Managing Your Small Business Customer Appointments

For small businesses that rely on customer appointments, automated booking and scheduling software can increase productivity and revenue while reducing costly no-shows.

Booking software allows customers to review your available slots online or via a mobile app, and to book the most convenient appointment for their needs. While most small businesses have scheduling needs, automating this process is especially important for service-based companies including restaurants, salons, in-home repair services, and others.

Appointment booking software increases your company’s efficiency by freeing team members from the potential drudgery (and back-and-forth messaging) that can occur when customers call or email your business to schedule an appointment.

Under manual methods, a customer needs to call your company and wait for a team member to review available appointments. If the customer makes this request by email, it can take two or three messages before an agreeable timeslot is found. If we assume it takes four minutes to book an appointment and a business averages 15 appointments a day, team members can easily spend an hour daily just booking appointments - time they’re not serving customers directly.

Automated customer scheduling software also eliminates the chance of double bookings in cases where the company’s available appointment information isn’t current and a slot appears inaccurately to be open.

Booking software is also more convenient for customers, who can schedule appointments at the time that’s best suited for their needs. Someone who’s reviewing potential service providers in the evening, for instance, doesn’t have to wait for a company to open the next day so they can call them. Similarly, they don’t have to send an email and wait for a response.

In some instances, the convenience of being able to book appointments outside traditional working hours can provide a tiebreaker in choosing between a new provider who offers online booking versus a company that uses traditional methods.

Booking software also allows customers to reschedule appointments easily if their availability changes.

Features to Consider

As you evaluate potential appointment booking solutions, you’ll want a tool that allows customers to set up timeslots through a variety of channels. This will typically include your company’s website but can also include your Google directory listing as well as your social media pages.

The following features can increase efficiency and help you serve customers more effectively:

• Customer reminders. Customer appointment booking platforms also help reduce no-shows by sending automated reminder texts and email messages. In addition to reminding customers, this feature also eliminates the need for team members to place these calls manually.
• Calendar integrations. You’ll want your booking software to integrate automatically with your existing calendar tools so you and team members always have up-to-date information.
• Recurring appointments. Allowing customers to set recurring appointment for services can increase convenience, customer loyalty, and revenue for your company.
• Mobile integration. Most booking platforms include apps that allow you to view schedules and adjust team member availability on your mobile device. This can help you monitor your company’s schedule and operating performance.
• CRM features. Some platforms allow you to maintain records of customer contact information, past bookings, and preferences so you can understand and serve them more effectively.
• Pre-payment features. Some tools allow customers to prepay for services by integrating with payment platforms such as PayPal, Square, Stripe, and others.

Popular appointment scheduling platforms include Calendly, Acuity, Microsoft Bookings, and others.