Many businesses rely upon appointments to keep their business running smoothly. From doctor’s offices to nail salons and everything in between, a full appointment book is generally a sign of a thriving business. Knowing how to schedule appointments effectively is a big part of this kind of success. Excellent service and quality products won’t matter if your team is making common appointment scheduling mistakes. Here are a few common errors – and how to fix them:
Not Providing Enough Information
Quality customer experiences are like a beautiful waltz. There’s a smooth rhythm, a back and forth, and easy, natural communication. Unfortunately, bad customer experiences can be more like an awkward middle school dance. Jerky, uncomfortable, and filled with awkward silences, these interactions can sour a customer from scheduling their appointment as intended.
When a new customer dials your business or visits your website, they want information about your services, policies, and procedures. After all, nobody enjoys walking into a new place without any idea of what to expect. Learning how to schedule appointments effectively means learning to provide detailed information about your products, services, location, and policies. Simply taking down a name and scheduling an appointment won’t win you many new customers or repeat business.
Not Sending Reminders
As a society, we’re more scatterbrained than ever. While smartphones and other technologies can help us keep track of our appointments, they also constantly disrupt our plans to get more organized. Notifications also go ignored or swiped away without being read, leading to confusion and a lack of clarity around our schedules. Sometimes, we need an outsider to nudge us towards our scheduled appointments.
Unfortunately, many businesses fail to remind their customers of upcoming appointments. Some assume their clients will set their own reminders. Others don’t have the time to dial each appointment on their calendar to remind them in between fielding calls from people scheduling appointments of their own. An appointment scheduling service can help ease this all too common dynamic. Regular reminders mean fewer missed appointments and, in turn, increased revenue.
Not Using the Right Tools
Reflect honestly on how you schedule appointments. Are you still scribbling down appointments in a notebook? Do you have a calendar dedicated solely to appointments? Or are you turning to new technology to keep track of important dates and times you plan to see clients?
Some appointment scheduling tools are more advanced than others. As your business evolves, so should your scheduling strategies and resources. An appointment booking service can keep your entire team on track while presenting a professional, constantly available voice to your callers. Even the most sophisticated online scheduling tools can’t beat the benefits offered by a live appointment scheduling service.
Playing Phone Tag with Callers
Voicemail is a drag. Many times, callers will simply hang up and dial one of your competitors instead of leaving a message. When they do leave contact information and request a call back, their message often initiates an annoying, time-consuming game of phone tag. You can waste hours of your day dialing customers, leaving your own voicemails, and waiting around for a call back. This is just one more symptom of missing calls.
When looking for scheduling appointments tips, consider ditching games of phone tag altogether. An appointment booking service can do wonders for this kind of situation. When your customers have the opportunity to schedule an appointment at their convenience, you eliminate the role of voicemail – at least as it pertains to appointment scheduling – entirely. 24/7 availability puts the power in the hands of your customers, giving them total control over their appointment scheduling experience.
Not Soliciting Feedback from Callers
There’s nothing more vital to the health and success of your business than feedback. This idea extends to every aspect of your organization, including appointment scheduling. If you’re not routinely collecting feedback about the customer experience, you could be overlooking important pain points that threaten your business’ livelihood.
An answering service with appointment scheduling features can help you address this all too common oversight. Since receptionists work from a customized call script of your design, they can be trained to ask for feedback after every conversation. Soliciting this kind of feedback can lead to surprising revelations about your appointment scheduling procedures and about your larger mission.
The Ultimate Customer Experience
MAP Communications has provided live appointment scheduling services for more than 30 years. We’re passionate about designing the ultimate customer experience, and the proof is in the pudding. If you’re rethinking the way you’ve always scheduled appointments, you need to look no further than our customer testimonials page for evidence of how much our clients appreciate our efforts.
If you’re eager to revolutionize your appointment scheduling process, reach out to our team today. We offer a free, seven-day trial of our appointment scheduling service to give new clients a preview of our abilities. With no commitment or obligation to continue using our service once the trial ends, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain by giving MAP a try! Click here to sign up and one of our friendly team members will be in contact shortly.
Here are some related articles you might be interested in:
Designing the Four Dimensions of Valuable Customer Experiences
The Benefits of Having an Answering Service Set Your Appointments
