10 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Offer Online Appointment Scheduling

It takes a lot of courage, confidence, strength and dedication to start up a small business. Such business owners need to be well-informed about the latest trends in the rapidly changing business environment. This will allow them to keep track of their customers’ evolving needs. They will need every right tool to ensure that their small business is keeping up with competitors.

One such tool trending in the market these days is the online appointment scheduling platform that allows customers the ease to book their appointments within the confinements of their homes. The online scheduling platform is not just a convenience providing or time saving tool but it also acts as a revenue generator, a customer relationship management system, a tracker of sales and a marketing tool. Small businesses that use appointment scheduling tools have a higher profit margin from increased efficiency. Here is a compilation of ten reasons why your small business should offer online appointment scheduling in order to prevail in the market:

Top Reasons for Online Appointment Scheduling

1. It is what customers want –

Numerous online research findings have predicted that customers enjoy convenience, especially digitalization. Offering your customers an online scheduling platform will enable them to make their bookings. While also carrying out a variety of other tasks. This will give them the ease of booking from their homes. Along with more information provided within a span of minutes. All without wasting precious time by visiting or calling your office to make just a booking.

2. Future of online scheduling valued in billions –

The business world is progressing by offering digital self-service to individuals. Research shows that future of online scheduling platforms for the service industry will be worth over approximately 3 billion USD. This makes it one of the fastest growing tools for businesses worldwide.

3. Obtaining competitive edge –

Practices of online scheduling can improve customer experience. Thereby, resulting in better services being offered by your business as compared to that of competitors. It is often heard that small business owners are generally reluctant to adapt to changing trends in the market. If you adapt to these changes before your competitors do, you will be marketing yourself as a flexible brand. This will make your customers happy and ensuring your reliability to stay in the market.

4. Millennials prefer it –

What do you see millennials adept at these days? Laptops, smartphones, tablets and other devices are all that they use around the clock every single day. The widespread trend of self-service has offered millennials the comfort of getting their job or work done with the click of a button. Since these millennials are the ones that will sooner or later become your valuable customers, it is a good idea to introduce your online scheduling appointments targeted to them as well.

5. Reduction of burden on your staff –

By giving your customers the facility to make appointments by themselves using your online scheduling tool, your staff can now focus on more important tasks around your business.

6. Reduction of missed appointments –

One major benefit of digitalization of your business is the use of automation for almost everything. Sending out automated reminders to your customers so that they do not miss an appointment is a time saver and creates a win-win situation for all.

7. More time saved –

Managing schedules and appointments manually would be a hassle for your staff before the online scheduling tool is introduced in your business. Once implemented however, it can act as a major time efficiency improvement tool. Your staff efficiency will improve  as they can now easily check all the appointments coming in online. There will also be a secure backup of this information as well. all of this will be easier to keep track of with a few clicks.

8. Reduce the cost of phone operators –

If your customers will no longer be facing the need to make calls to your call center to make their bookings, then you will no longer require phone operators to manage bookings. Therefore, you can save on costs and make better use of this budget elsewhere in your business.

9. Sending out personalized messages –

Another key element of giving customers the ability to make their bookings online is that all of their information will be collected and stored in your system for future use. You may use valuable information such as their birthday to send out personalized messages to them. This can improve your customer relationship management. You may even track their history of bookings and send out promotional offers based on their previous bookings. This will aid in catering to the personalization aspect of your business and will in turn grow your loyal customer base.

10. Obtaining valuable feedback –

Giving your customers the option to send post-appointment feedback will help you develop and improve your system further. This can be done without the need of employing professional research staff to fetch this information for you. Again, you will save on your costs. While also giving your customers the idea that they play in important role in making a positive impact for your business.

Apart from the 10 ways reasons highlighted above, there are without a doubt plenty other benefits. By going digital and offering an online scheduling platform to your customers your business will thrive. If adapted and implemented in the right manner, it can definitely be a benefit for small business owners around the globe.