Online business is booming, especially after the pandemic, during which many businesses and individuals discovered how convenient it can be to provide products and services on a digital platform. If you run a business where your clients need to book an appointment, then you need to look at online appointment scheduling tools.

Professionals such as tutors and consultants, legal service providers and accountants, personal trainers, counselors, and many more professions in which bookings need to be made – the hospitality industry too – can make use of such tools. What benefits do online appointment scheduling tools offer? That’s what we’re going to be looking at in this article, so let’s get started.

Time Saving

Time is precious in business, so the best use of available time is an essential goal. An online appointment tool such as https://missed.com/ – a typical example – allows you to save time in many areas by taking away mundane tasks that are neces-sary, automating a lot of processes that would normally take up a lot of your time, and giving you extra capacity to attend to the areas of the business that need to be improved.

Growing businesses will find an online appointment solution does far more than simple arrange appointments, as they have integrated features that of great potential value to a growing business.

Reduced Chance of No-shows

Running a business where you hold face to face consultations or meetings with one or more people, either in person or digi-tally, means keeping on top of appointments. The traditional way is to use a physical or online diary, which is kept up to date manually.

An online appointment scheduling tool makes it simple for both parties to arrange an appointment. Working with a cloud-based calendar, the client simply logs in and chooses any of the open appointments, and the counselor or other professional is notified of the booking. This vastly reduces the chances of no-shows, and also eliminates the possibility of double booking.

Client Can Choose a Slot

An extension to the above is that the client choosing the slot adds greater convenience for them. Imagine a tutor who gives one-to-one lessons over a video link – which is integrated in the tool mentioned earlier – or a personal trainer.

Their clients can choose a slot that is out of office or during school hours, for example, thus removing any chance of being interrupted. Where pre-recorded lessons or sessions are in-volved, they can choose to take them any time they wish, so they have control of their session times.

Automated Billing

Invoicing your clients is an essential and yet time-consuming task. It’s also one that can be fully automated when using a tool such as missed.com. For example, a personal trainer needs to keep track of a client’s online sessions. The tool does it for you by logging every time the client signs in and signs out. At the end of each month, fortnight, or week – whichever payment period you work to – the client’s hours are automatically calculated, an invoice created, and sent without any need for you to touch a button by email or SMS.

The invoice will also include an integrated payment button that the client can use to make payment. Reminders can also be sent after a set period. This is yet more time saved for you to concentrate on your area of expertise.

Improved Efficiency

The general improvement to the efficient running of the busi-ness is something we should look at. All of the above-mentioned areas are time-consuming and can be fully auto-mated. A tool such as Missed is one that is designed to work across most areas of an appointment-based business in order to increase the efficiency in a broad sense.

It will help with booking and billing, can produce automated progress reports which can then be sent directly to the client, and can also help keep up to date with new and lost clients, the latter of which can then be retargeted in your marketing campaigns. Overall, improved ROI is that aim of an online booking tool.

Opens up More Slots to Offer Clients

Our final point is that by utilizing your time more efficiently and streamlining areas such as appointments, reports, billing and more, an online appointment tool is much more than its title. These integrated software packages bring an entire new range of functions to any business that requires booking.

Whether you provide any of the services mentioned – either in person, online, or both – or perhaps run a guest house or ho-tel, restaurant, or an events company that takes bookings, you will benefit greatly from a tool such as Missed which will free up time for you to create more slots for your clients to book. These tools are designed to be scalable so as the business grows, your booking and scheduling tool can easily handle the added capacity.

Conclusion

We’ve talked mainly about the benefits a tool such as Missed.com brings to areas such as keeping on schedule with your appointments, yet a more detailed look at the package will show you that there is far more to be impressed with and we haven’t covered everything in this brief article.

If you do take bookings, we strongly recommend you check out Missed.com and others like it for more information on how these tools can add to the efficient running of your business and help you manage your time.

Source: Plato Data Intelligence: PlatoData.io