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Today’s
society is increasingly connected 24 hours a day. From smartphones and tablets
to computers, it is how a growing number of people want to view information,
communicate, purchase and conduct routine daily tasks that previously were done
manually.
Scheduling appointments is routine among many
businesses and organizations today. We have traditionally seen it in sectors
like Healthcare, Public institutions and Retail Banking for quite some time,
often focusing on operational efficiency. What we now experience is that more
and more organisations, including retailers, are using appointments to realize
business benefits.
The lunch
crunch – you know it well. Imagine being able to spread out the service
workload evenly throughout the day instead. With an appointment solution, you
can optimise your workforce requirement by steering customers to less busy
hours, which helps eliminate the problem of over staffing or understaffing.
This is
basically a way of “moving” customers in time to meet them when it not only
fits you as a service provider, but also is the choice of the customer. The
cost of overstaffing at low traffic can be kept at minimum as well as the under
staffing effects on customer experience.
Using appointment management will allow you to match
service requests to your best available resources. Not only will the quality of
service improve but also as the efficiency as staff has the right competency to
deal with the specific customer request. When a customer has pre-booked an
appointment it is also possible to prepare the case in advance which brings further
benefits to both the customer and to the service provider.
Appointment
management reduces the time spent waiting by the customer and hence has a
positive impact on the customer’s service experience. For the service provider
it can also be a powerful tool that delivers the pre-visit data required for
the service provider to staff more appropriately and deliver better customer
service.
Summing
up, the key benefits of an online appointment management system are:
- Anytime - Anywhere: In an online appointment system a customer an make an appointment any time, just like as if you are providing 24x7 services.
- Improved customer experience: Ease of access means that customers easily can find you and book a meeting with you – through a laptop, tablet or smartphone. Improved customer experience relates to increased customer retention.
- Improved efficiency: With an appointment management system it is possible to even out customer flow, to match service request with the right resource and utilize staff in a more efficient way.
- Saves time: A customer can make an appointment with you just within a few minutes from the comfort of their home or workplace.
