Appointment Tracking Software and Metrics: What Financial Institutions Should Know

By Jillian Wood - Apr 10, 2023

Making decisions for your financial institution can sometimes feel like a shot in the dark: Which branches need more resources? How many staff members should you hire? Where should you open your next branch? And which products or services do your customers and members want the most?

Luckily, the answers to even the toughest questions become more clear when you start tracking the lifeblood of your institution: appointments and walk-ins. Once you know how, when, and where your clients interact with staff, all the guesswork disappears. 

So how can banks and credit unions track and measure these key interaction points? It all begins with appointment tracking software and metrics.

In this blog, we’ll share best practices for appointment tracking, and offer tips for how to select and use appointment tracking software at your bank or credit union.

What Software Is Used to Keep Track of Appointments?

In the digital era, it’s hard to believe that many financial institution’s are still using paper notes or best guesses to understand appointment volume—but it’s the truth. (Yikes.)

Slightly more advanced institutions might use spreadsheets, calendar tools, or a queue sign-in system to get a better idea of appointments and foot traffic. But honestly, these methods aren’t much more effective. The best tracking tool is specialized software used to keep track of appointments, that integrates with your bank or credit union seamlessly. When staff and clients use these tools to track appointments, they get more accurate data that improves the client experience and drives smarter decision-making.

What Is Appointment Management Software?

Appointment management software connects directly to your team’s calendars to find blocks of time for appointments, so you can say goodbye to email and phone tag. Customers and members can quickly book, reschedule, or cancel their own appointments at their preferred branch, rather than contacting an advisor every time they want to book or make a change to their meeting time. Customers who can’t make it into the branch can book convenient virtual appointments, which frees up time for advisors and customers alike.

Here’s how it works:

• Omnichannel Accessibility. Appointment tracking software can be embedded across all channels, so your customers and members can access the tool from your website, mobile banking app, or a screen in your lobby.
• Self-service Appointment Booking. Using their preferred platform, customers and members can easily select a service, see availability, and book their appointment. They can even see accurate wait times, join the queue, and—if the line is too long—they can opt to book an appointment over the phone, via video, or in person at a later date.
• Automated reminders and updates. After a customer or member books an appointment, they’ll get a calendar invite with all the meeting details. They can adjust or edit their appointment as needed, and they’ll get automatic reminders in the days leading up to it. (So no-shows will be a thing of the past.)
• Post-appointment customer feedback. After the appointment, customers are prompted to leave feedback, helping institutions improve customer and member satisfaction.
• Powerful administrative tools. On the backend, team members enjoy a simple but powerful interface that allows for easily changing services, adding new locations, and tracking appointment volume, length, and more.

How Does Software for Tracking Appointments Work?

Once staff or advisors finish an appointment, they can add notes and reminders for future customer interactions. Once they close the appointment in the platform, it’ll record the engagement in the reporting section of the platform. This data can be accessed via analytics dashboards to review performance, volume, conversion rates, and more. Institutions can use data to make smarter decisions about staffing and product offerings.

Appointment tracking software also records no-shows. But since customers and members receive automatic appointment reminders and can easily rebook appointments, no-show rates tend to plummet. 

With the right integrations, this critical information seamlessly integrates with your CRM, business intelligence tools, and more to paint a complete picture of customer and member engagement.

What Does Appointment Tracker Software Reporting Include?

Appointment tracking software offers detailed reports of everything from walk-in traffic to staff sentiment. Ultimately, you can tailor the tool to capture the data that’s most relevant to the growth of your business.

Here are just a few of the data categories your bank or credit union may want to track:

• Walk-in Traffic: Do you really know how many customers and members are walking through your door without an appointment? It’s nearly impossible to get an accurate reading through guesswork and estimates, but appointment tracking software can do just that.
• Appointments: Appointment volumes affect everything from staff scheduling and hiring to customer and member satisfaction. Make sure you know exactly when, where, and how your appointments are happening with appointment tracker software.
• Staff Performance: Is your staff overwhelmed? Open for more appointments? Staff capacity reports ensure you always know how your staff feels, so you can improve morale, create a positive work culture, and boost employee retention.
• Customer or Member Sentiment: The best solutions track client NPs after each interaction so you can better understand the appointment experience and your staff’s performance.
• No-show Rate: For today’s financial institution’s, decreasing no-show rates is as important as increasing appointments on the calendar. If too many customers and members don’t show up to appointments, the institution loses revenue and time, and advisors may have difficulty rescheduling appointments.
• Most Popular Services: Mortgages and financial investments are a major revenue stream for financial institution’s. But it can be difficult to increase close rates when you don’t know which products and services your customers are looking for. Software for tracking appointments eliminates the guessing game so you always know your most popular services—and how to make them even better.
• Conversion rates: A customer appointment tracking software calendar gives institutions the visibility into what appointments lead to closed products and services. They can also get visibility into how many appointments it takes to sign on clients for a loan, mortgage, wealth management, and more.

Get a full list of appointment tracking software metrics in our Banking Analytics guide.

What App Should I Use to Keep Track of My Institution’s Appointments?

Appointment scheduling software comes equipped with the tracking and analytics tools needed to keep track of your institution’s appointments. And if you offer queue and video appointments, you can track that too. 

The best apps are built specifically with financial institution’s in mind, including key features like:

• Utilization Reporting: Finally, an easy way to track how your team spends their time, who’s overbooked, and who’s wide open. Utilization reporting allows you to quickly adjust schedules as needed and maximize your team’s output. 
• Outcome Dashboards: Appointment management software gathers customer feedback so you can spot trends—like booking purpose and appointment outcomes—and improve customer experience.
• Branch Traffic Insights: Discover popular appointment times and learn how many customers or members visit a branch over time, then schedule your staff to match the trends.
• Data Syncing: Want an even more comprehensive look at your client journey? Get the full scope by connecting your appointment tracking software to data sources like Amazon S3, Azure, Google Cloud and Drive, webhooks, and SFTP.
• Smart Notifications: Don’t let long lead times and staffing challenges drag you down. Get alerts so you’re always in the know and able to ensure a seamless client experience.
• Custom Visualizations: Dive deeper into any dataset by building your own visualizations and scheduling recurring reports. The more you drill down, the more efficient, organized, and optimized your organization will become.

How Do Individuals Keep Track of Their Appointments?

Appointment management software makes appointment tracking effortless for staff and advisors. A single calendar view allows for easy viewing and sharing. From there staff members can book out blocks of time, see what’s on their schedule, transfer appointments to other staff members, and more.

After an appointment, advisors can save their notes, track outcomes, and make a list of next steps. With such an organized, efficient system, customers, members, and staff all come away more satisfied, and administrative teams have greater visibility that helps grow the business.

Who Can Access Customer Appointment Tracking Software Calendars?

It’s easy to set unique permissions for appointment tracking software calendars. Advisors and other staff members can gain access to different levels of data, so the information stays secure and confidential. Meanwhile, customers and members get access to the universal calendar, so they have the freedom to book an appointment with their preferred staff member.

Branch and retail operations managers can get access to overall reporting, giving them insights into staff capacity, utilization, branch traffic, and more. This information empowers them to make smarter staffing choices and help the institution grow.

Make Smarter Banking Decisions with Appointment Tracking Software

Many financial institution’s struggle to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of appointments. But appointment tracking software is the golden ticket to making these essential customer touchpoints a breeze. By delivering detailed data straight from the source, appointment management software lets banks and credit unions know exactly how many walk-ins and no-shows they’re getting, which products are most popular, customer and staff sentiment, and more.

Read our banking analytics guide today and get a three-step intro to building a data foundation, maturing your analytics strategy, and making predictions that help your bank or credit union grow. 

Then schedule a demo to see how Coconut Software can benefit your institution.