Automating Appointment Scheduling

Automating Appointment Scheduling
One of the great promises of the digital age is to free
people from mundane and routine tasks so they can work on
more interesting projects. The human brain allows us to
reason and think creatively in ways that machines can't (at
least not yet). Unfortunately, many people are still
performing tasks that are repetitive and, frankly, better
done by machines or, in this case, a computer.

In this article, I'm going to talk about automating the
appointment scheduling process. This applies to you if
you're a hair stylist, a dentist, a massage therapist, an
oil change shop, a psychologist, a plumber, or anyone who
sets appointments with clients. By automating the
appointment scheduling process, you can free your
receptionist to work on more interesting, revenue-producing
tasks while providing exceptional service to your clients
or customers.

An online appointment scheduling service allows you to set
available appointments and allows your clients to schedule
appointments whenever they choose within the times you set.
You can be notified of new appointments via email.

One service allows you offer coupon codes to customers as
an excellent form of customer retention.

In a larger operation with multiple providers, you can
setup accounts for each provider allowing your clients to
choose their provider or take the first available
appointment regardless of provider.

The scheduling service will automatically send your
customer reminders and, if they need to change or cancel
their appointment, they can do it all online.

Other features available include a way for you to rate your
customers as to their punctuality or missed appointments.

Pricing ranges from free (GenBook) to $10/month and higher,
depending on the features you want. At a price of free,
it's definitely worth checking out to see if it will even
work for you. You could try setting it up in a test with a
few select clients to see how they like it and whether you
like it or not. You could run it side-by-side with your
paper and ink appointment scheduling system for a month or
two to see if it works for you and then make the decision
about whether or not to make the switch. The really cool
thing about it is that you can still take appointments over
the phone; you just enter them in the appointment
scheduling website instead of in your old-fashioned paper
planner. For your clients who are web-savvy, however, they
can make and manage their appointments with you 24 hours a
day, seven days a week. All you have to do is provide your
service and collect your fee! (Some of the services will
even collect your fee for you by accepting credit cards
online. I LOVE it when money just shows up magically in my
business account!)

Here are some links to appointment scheduling sites:

www.appointmentquest.com
www.zappointments.com
www.genbook.com
www.web-appointments.com

There are actually many more services like these. Just
Google on "appointment scheduling service" if you want to
check out more of them.

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President and chief technologist at Seattle,
Washington-based IT training firm soundtraining.net, Don is
a speaker, writer, and veteran IT guy with over 35 years
experience in technology for the workplace. Today, he
delivers keynote speeches, workshops, and seminars to
business people on how to go digital without going postal.
Call him at 206.988.5858. He's online at
http://www.doncrawley.com and blogs at
http://www.digitalnotpostal.com .