Online scheduling is a service offered by some companies, in order to provide a faster method for booking appointments. This can result in considerably faster turn-around than by using the traditional methods of phone calls, voice-mail, e-mail and similar. This helps ease the frustration on both the provider and the customer’s part, particularly due to the immediacy of the service, and its 24/7 availability.
Traditional methods of scheduling appointments often result in frustration on the part of a customer, since it can take considerable time to receive a response. Customers may also have to re-examine their daily schedules in order to call a company at specific hours. Waiting times and voice-mail services add to that frustration, and make the process of booking an appointment an unnecessarily complex one.
All manners of industries are now using this method of booking appointments, since it is an inexpensive and immediate way of scheduling. The growth of this practice has notably been seen in the medical sector, where queues and demands grow increasingly larger. The American Academy of Family Physicians has stated that approximately 16% of patients used online scheduling in 2009, a number which had increased by 6% from the previous year. In 2006, 90% of medical appointments scheduled this way were successful, indicating that the process works in the majority of cases.
Online scheduling helps clients make an appointment when it suits them, without having to worry about working their schedule around the booking process. It is completely confidential; according to Kathleen Mills, owner of Life Tree Counseling, “nobody else can see it, nobody else can access it and no-one else knows the names of clients who are scheduling with us.” The whole experience is much less strenuous than booking by phone, since clients are allowed more freedom, and as much time as they want to browse open slots and services available. The pressures which are present in the traditional methods of booking appointments aren’t present in online scheduling.
Since each counselor has their own individual appointment book, there is no chance of confusion or overlapping. This also helps maintain the very anonymity which is a crucial part of the services provided. The client also has more options in terms of choice, as there is a greater variety of free slots for each particular counselor.
Mills elaborates further on the service; “We have been providing online scheduling services for over a year, and results have shown that our clients would prefer this method of booking an appointment over others. We have had much more client-retention due to the elimination of a stressful phone-tag process. They find that simply accessing our online appointment book can considerably speed things up. Feedback has been positive, and clients find the experience is much more enjoyable.”
The process for scheduling an appointment online is simple; registration is done using an e-mail address, a phone number and a password. Both e-mail and phone number are then validated, in case there is a need to contact a client by phone regarding a specific appointment. After registration, the client is then able to access the employees’ scheduling appointment-books, and can choose a suitable slot.
For more information call the Lifetree Counselors at (972) 234-6634
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