AgendiZe Launches Universal Online Scheduling Features

Los Angeles, California-December 9, 2009-, Today at the Interactive Local Media (ILM:09) conference hosted by BIA/Kelsey in Los Angeles, AgendiZe, the engagement and content conversion platform serving the world’s leading directories and publishers, announced the launch of AgendiZe Online Scheduling: the first universal online booking solution designed specifically to help publishers offer local businesses and advertisers branded online booking and appointment services. It also adds powerful APIs that enable any third-party online scheduling service to seamlessly integrate with the AgendiZe Engagement Platform, which already offers more than 100+ user engagement tools, including Click-to-Call, Call Tracking, Save and Share, Click-to-Chat and Video-to-Action. The first integration project has already begun in partnership with BOOKDirect, a leading hotel reservation service, and Yellow Pages Group, Canada's largest yellow page publisher.

AgendiZe Online Scheduling allows customers to do much more than just book appointments online. Customers can see headshots and pick from specific service employees; choose exactly which service they want; and even pay for reservations, deposits or services online. Moreover, since AgendiZe Online Scheduling is a part of the AgendiZe Engagement Platform, users can also Share their appointment info with friends via SMS, social networks or chat; Save it to their calendar or mobile device; schedule a reminder phone call and much more, making it easy to remember their appointment and inform others about it.

AgendiZe Online Scheduling was also built specifically to help publishers offer a powerful, but easy to self-manage solution for local businesses and advertisers. It includes an all-in-one Dashboard that any business owner can use to customize their schedule availability, services offered, and employee profiles; set up online payments; and manage customer communications, reminders and social network outreach. Moreover, it is the first to offer multiple access levels that enable different users to quickly see and manage appointments for multiple companies and offices; one location only; or just their own personal appointments. Finally, AgendiZe Online Scheduling also offers online booking Widgets that any SMB can easily embed in their own website or email campaigns.

New APIs further enable virtually any third-party online scheduling service to easily integrate with the AgendiZe Engagement Platform, the leading all-in-one engagement and content conversion platform for publishers. This makes it easy for publishers to integrate a business's existing online scheduling service with more than 100+ powerful call-to-action tools that are proven to convert up to 10 times more leads and calls for advertisers.

"Our database of over 80,000 worldwide hotels is constantly being updated as new hotels are added or existing hotels change brand affiliation. AgendiZe Engagement Platform and its universal APIs have made it much easier for us to manage updates to sites using the BOOKDirect hotel booking engine as the entire process is now seamless and invisible. AgendiZe has also made it easy for us to integrate our leading hotel reservations system with dozens of power user engagement tools, to provide YPG.ca users with a completely seamless and incredibly convenient experience to check hotel rates and availability, book reservations, and then take further action such as sharing the hotel information with others via SMS or scheduling a call reminder," said Michael Levinson President/CEO of BOOKDirect. "AgendiZe enables us to quickly and massively extend the user experience around our reservation service and enable hotels to put more 'heads in beds'."

BOOKDirect is a leading hotel reservation service which offers some of the best rates available online for hotel bookings and provides a risk-free experience as the booking is made directly with the hotel and one pays the hotel directly for their stay. BOOKDirect never charges one's credit card and BOOKDirect does not charge for cancellations.

Recent research across millions of user actions and clicks prove that more choice creates more leads for publishers and advertisers. Some 70% of all user actions are to "save for later" or to "set up reminders"; only 20% of users want to "Contact Now" (ie. Click-to-Call or Chat) and only 10% want to "Share" (ie. Facebook, Twitter). AgendiZe Engagement Platform is the only solution that provides more than 100+ engagement tools that fulfill 100% of the user engagement spectrum and the new Online Scheduling features further extends this lead potential by adding the ability for users to schedule their own appointments and reminders.

Founded in 2003, AgendiZe is the leading provider of all-in-one engagement and content conversion tools for more than 30 of the world’s top yellow pages, directories and publishers, including YellowBookUSA, YellowPages Group and Singapore Press Holdings--engaging more than 35M unique visitors each month. In September, the company announced the launch of a new Performance Based Solutions division that provides turnkey consulting and technology implementation to help publishers implement successful pay-for-performance strategies, such as pay-per-call (PPC).

To schedule a demo of the new AgendiZe Online Scheduling or learn more about AgendiZe consulting services and engagement solutions, please visit: http://www.agendize.com