Over the past month, we have been delighted to see many of our clients announcing their upcoming branch re-openings and kick-starting communications to boost appointment bookings where safe and possible to do so.
As these appointments bookings begin to pick up and the practice phone begins to ring, it’s worth considering the ways you can streamline this process for both clients and team.
- Are your clients unable to get through to book their next appointment due to busy phonelines?
- Are your team spending too much time manually scheduling appointments?
In today’s time-pressured world, not only are your practice staff busy, your clients are too. Offering easy and convenient online bookings for your clients can help to alleviate such pressures, free up staff time and provide a better client experience.
Research has shown that allowing clients to take control over their own appointment booking via an online system can significantly increase client convenience and save your practice valuable staff time. Scheduling a single appointment can take around 3 to 5 mins. Multiply this by the number of appointments scheduled each day and this task can become a very time-intensive activity.
Findings also show that increased convenience for clients and time saved for staff can impact your bottom line with 17% of practices reporting an increase in revenue after adding an online booking service.
3 benefits of streamlining your appointment booking process
Benefits for your team
- Save valuable staff time
- Free up phone lines
- Increase flexibility
- Closer control over busier periods
- More time to dedicate to patient care
Benefits for your clients
- Increased flexibility to make appointments out of hours or on the go
- Higher visibility over available appointments
- Better client experience
- More convenience, more choice
Benefits for your business
- Streamline processes and workflows
- Boost appointment bookings and revenue
- Ability to offer better client experience
- Opportunity to increase retention, compliance and remain competitive
Discover your new online booking solution
Rapport® Scheduling integrates with RoboVet to give your clients the power of choice and simplifies things dramatically for your team. With an online booking system, your reception desk becomes available to clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can help you capture appointments which might otherwise be lost. The added benefit for clients is that they don’t have to commit to an appointment date and time during their visit – they can do this at a time and place that suits them, using their device of choice.
Today, many of us schedule in “life-admin” such as arranging personal and pet appointments into our commute time, lunch breaks or when the rest of the household is fast asleep. In fact, practices with an online booking facility report that 50% of all appointments made using an online booking system are made outside of regular business hours, and interestingly 17% are from new clients.
With Rapport Scheduling your clients also have access to your practice’s online pet portal which is personalised to their pet and allows them further control. Within the pet portal your clients can book their next appointment, update contact details, communication preferences and even upload a photo of their pet. New functionality also allows these details to be automatically updated within RoboVet.
What our clients say about Rapport
“While clients have the freedom to choose an available appointment time that suits them, we retain control over which appointment slots are available for online booking. This means we have greater control during busier periods.” Hook Norton Veterinary Group | Read the user story
“The online booking facility is valuable, as when we are closed clients are able to look online at their leisure and book and appointment for a time that suits them. We have also received bookings from new clients, who registered via our website.” “The time saving has been the biggest benefit, and the cost savings that accompany this.” Churchfield Vets | Read the user story
Offering an online booking system need not replace traditional methods but can instead support them. Take your phonelines for example, should a client call you on a busy line or out of hours, your holding message could provide them an alternative option of making their appointment online in place of “try again later.” Or take your marketing and compliance communications such email campaigns or SMS reminders, where you can invite clients to make an appointment via a URL link to your online booking system or call direct.
Offering this alternative option to book is particularly beneficial when sending out a mass communication or campaign after which phone lines can become busy and staff inundated with requests. Many practices also encourage clients to use their online booking service for any non-urgent appointments, which also works to free up phone lines and staff to deal with the more urgent cases or emergencies as and when they arise.
By streamlining your appointment booking process you can save significant amounts of time for your team, provide greater convenience for your clients and importantly for your business, keep your appointment diary full.