Our Recipe for Perfection: Scheduling, With a Side of Visit Management

As the retail industry grows and advances year after year, the need for a solution that encompasses each aspect of a customer journey becomes more and more necessary. Most retail businesses have added some sort of appointment scheduling tool to their arsenal, but that is no longer enough to sustain and track their progress. As the digital revolution continues growing, so does the requirement for a more robust solution.

Scheduling an appointment is a wonderful option to have, but that alone can only do so much. At some point in our busy lives, we too, have been customers. We want to know that our experience matters.

With that in mind, the only logical thing to do is to add a visit-management solution that gives you a first-person view of what your customers encounter. For example: checking in, wait times (which generally fall under queue management), and routing to the right vendor.

As a customer, we can agree that when booking an appointment, we expect to be treated with a certain level of professionalism. We want to be greeted, met at our designated time, and receive the best possible service. If that does not happen, then we immediately feel neglected. It is as if the establishment does not recognize us as being important, and we immediately start feeling that our experience is sub-par.

There has to be an instrument in place to provide us with that feeling of appreciation. If we are not tended to properly, we are less likely to want to return, which ultimately is a loss of revenue for the establishment.

As a business, it is silly to assume that every customer who schedules an appointment would arrive on time, or even at all unfortunately. Depending on the type of business and reason for the appointment, missed appointments can happen anywhere from 50% to 80% of the time.

In addition, establishments must also recognize that people will arrive later than scheduled, so identifying when a customer has entered is crucial to preparing resources, recognizing calendar capacity, and demonstrating a proper customer journey.

Furthermore, it is paramount to consider different timing variables like lateness, shortened appointments, customers that may need more assistance than others, available resources, etc. Once timing delays accumulate, and representatives are no longer in control of their schedule, it can quickly turn chaotic. There must be a system established to keep the customers waiting patiently, knowing when they're next in line, and even route them to alternative representatives if necessary.

The provided scenarios are just a few out of countless examples where the commitment to provide a service is just as important as the person receiving a service. The only way to manage such a task is by having every tool available. Q-Flow isn't just perfect because it includes appointment tracking and queueing, but also because it goes the extra mile by providing analytics, appointment management every step of the way, and best of all, can do so in every channel of communication.