Every business - small, medium or large, upholds the common yet predominant objective of converting disinterested customers to permanent purchasers to make a positive strike on their profit graph. Amidst the other new age things, adopted to achieve this objective, adopting an online appointment booking platform has been a prominent accelerator of business performance in most cases.
A software that perfectly aligns your calendar without overlaps, balances your working hours while giving ample autonomy to your client, automatically reminds you and the other participants ahead of time, syncs with multiple apps and your work calendar; what more would you need to take charge of your time? Adopting an online appointment scheduling platform improves productivity multifold which is bound to take a direct strike on your revenue generation and profit; How? let's break that down:
- 24/7 availability for booking and lead generation
It’s not us, the reports suggest that 40% of the appointment scheduling traffic reaches out to you post working hours! While as high as 67% of bookings are expected to be done online, going by the maths, we suppose your business needs to stay available to take these bookings at any time of the day. Unavailability for scheduling often encourages customers to switch over to alternate service providers. With automated booking software, you get
- 24*7 seamless appointment scheduling by customers,
- Empowers them to book their preferred slot,
- facilitates last-minute reschedulings and cancellations without any hassle.
- Relief on employees’ workload
Manual booking of appointments over phone calls, emails or in-person visits is a tedious, time consuming and error-prone task. In the era of automation, these old-school practices need to be replaced by advanced scheduling software like Appointo. The applications effectively schedule multiple bookings simultaneously without overlapping one another, manage and auto-updates records in the appointment book, deal with online payments, keep track of staff availability and so on. While the booking software handles customer-centric matters, your staff can focus on other strategic tasks that facilitate business growth and elevate profit margins.
- Reduce no-shows
Missing out on reminding your customers about their scheduled appointments can bring you losses up to $15000 a year. Small businesses with thin margins might receive zero profit due to no-shows. Implementing online appointment applications can help you surpass this loss by simply cutting down on no-shows. With Appointo, after an appointment is confirmed, the system sets an automated reminder that triggers at the pre-fixed interval before meeting thus preventing appointment cancellations or no-shows.
- Facilitates your sales and marketing process
Needless to mention, transparent, unhindered communication is a crucial step in moving a prospective deal to a sealed deal. To take the first step in creating a remarkable imprint of your service, you need to go beyond ‘Thank You’ in your booking confirmation emails. Online booking schedulers provide prospective clients with basic information on your service/product, iced by some crispy branding to take your deal a few steps ahead. Further, these applications can also be integrated with social media platforms, so you can create a wider reach for your brand by integrating the booking app into your social media page.
- Present customer testimonials
According to some survey reports, 90% of buyers go through the customer reviews before choosing a brand and 72% of consumers proceed with their purchase only after reviewing the customer testimonials.
The online scheduling platforms exhibit honest customer reviews on their booking page. Based on the customers’ experiences and reviews, new prospects are expected to show greater interest in your product or service. Positive reviews will draw more customers, consequently, the revenue graph of your business would also go upward.
- Easy booking facilities for the customers
Scheduling an appointment over email or call can be time-consuming and cumbersome. A customer might have to wait for hours till they can reach the service provider over the phone. In the case of emails, the back and forth exchange of emails before the final meet is finalised, often irks customers. Further, it could get really difficult for your staff to handle multiple applications when the rush gets high.
With appointment booking applications, you get an integrated system that allows your customers to book a slot at their convenience while also maintaining your working hours. This autonomy and client supremacy culture not only generates more validated leads but also increases the chances of conversion.
- Get Customer insight
It is important to know your customers so that you can improve and integrate new policies into your marketing strategies. While scheduling an appointment, these applications grant you access to customize the form. Using this you can ask for basic information such as name, age, location, required services, etc. to know the client better. If you can understand the background of your prospective client, it would reduce the rate of dead leads, save your time and effort by ensuring that the meeting is effective.
Moreover, the additional insight about the lead further helps you to create and offer a more personalized and customized service proposal to the customer and make the conversion process seamless and fast.
- Sync the Time automatically
As your business grows, your time management becomes a very crucial factor to the success of your venture. So, while scheduling an appointment it is important to ensure that the reservation is synced with your and your client's work calendar and does not overlap any existing meeting schedule. Doing this manually is more of a struggle, so, apps like Appointo take charge of keeping your day in complete sync. It auto-updates your work calendar so you don't overlap or miss out on any meetings, nor does your client. It clearly shows only the available slots before allowing your client to book theirs. No overlaps, no cancellations, time management sorted!
Coming down next, where do you find the best appointment scheduling application? Used to be a very tricky question, but not anymore! In the world of e-com, Shopify feels like home. At Shopify, you can nearly find apps for anything and everything, including the super cool, feature-loaded appointment booking applications.
Breaking down; Why opt for Appointment booking apps on Shopify:
While selecting the best appointment booking application or any other application that has the power to disrupt your sales funnel, we often encounter some very common questions:
- Are they trustworthy?
Shopify showcases the quality of customer service delivered by the applications by demonstrating buyer reviews as well as their sincerity regarding the security of customers.
- Are they having any navigation issues?
With Shopify, applications design an optimized navigation system so that your customers can book an appointment with you with a few clicks from the homepage.
- Are we clearly presented to customers?
To attract customers, appointment booking applications available on the Shopify store display high-definition pictures of your products or services along with detailed descriptions of the same.
- Are they targeting the right audience?
On Shopify, apps extend the help of SEO and paid ad strategy to reach out to the right crowd of shoppers who are actually searching for your service/product and are interested in buying them.
- Do they have a proper design?
Shopify facilitates the apps to have out-of-the-box design. Creating a convincing appearance that is simple to use and simpler to navigate does half your job in getting the booking.
Shopify - customers’ most trusted E-commerce Market
Safety and security are the terms customers would like to hear from you while booking an appointment with you online. While enlisting a business in the Shopify store, apps like Appointo and others adhere to specified guidelines or specifications regarding the cookies that are used, stored, and utilized.
So, your favorite appointment booking app on Shopify would deliver an accelerated degree of safety and security to your business and your customers when linked to your services or purchase portal.
Also, there are perhaps over a million users actively using Shopify for their needs. Putting yourself there, or integrating Shopify-based apps can enhance your business potential multifold. With these apps, you can give an extra wheel to your business and reach out to more people through online bookings.
Final lines
Shopify has earned this immense dependence over time, as both the service providers and consumers are gradually shifting online. Whether for businesses venturing to boost their already existing revenue or planning to initiate a fresh one, Shopify-based appointment booking applications bring in a user-friendly setup that eliminates all kinds of disruptions and productivity gaps and paves the way towards a more accomplished business.