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Tuesday, July 26, 2022

5 Reasons To Use an Online Scheduling Tool

 


Whether you’re scheduling client bookings for a salon or scheduling a meeting with a colleague in a different time zone, manual appointment scheduling is time-consuming. It’s also a process that’s prone to human error. Double-bookings can be common, which can lead to a negative online review and impact search engine optimization (SEO) performance.

In this guide, we explore five reasons to use an automated booking software, allowing you to reduce the risk of scheduling errors while improving customer experience, employee productivity, and cash flow.

1. Generate bookings and leads 24/7

Did you know 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday is the most popular time to book an appointment?With most staff typically working from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., responding to a backlog of appointment requests submitted over the weekend can take time and frustrate customers. 

A survey by GetApp found 94 percent of customers are more likely to choose a new service provider if that provider offered an online booking option.

Automated scheduling software provides the benefit of allowing customers to:

  • Book at a time convenient for them
  • Select a particular person they want to receive the service from, and view their real-time availability
  • Reschedule without needing to call

These features can help prevent you from being bombarded with back and forth messages or phone calls about booking an appointment. Plus, it can help prevent the loss of prospects who were keen to book outside work hours but lost interest because that business didn’t have online scheduling functionality.

This is supported by research from salon software as a service company Phorest, which shows nearly 50 percent of all bookings in the spa and beauty salon industry happen online when businesses are closed.

2. Impress new clients

Informing new clients and prospects about what to expect ahead of their first appointment can create a good impression and help boost productivity.

You may send the standard “thank you for booking” confirmation email, but when additional information about a customer is required, smart scheduling software allows you to:

  • Add questions to meeting requests
  • Collect key attendee details
  • Process payments

This can help save you the headache and staffing time required for menial tasks like confirmation calls and chasing up invoices.

3. Deal with fewer phone calls

Given the popularity of platforms like Airbnb, Uber, and OpenTable, customers are increasingly expecting frictionless and digitized booking experiences for services they wish to access.

Consider the following data points from various surveys:

  • 59 percent of the general population are frustrated with waiting times and the inconvenient office hours related to scheduling appointments by phone (GetApp, 2021)
  • 75 percent of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) avoid phone calls because they are “too time-consuming” (BankMyCell, 2020)
  • 81 percent of Millennials feel anxious before making a call (BankMyCell, 2020)

These statistics are a clear indication that local businesses should be evolving their tech stack and aligning their customer journey to evolving preferences. Even better, less time spent on the phone dealing with appointment queries is better for businesses as owners and employees can spend time undertaking more valuable tasks.

4. Save costs and reduce “no-show” risk

Software consulting giant Accenture’s research found that the United States healthcare system would have saved $3.2 billion in 2019 alone if more people booked appointments online.

It takes under a minute to schedule medical appointments online, compared to 8.1 minutes on the phone, with staff transferring calls 63 percent of the time, resulting in more booking-related paperwork and less time on patient care.

“Just as consumers use online tools to book restaurant reservations or request a cab, patients want the same experience in self-booking a doctor’s appointment,” Accenture’s report noted. 

Furthermore, appointment reminder functionality typically built into scheduling software more than halves the risk of a no-show, according to a separate analysis of customer behavior by 10to8.com.

5. Increased employee productivity

In a Udemy 2018 report, 60 percent of employees said that poorly scheduled and unorganized meetings distract them from working efficiently and productively. 

That’s why meetings and how they are scheduled should not be taken for granted, especially for rapidly-growing SMBs with hybrid work environments and employees who reside across different states and countries. 

Automated meeting scheduling can eliminate behaviours such as: 

  • Employees asking each other “when are you free?” to initiate a meeting
  • The need to check calendars throughout the day
  • Attaching video conferencing links to meeting events manually
  • Manually working out time zone differences to hold meetings with colleagues across different jurisdictions

A suitable scheduling tool should handle most meeting-related logistics, including adding video conferencing links, finding a time to meet, and meeting preparation tasks. 

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

How To Respond To Positive Reviews

 



A good or bad reputation can mean the difference between a business thriving and expanding, or closing its doors for good. In the digital age, a business’s reputation is controlled by consumers using online review platforms like Yelp, Google, and Facebook to announce the quality of their business publicly. The good news is that this lets businesses easily monitor and manage their online reputation, a power they can put to good use by responding in a timely manner to the reviews they receive.

While negative reviews often get the most attention, positive reviews are as or more important! It’s important to respond to positive reviews to thank customers for taking the time to review your business and to encourage others to do the same.

With 92% of consumers reading reviews online, businesses can’t afford to sit on the sidelines. An effective response will help ensure that a happy first-time customer becomes a regular, and 70% of complaining customers will come back if you resolve the complaint in their favor. The first step is engaging with them.


How to respond to positive reviews

It’s simple. Thank the customer, name drop, promote and tell the customer what to do!

  1. Say thank you and be specific

    No one would let a compliment pass them by in real life. Apply that same principle to a review response! And make sure to reiterate your customer’s compliment. This let’s the customer know that a real person took time out of their day to acknowledge them, and that feels good.

  2. Use the business name and keywords

    Don’t miss out on the opportunity to drive your business up in search results—positive reviews work wonders in search. Referring to your business name, location, and category (restaurant, coffee shop, hotel, etc.) helps index that reviews online.

  3. Market, market, market

    Is your business famous for a certain secret sauce? Are you having a promotion next month? A review response is a great place to get the good word out.

  4. Give your customer a task

    Not as scary as it sounds. Invite them to try something different the next time they visit or bring a friend!


As you can see, there’s a ton of potential hidden in a positive review response. Instead of one advertisement to rule them all, each review is an opportunity to sell your business!

Monday, July 4, 2022

Build Better Websites & Funnels


In this day and age, any business that wants to thrive must go online.

With so many things going on worldwide and global changes that will forever impact the way people live and do business, going online is no longer just an option.

Not only to maintain their success but even just to survive.

Sure, there are already available tools that any business can use to run their entire company and processes digitally.

However, any minimum amount of research will tell you that most of these products are expensive, complicated, and limited in customization.

In other words, not very user-friendly, and definitely not suitable for all business owners, especially those who are less tech-savvy and might even be on a budget.

I mean, who can afford to invest thousands of dollars a month into a bunch of complicated tools, and on top of that hire employees to manage the systems, right?

Well, if this sounds familiar in any way, I have some good news for you.

As an online marketer and blogger myself, I am always looking for new solutions for these everyday challenges we face as business owners.

Today, I am very excited to introduce you to my latest discovery.

Groove is, by far, the best way I have found to be able to build websites, sales funnels, and sell digital products online.

The best part? It’s FREE.

But the free value does not end there…

You see, Groove is not just a website and sales funnel builder.

The co-founder of Groove, Mike Filsaime, is actually a veteran in the Internet marketing space and has put all his experience and expertise into one of the best suites of marketing tools I have ever seen.

I’ve also signed myself up for an account (it’s free), and for the past few days, I’ve had the chance to play around with it.

And you know what?

I can definitely tell you that this 100% free tool is perfectly capable of running your entire business, maybe even better than some of the expensive complicated tools out there.

I’m not exaggerating by any means…

From what I’ve seen so far, Groove.cm includes everything that I need to run my online business, all for absolutely free.

Here’s just a quick list of what I’ve gathered so far:

FREE sales, page, and funnel building platform
Possible to build my own branded websites with full navigation
Can integrate with my own custom domain name
Able to sell my products with what they call a 1-click upsell
Capability to integrate upsells, downsells, and order bumps
Even has a way to create my own powerful affiliate program for my products!

And that’s just for starters because there is so much more for me to explore!

I’m not even joking when I say that I am planning to change my ENTIRE online business over to GrooveFunnels!

I mean, why wouldn’t I?

It’s FREE, and it’s probably the BEST suite of marketing tools I have ever seen in my life.

By the way, there’s more…

I didn’t even mention some of my favorite benefits of Groove.

As a member, I’ve also received a TON of community benefits.

I’ve been able to join their private Facebook group, connect with marketing experts inside, get help with all my problems, access private training within their own academy, ask questions through their helpdesk, and meet other like-minded entrepreneurs just like me to make the best use of these tools.

So, if you’re like me… Striving to grow your business, looking to learn more about marketing and getting to know some of the best in the industry at a more personal level, then you won’t want to miss out on this opportunity.

Sounds great, right?

But you might be asking… what’s the catch?

The catch is that Groove is free, but for a limited time only.

Groove is in its pre-launch phase, which means that many of the products have still yet to fully launch.

When they do, and as the products continue to get upgraded, Groove may no longer be free anymore.

This means that now is the time to sign up for your free account, which would also qualify you for the additional software upgrades that they make as time goes on.

Awesome deal, right?

It’s called being at the right place, at the right time.

And that’s where we’re at right now :)

Don’t wait any longer, because I’m honestly unsure when this free offer will go away.

Do yourself a favor and sign up for your free Groove account right now, and I will see you inside of the Facebook group.