A freelance illustrator was losing potential clients in the gap between enquiry and booked call. A public booking page closed it.
Lena S. creates editorial illustrations and brand identity work for publishers, agencies, and independent brands. Based in Berlin, she works with clients across Europe and the US — which means time zone coordination is a daily reality.
Lena's client journey started with an enquiry form on her website. After receiving an enquiry, her process looked like this:
Send reply → Suggest three times → Wait for response → Two of three times are taken → Suggest two more → Client is travelling that week → Reschedule for the following week → Finally agree on a time → Create calendar invite manually.
"Every new client required six to twelve emails just to get on a call," she says. "And across time zones, it could take a week or more before we even spoke."
More damaging: she noticed that some enquiries went cold during the scheduling phase. Clients who were ready to hire would lose momentum during the back-and-forth and either hire someone faster or simply forget to follow up.
Lena added Builtomate's booking page to her website enquiry flow. Instead of her old reply process, she now responds to every enquiry with a single line and a link: "I'd love to discuss your project — book a 30-minute discovery call here."
Clients see her real-time availability and pick a slot that works for them. Confirmation and calendar invites are automatic.
Lena has two booking slots configured: a 30-minute discovery call for new enquiries, and a 60-minute project kickoff for confirmed clients. Both show live availability based on the times she manually sets as open each week.
The booking form collects information upfront — project type, timeline, rough budget — so Lena arrives at every call already knowing the basics. No more discovery calls that turn out to be completely out of scope.
"I used to spend 15 minutes at the start of every call asking basic questions. Now I spend that time actually scoping the work."
The scheduling emails dropped immediately. What had been 8–12 emails to book a call is now one email with a link.
The bigger impact was on conversion. In the three months before Builtomate, Lena booked a discovery call with 58% of serious enquiries. In the three months after, that rose to 76% — a 30% increase in booked calls with no change in her marketing or pricing.
"The calls I'm now having are with better-prepared clients. They've already seen my rates page, they've chosen a time that works for them, they're ready. The quality of the conversation is higher."
Tom W.
Marketing Consultant
Sarah K.
UX Designer
Priya M.
Brand Photographer