In this blog, we will discuss some appointment scheduling tips to improve customer experience. First of all, we have to understand why an appointment scheduling system is required and what it can do to improve the customer experience? Here are some basic features of an appointment system:
- Allow full control over customer flow and queue management
- Increase service time efficiency and decrease the customer wait time
- Allow booking out of the business hours
- Provides more flexibility, ease and access to your customers
- Allow online and remote sign-ups, with notifications, reminders, etc
- Provide detailed insight of the customer flow
- Facility to customize the queue management with routines and expected future visits
- Improve planning and management efficiency for the service agents and staff
- Provides real-time status reports, regular reports, and statistical data
- Customer Feedbacks, Integration with other systems, data export facility and much more
These are some of the basic features of an appointment system. Before you start adding up more features or add-ons in the appointment scheduling system you should have to understand your strengths and weaknesses. The best practice is to conduct some surveys with your service agents, and your customers, and try to understand what is necessary to improve the customer experience in the branch.
Most of the businesses heavily focus on the customer experience and their journey without considering any investment in the service delivery staff. It is very important to maintain a stress-free environment for the service agents as well. The appointment scheduling systems not only enhance customer satisfaction and the customer journey but also help reducing stress on the service delivery staff and the counter agents. This could further improve the overall efficiency and customer happiness.
Following are some of the most important things that business should consider while implementing an appointment scheduling system:
Availability on multiple platforms and mediums
Your appointment scheduling system should be available on multiple platforms and should be accessible through multiple mediums. People love to use their mobile phones as a substitute for the laptop or PC. A dedicated smartphone application for Google Play Store (Android) and Apple App Store (iOS) will be a good addition. Website portals and sign-up via SMS service are also widely used mediums.
Ease of Use (User Interface)
The appointment scheduling should be very easy and in a few steps only, let say your customer can sign-up using their batch number or some serial number which provide all necessary information about the customer to the system and they don’t have to fill in long forms each time they want to sign-up. Optimize the appointment scheduling and booking mechanisms.
Provide helpful information and the latest data
The portal should have enough information so that the customer can choose the appropriate service without any confusion or complexity. Showing current (real-time) information is vital for customer experience and it also helps to control the customer flow.
Communication is the backbone
In customer satisfaction and customer happiness, communication from an organization is always crucial. The customers love to get personalized communication from the organizations, it gives them a sense of importance and they feel like the organization cares about them.
Enable easy feedback channels
Either by online or within the branch there should be some channels to take feedback from the customers. This help to increase the trust and it also helps businesses take necessary actions to rectify issues. The feedback should be easy and simple such as a happiness meter tablet or kiosk, an online survey with just a few short questions or something which can be done in 30 to 45 seconds.
Effective Queue Management System
Once the customer is in the branch or premises, then they should be welcomed with a very efficient queue management system. The queue management system should have all the important features to maintain and enhance the customer journey through the service area. Aid your queuing system with digital signs, audio-visual announcements, and other essentials to improve the customer journey.
Check this out: Complete guide to Queue Management Systems in Dubai
Measure the KPIs
The appointment scheduling system should have a comprehensive statistical and analytical software engine. To measure key performance indicators of both the system itself and the service agents/staff. These reports could play a vital role in the strategy-making process and steps are taken further enhance customer journey in future. This will also help to improve the staff or service agents’ performance.
Check this out: How to reduce patient wait time in hospitals with virtual queuing?
Conclusion
Either you are a bank, hospital, clinic, beauty salon, public office, government office, HR department, or an organization who requires their customer to visit them in order to operate, having a high-tech appointment scheduling system and queue management system is very vital in retaining your customers. Getting new customer could be easier but retaining your existing customer, maintaining your positive brand identity is vital for your business growth.
Check this out: Why should the bank think beyond queue management?