Online Booking — The Customer Who Books at Eleven at Night
How many enquiries are lost because nobody answers the phone, and what to watch when setting it up so it saves work instead of creating it.
A large share of appointments is searched for outside your business hours. In the evening after work, at the weekend, during a break. Anyone who calls then hears nothing, and anyone who hears nothing often calls the next provider.
What a booking page actually solves
It takes enquiries when you are not there, and it ends the back and forth. Instead of three messages proposing dates, the customer sees the free slots and picks one. For both sides that is less work.
The appointment booked at eleven at night would probably never have happened during the day.
What to watch when setting it up
- Only show genuinely free times. A system that books past your calendar creates more work than it saves. Connecting it to your own calendar is mandatory, not optional.
- Build in buffers. Travel, preparation, follow up. Otherwise two appointments end up back to back in two different places.
- As few fields as possible. Name, contact, reason. Everything else you clarify in the appointment.
- Confirmation and reminder automatically. A reminder the day before noticeably reduces no shows.
- Make cancelling easy. Someone who can cancel comfortably cancels instead of simply not showing up. The slot becomes free again.
The data protection part
A booking system processes personal data. Look for a provider with servers in Europe and sign a data processing agreement. The note in your privacy policy belongs to it as well.
When it is not worth it
If every job needs an individual conversation before an appointment even makes sense, a booking page achieves little. A well built contact form is the better route then.
If you are unsure whether this fits your process, we are happy to look at how your appointments come about today.
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