Fill Those Openings

You have an opening in your schedule. Maybe it’s the result of a cancellation or maybe you decided to work the weekend and need to let potential customers know. The ability to advertise that currently takes one of two approaches: call, text, or email everyone (push) or update your website (pull). The problem with a push approach is that you don’t know how many of your customers are even interested in your openings. The problem with the pull approach is it relies on customers to visit a website, something only likely if they happened to be seeking an appointment.

A disruptive technology is one that changes the way we think about a problem. Today, we still think of scheduling as a provider driven process. I tell my customers when I’m available and they look for something that matches their preferences. But what if my customers could tell me when they’re available? This is the best of push and pull. I send notifications only to those likely to accept my invitation. I know which customers are available for an appointment at the time I create the opening.

Too much of the technology relies on broken processes or processes filled with friction. Appointments are booked when a time, place, and person are agreed by two parties—fast and simple. Getting agreement on who, where, and when is the part with the friction. I once asked a mechanic what it would cost to fix a short in my car’s wiring. He replied, “Fifty cents to fix it, and $150/hour to find it.”

If you’re in a service industry that relies on appointments, you understand the analogy to the mechanic. Rebooking cancellations can take multiple people several hours to find a match. But with SkedgeAlert, our availability matching service eliminates the hunt that currently slows down the booking process. And our customers are seeing a difference.