Readers might initially dismiss this topic: why discuss appointment booking today?
It’s a technical matter, already functioning well — let’s move on. Indeed, it’s not the “sexiest” subject these days. However, at Linistry, our deep dive into customer journeys at large enterprises has revealed its hidden potential.
Appointment booking isn’t just a scheduling tool ; it can be a strategic asset.
It addresses critical pain points where companies lose revenue and customers, while also serving as a catalyst for innovation in areas where performance is merely average. Read on to discover how this overlooked solution can drive real impact.
The Market Forces Traditional Banks to Innovate
Traditional banks face overwhelming challenges today, such as increasing regulatory pressure, intensifying competition and shifting consumer preferences, particularly as younger generations prefer personalized, frictionless banking. These pressing circumstances force banks to invest significantly in technology and streamline operations, especially customer service processes in their branches to:
- Get to know customers’ preferences better, and establish trust,
- Provide a frictionless, omnichannel, and personalized customer experience,
- Increase the number and quality of customer service encounters, and
- Increase consultants’ productivity and revenues from branch services.
Appointment booking systems, as strategic, revenue-generating tools
Appointment booking systems should offer banking customers a tailored, omnichannel booking process for in-person and virtual meetings. With innovative appointment scheduling software banks can:
- invite high-value customers to book appointments with consultants,
- prepare for visits using information collected from their booking journey, and
- deliver quality meetings with them.
Appointment booking is not an administrative feature but part of the sales process. The goal is not to book an appointment, but to delight the customer, provide a personalized experience and create customer interactions that improve customer engagement and profitability — that’s a big difference.
Six Ways Appointment Booking Systems Can Increase Branch Sales
So, when banks plan the improvement of their appointment booking strategy, they should consider the following recommendations:
1. Serve Your Customers via the “Best” Channel
Customers should be directed to the optimal customer service channel based on their personal characteristics and the service they need. Some customers can do more online, while some need a helping hand not to churn. Some products are best provided in the branch, while others via an online channel. When a customer is booking, it is a great opportunity to offer them the optimal channel and not let “the old way of doing” kick in. This practice would help bank branches deal with customers and transactions where they can add the most value.
2. Collect Customer Information
Advanced appointment scheduling software provides valuable data and insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs across the journey stages, enabling more informed decisions and better service.
The more information the bank can gather about its customer’s intent the better it can qualify the lead and prepare for the meeting. Customer journey data should be recorded and made available for the consultant and in reporting. Relevant customer information (free text, form-based and AI chat-based) should be presented to the consultant to help her prepare for the meeting.
3. Educate Customers During Their Journey
The better a bank can educate its customers, the more competent it will look and the more trust it can build. A customer who knows what to expect and how to best interact with the bank will be more satisfied than a non-educated customer. Provide educative content and marketing information throughout the booking journey, from the booking action until the service takes place. Content can be defined per customer and based on the service the customer has chosen.
4. Find and Remove Friction
The booking option should be quickly accessible and should work technically perfectly. The booking process should be smooth – easy to follow, understand, and complete. For example: the booking flow should be different depending on where it starts: a product subpage, the homepage, the contact center, a mobile app or a social platform. If the customer’s home branch is known, why not use it as default, if the service is not available in a branch, why list it, if the customer has a personal advisor, why not make the booking directly to the consultant? Friction comes in many shapes or forms beyond the obvious: don’t ask for information twice.
5. Align Branch Operations
A good appointment booking strategy requires the improvement of branch operations as well. Branches should implement proper measures to:
- serve the customers at the time of the appointments and keep statistics on this,
- identify the root cause of missing appointments and follow up with customers who don’t show up,
- measure if the customer visit was successful and resulted in sales, and
- schedule appointments for customers later on other topics (cross-sales).
6. Personalize the Customer Journey
Implement your new appointment booking system with a personalized customer experience (CX) in focus that makes your customers loyal and helps you become the leader in your market.
- Use your CRM data to personalize the appointment booking process.
- Tailor the marketing content to be relevant for your customer during the booking process.
- Personalize the experience for customers who launch their booking via their app as authenticated users (e.g., showing the availability of the personal consultant at the home branch without the need for extensive search).
Conclusion
Traditional banks’ branch networks must play a crucial role in understanding customer intent, educating them, and driving sales outcomes. Modern appointment scheduling software empowers your branches to provide tailored, frictionless customer services while enhancing sales opportunities for the bank. These systems can transform your branches into innovative, sales-driven operations and offer personalized customer experience.
Learn more about how Linistry meets the above recommendations with its appointment booking system here.