involved and generous customers. It allows us to build far better products than we could ever build alone. We see you as partners in our growth and we’re looking forward to working with you on more amazing projects in 2024.

Thanks,

Para Muraleedhara

SVP of Product, Timely