March 15, 2024
Today technology has made our lives effortless and easy-going. Could we have ever imagined 20 years ago, that you can have your favorite food from your favorite restaurant at your doorstep? Or that we could drive cars without drivers? Or make money transactions and send pictures from the same device? However, there are certain aspects of our lives that remain adamantly manual. For eg: if you are running your own business, you know that there are some areas where a human touch is an absolute necessity, especially while aiming to give your customer the best experience. Small details, like a warm welcome, or knowing your customer's needs beforehand, or scheduling appointments easily. All of these still remain manual in nature. Well, not scheduling appointments. Follow these 4 steps to stay on top of organizing your customer's appointments:
The first step is to avail an automated scheduling software to manage your appointments easily. Once you have availed an automated scheduling software, you must let your customer know that they have an option to schedule their appointments through multiple channels. The appointment could be scheduled through websites, applications, emails, messages, calls, etc. depending on your software's capabilities. This step is imperative, since it not only eases the appointment scheduling process for the customer, it helps the business keep track of the appointments in the software as well. Automated scheduling software can enable your customers to make several appointments for different dates at once. For eg: if you run a salon, and your customers want different appointments for different services, they just need to schedule multiple appointments based on the artist's availability through the website or the application. Your customers would prefer to opt for this service since it eliminates human intervention and it can be done by them at their own convenience. Another advantage is that your customers can keep a track of their other appointments and book accordingly as the software creates and shares events for multiple major calendar applications. The software also integrates with major calendar applications for the business to ensure visibility into appointments and the service provider's schedules. This in turn would help you identify your most serviced days and timings, and help make critical decisions pertaining to staffing and capacities accordingly. For eg: On a slow day, you can offer suitable offers to your customers to increase footfall, or manage staff capacities as per demand. Moreover, your customers do not have to wait in queues, since it becomes easier for your customers to book whenever and wherever, ultimately, minimizing walk-ins.
The second step is to schedule reminder notifications for your customer's appointments. Automated scheduling capabilities in your appointment scheduling software emails/messages reminders at regular intervals of time reducing no-shows and missed appointments. Reminders can be custom scheduled as per your preference - depending on the service type. Notifications can also be scheduled for various other communications such as changes in business policies, modifications in business working hours, emergency shut-downs, etc. Another useful notification that can be leveraged by the business would be to remind customers a certain time after the service has been availed for repeat services or follow-ups. This helps customers track and maintain their visits.
The third step is to ensure your customers have the freedom to reschedule their appointment however and whenever they wish to. This service can help with no-shows and give convenience to your customers to re-schedule easily through the scheduling software interface. Since no human intervention is required while rescheduling, customers tend to prefer modifying or rescheduling the appointment as per their convenience and at any given point in time. The self-rescheduling feature helps businesses stay on top of the daily appointments scheduled by managing employee work hours and walk-in customers to streamline the process.
Integrating payment gateways with scheduling software helps businesses secure pre-payments for customer visits and reduces no-shows. For the customer, online payment enables convenience, saves time, and allows a hassle-free post-service check-out. This also reduces the turnaround time at your end whether you're a clinic, a salon, or any other service shop. An integrated payment portal means that the business also has the ability to send across a payment link to the customer post the service. Once the service is marked as done in the software, an automated email/message notification is triggered and sent to the customer requesting payment, feedback along with a simple thank you note.
Appointo, the preferred appointment scheduling app across industries, eases appointment management for all businesses whether big or small. The application is a feature-rich appointment scheduling solution that includes:
