For certain types of businesses, such as a busy auto repair shop or medical practice, their bottom line is driven almost exclusively by customers booking and keeping their appointments. Frustration can occur for the customer if the business accidentally overbooks itself, same goes for the business owner as well when the customer is a no-show and precious time and productivity is lost.
Some companies choose to dedicate employees to the task of setting up appointments with customers, then calling to remind and confirm the appointments. This is often not the best use of the time and talent of the employees. Outsourcing these tasks to a company like TOUCH Communications can help to ensure that all important appointments are scheduled and kept while allowing your team to focus more on what they do best – running the operations of your business.
Scheduling appointments
When your customers call in to arrange an appointment, our service works by having calls transferred to one of our friendly and professional attendants. Using a web based booking calendar, we find a time slot that works best for both you and the client.
This will provide you and your staff with more time to attend to actual appointments and less time spent booking them.
Confirming appointments
When appointments are booked weeks or even months in advance, such as a medical practice, it is understandable how a customer might forget. If the customer misses the appointment, that is a loss of revenue for the business, not to mention how upsetting it will be for the customer if they have to wait several more months to get another appointment.
Appointment handling from TOUCH Communications includes a verification service whereby your customers can receive a friendly telephone reminder of their appointment. Your customers will appreciate this added level of service, it will also mean less appointment no-shows for your business.
Cancelling or rescheduling appointments
Let’s face it, as much as you would love every customer to keep every appointment, the fact is that plans change, people get ill, and jury duties happen. When a customer needs to cancel or reschedule their appointments, having a professional on your side who can help keep everything straight is a real bonus.
When you are using TOUCH Communication’s appointment handling service, customers who call in to change their appointments will be directed to one of our friendly staff who will remove that customer from their time slot, arrange a new time with them if they wish, and replace their old time slot with another booking. This helps you to avoid downtime in your business.
A personalized touch
One of the main concerns that most business owners have when using a service like ours is that the interactions will be cold, impersonal or generic. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. When we answer calls from your customers, we are representing your business and your brand.
Before we take our first call for you, we take the time to get to know your company and customize our approach specifically to your business. In appointment handling we ensure that we understand your business enough to book the appropriate amount of time for your clients; what questions we should be asking, etc. Our goal is to make sure that we handle your calls with the same care and brand consistency that you would for your business.