Top Appointment Planner App Engagement Analytics to Know and How to Use Them
Online scheduling software has become increasingly popular for financial institutions and consumers alike, driven most recently by the COVID-19 pandemic. These user-friendly platforms are allowing greater efficiency in day to day business activity. They increase customer happiness with features like self-serve booking and automated reminder messages. An appointment planner app works with your business to streamline scheduling, but that’s not all. Did you know that it can actually provide you with powerful insights? These apps have the ability to gather valuable information. They notice patterns and help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. Want to get the most out of your appointment planner and boost revenue? Follow along to learn which measurements to watch for and how to use them to improve your business. How Do Analytics Work? Remember when businesses operated with paper scheduling and pencils? Cancelations were messy and rescheduling was a task and a half. That system became obsolete because of its inability to scale and grow, but there was also a key factor that business owners were missing. Scheduling software improves your daily appointment planner. It makes schedules more readily available, but it isn’t only for managing your appointments. Every activity that takes place on a planner app is logged and remembered. Financial institutions can gather more information, building out a history of past engagements. Businesses are no longer scribbling down a name or erasing contact information when they move clients around. Any movement is tracked and filed for future reference at the click of a button. So where are each of these analytics and what do the numbers teach you? These analytics break down into separate categories. You can see which clients used an online booking system to schedule their appointment and who booked through your staff. Online Booking Analytics Online booking insights will help you identify who is finding this service helpful and how they are using it. This can be incredibly powerful for growing your share of wallet and automating your approach. Online Booking Percentage This insight will tell you how many of your total appointments come from your self-serve booking platform. This platform will allow users to access your team schedule and select a time (and method, phone, video or in-person) that is convenient for them. A large benefit to this service is that they can log in whenever it suits them. Even if your business is closed, they can still interact with you. This also saves on staff productivity as they are spending less time on the phone taking appointments. Measuring what percentage of appointments come from this source will give you an idea of its productivity. If this is a new addition to your offerings, you’ll want to let your customers know that they can now get in touch with you anytime and anywhere. This feature will be attractive to new clients and should be marketed to draw them in. You can track the effectiveness of your marketing strategy by taking note of this number as your campaign launches. Bounce Rate This metric will show you how many users take steps to schedule a visit on your appointment planner app but do not complete the booking. If this number is quite high it means that many potential leads are being lost. You are missing out on bookings due to factors such as non-user-friendly functions, too much information, or too many steps. This includes unavailable appointment times, errors in communication, or lengthy forms. Actioning these areas will encourage more completed bookings. Making changes to facilitate simplicity and usability will increase customer satisfaction, also encouraging the use of this service. This data point will reflect whether the changes you are making are having a positive impact. Notice what measures are working to decrease bounce rates by completing A/B testing. Once you have the results, you can go ahead and abandon high-bounce causing factors. Conversion Rate This is the opposing metric to the bounce rate. This will tell you the percentage of leads who are landing on your planner app and proceeding to complete a meeting request. To experience growth, your business must be continually pulling in new leads. High conversion rates will give you the opportunity to not only be noticed by them but to actually bring them into your business and make them a client. Once they are in the door (or on the line), you can work your customer service magic to keep them coming back. Marketing efforts to increase conversion and incentives to book an appointment can be measured here. Every campaign should be monitored for engagement and click-through efficiency. This particular insight will serve as a great overall measure for your efforts. You’ll get a feel for what consumers like and don’t like about your campaigns based on which ones drive this number up. You can then use this information for future marketing. Appointment Reminder Use Depending on your planner app, clients who book an appointment will either automatically receive reminders be prompted to ask for them. Of course, for automatic reminders, they will have an option to unsubscribe if they prefer. The reason this engagement is important is that reminders are proven to decrease no-show appointments. In fact, research revealed that clients canceled less than 5% of appointments after receiving a reminder message. On top of attending more appointments, this service will boost interaction between customers and your brand. Positive interactions lead to happier customers. Allowing automated services to improve their experience will elevate your customer service as a whole. Aim to raise this number by encouraging existing customers to sign up. You may even want to switch from a ‘request reminder’ option to an automatic opt-in service. On-Location or in Branch Analytics Clients who decide to walk into a location instead of prebooking an appointment can also be measurable as well, so long as you have a lobby and visitor management solution. You can track traffic patterns and engagements with your staff, helping you notice changes in performance, where to smooth traffic peaks through proactive