Scheduling appointments are common tasks in any organization but an efficient method of managing this process is essential for profitability and productivity. While traditional methods have evolved over time, they do present many drawbacks. Automated systems have innovated to address those issues, and go a step beyond in providing scheduling solutions that can easily improve upon current practices. While investing in a new application or platform can be a cause for concern, the risks experienced when not implementing such solutions are far greater.
1. My staff can schedule their own appointments.
The average sales rep spent up to 4 hours per day sending email, following up on calls, sending faxes, and other admin which can be reduced using templates and automation. (Insidesales)
Scheduling an appointment is simple, right? Much as you’d like to believe otherwise, scheduling an appointment is cumbersome and typically takes multiple phone conversations and/or email exchanges before one is finalized. It’s not always the best use of your staff’s time either. Your people could be focusing on closing deals, providing support or services, and adding to the organization’s bottom line, not taking away from it. With appointment automation scheduling, steps are set in motion for reminders heading out prior to appointment, a ready history is captured for any follow-ups and reports can be generated for management or available documents for reference without the drudgery of scrolling through past correspondence. A lot of time can be saved with an appointment scheduling application, and you will also observe monetary savings since staff is now more involved in their primary responsibilities.
2. We’re winning customers without it.
There is a 10x drop in lead qualification when you wait longer than 5 minutes to respond, and a 400% decrease when you respond within 10 minutes versus 5 minutes. (Harvard Business Review)
No deal ever came from an unqualified appointment. Scheduling software can help your conversion rates, customer satisfaction and churn. When you trade manual processes for automated scheduling, you can deliver a better customer experience. Greater flexibility and convenience is a given since automated scheduling can be available on your lead or customer’s schedule, not just during your business hours. When you make it a part of your sales campaigns, it can also speed up your sales cycle. Appointment requests are delivered immediately to your calendar, and the quality of the lead is highly increased. Automating scheduling reduces errors like double-bookings and no-shows, ultimately cutting down on all the back and forth of calls and emails that a traditional appointment scheduling method entails.
3. Our data may not be secure with an external application.
40% of salespeople still use informal means such as Microsoft Excel or Outlook to store its lead and customer data. (Hubspot)
Manual scheduling cannot provide the sense of professionalism and a greater guarantee of security like an automated appointment scheduling application. Go with a native application and you can have the added benefit of your data staying within the same scheduling system, retained in one place for easy retrieval time and again. No client wants to work with an enterprise that has lost, or worse, mistakenly shared, information that is intended solely for the parties involved.
There are many appointment scheduling application vendors in the market and each has a different purpose/value proposition. If you are looking to engage a service, the first step is to identify your objective and qualification criteria. Do your research on scheduling solutions, take the time to ask a lot of questions, and choose the scheduling system that best fits your organization’s particular needs. You will find one that can address the workload you demand of it, will integrate with your current software and processes, and can be easily navigated for your industry, staff and clients.
The tangible and non-tangible return on your organization’s investment in an appointment scheduling application can be immediately measured. You won’t be disappointed by the outcome.
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