The more inconvenience banks put onto their customers, the more likely they are to switch to another bank. Call-up and email-to-book appointment processes are a nuisance for customers and they’re unlikely to thank banks for it later down the line.
What is the Call-up appointment booking method?
The call-up booking method was, for a time, the best way for customers to schedule appointments by calling up their local branch. It’s similar to the email-to-book method, whereby the customer has to email their availability to your branch team and email back and forth to pick a time slot.
However, the rise of Bank Scheduling Systems that enable customers to seamlessly pick time slots and book there and then have made this method feel stuck in the old ages.
Call-up to book appointment booking journey
Here’s a traditional call-up appointment booking journey:
Aiden wants to make an appointment at his local branch to discuss opening a new account. He goes onto the bank’s website and rifles through their web pages until he finds a number to call.
When he rings the bank, irritating loud music rings through the phone. Every so often, he hears an automated voice say, “Sorry, we’re experiencing a high volume of calls right now. One of our advisors will get to you as soon as possible”.
After twenty minutes of waiting, Aiden finally hears a branch associate talking. He asks if they have any availability for an appointment the following day. Fortunately they do.
However, Aiden gets stuck at work the next day. He found calling the branch incredibly stressful, so he decides not to call them and reschedule. In fact, he ultimately decides to go online to book an appointment with a competitive bank with a seamless Scheduling System online.
Email to book appointment booking journey
Unfortunately, customers like Aiden experience even more frustration when they email to book appointments.
This is largely because Aiden is likely to think that simply by emailing an appointment request, he’s reserved a slot. As such, he may make arrangements to pop into his local branch on the specified day.
However, imagine Aiden’s surprise when he receives a response from the branch explaining that they don’t have any availability on his preferred day. Your branch team will have to spend invaluable minutes writing out your branch availability. In turn, Aiden will need to send a follow- up email asking for an alternative appointment–assuming he’s not decided to take his business elsewhere already.
Once he’s finalized his appointment, there’s still no guarantee that Aiden will show up. After all, his appointment didn’t automatically go into his calendar and he forgot to leave a note on his fridge.
Likewise, should he need to cancel or reschedule his appointment, he’ll need to remember to send an email to the branch. Given that many consumers forget to do this, there’s a high chance he’ll no show and the branch will have wasted their resources.
How Qudini’s Bank Scheduling Software enhances the customer journey
We take the heavy-lifting off of both the customer’s hands and your branch teams.
Here’s how:
Aiden doesn’t need to spend days on end going back and forth with your branch team to find an available booking. In fact, the entire booking process will only take him a few minutes.
He simply needs to Google your brand name and the phrase “book an appointment” and he’ll find your online booking widget. Aiden will only be able to see available bookings, so there’s no surprises. Once he’s picked a slot, preferred advisor (if you’ve enabled this feature) and added his service requirements, he’ll instantly receive a booking confirmation.
If he ever needs to change his booking, he can click the reschedule button within this email or his reminder SMS and emails and make the necessary changes within seconds.
“Qudini makes my daily life much easier, because the appointments that I get in for the day I know are going to go ahead. Customers have much more time to prepare and they’ve had notifications the whole way through the process. They’ve also had the ability to reschedule. For me there’s less admin time that I’m having to complete, giving me more time to get on with my day job.”
HQ, NatWest bank
Why banks need Appointment Booking Software
The answer here is abundantly clear. Why should banks invest in Booking Apps? Because customers want them to. A lot of customers.
The graph below highlights that in recent years, Google Trends has seen consumers across America go looking for appointment booking services on the web. As Appointment Booking Systems become more commonplace, customer demand will only continue to grow.
However, there’s also a major financial incentive for banks to optimize their omnichannel strategy. As explained in our Banking Virtual Service Report, when Bank of America invested in Retail Choreography systems like Appointment Scheduling account openings and loan originations rose by a staggering 29%.
Ultimately, the ROI opportunities are only growing–there’s never been a smarter time to deploy Online Booking Software across your branches.
What services do customers want to book appointments for?
Generally, customers want to schedule appointments for:
- In-branch banking advice
- Business client advice
- Video banking
- Mortgage services
- Loan services
- Community Bankers/field bankers who meet customers out of branch in local community locations
- Accessibility (including assisted banking, wheelchair access and quiet store hours)
What features does Qudini’s Appointment Software include?
Some of our popular appointment features for customers and your branch and HQ teams include:
- Schedule appointments online, select a service and see intelligent time slot suggestions based on capacity
- Choose an advisor as part of their experience (if you’ve enabled this setting)
- Reschedule, cancel or confirm their appointment at the click of a button
- Ask customers tailored questions based on their selected service with question type capabilities for free text, drop down, image selection, digital signature and much more
- Send customers surveys after the customer’s visit by email or text
- Easily create and manage appointments on any desktop, tablet or smartphone, with the ability for multiple team members to use the system at once
- Download and print a list of appointments
- Call center teams even have their own interface they can create and manage appointments on behalf of customers
- Use our appointment software across multiple stores and timezones
- HQ teams also receive analytics reports to learn about appointment capacity utilization and get a deep insight into why customers make appointments
Customers can seamlessly book slots and find their nearest store using Qudini’s Appointment Booking Software.
What are the proven benefits of Qudini’s Booking Software?
We’ve seen first hand the incredible results major banks experience after implementing Appointment Scheduling Systems.
Our banking clients typically see the following benefits when they use our Appointment System:
- More traffic: One of our major clients doubled their appointment traffic within the first few months of using our software in-branch.
- Higher revenue: Naturally, the more traffic your online and physical branches receive, the more accounts and loans customers will request, taking your revenue to new heights.
- Lower staff admin time: Your branch team doesn’t need to spend anytime emailing customers back or taking bookings over the phone. Customers can finalize their bookings using our system–saving your team lots of admin time.
- More new customer acquisitions: With our seamless Booking System, many of our clients receive a 60% rise in bookings from customers who have never interacted with their bank before.
- Fewer no shows: With a call-up process, customers are unlikely to cancel or reschedule their appointments. Fortunately, when all they have to do is click a reschedule link on their Qudini reminder email or SMS, customers are more likely to let your team know if they can’t make their booking.
- Better staff efficiency: Our clients find that their branch teams are as much as 25% more productive when they’re using our software to manage bookings.
- Deeper data insights: Our Booking Software enables you to gather over 100 data points on every appointment customer. We’ll then compile key insights and share them with your head office team to help you analyze footfall patterns and improve resource and stock management.
“Qudini allows me to allocate resources more effectively so that the team functions more efficiently than ever before.”
– Branch manager, NatWest
Customer appointment scheduling trends
In our latest Virtual Service in Banking Report, we discover that 81% of your customers want bank appointment scheduling.
We also discovered that 93% of consumers who have used an Online Booking System in the past 12 months named one or more major benefits.
We even revealed that appointment customers are
- 24% more likely to make an in-store purchase
- 25% more likely to choose your bank than a competitor if you invest in Appointment Software
- 29% more likely to return to a bank
Keep reading about Qudini – market-leading Retail Choreography provider
If you’d like to learn more about Qudini’s market leading solutions, get in touch with our team using the contact form below.
In the meantime, here’s a video showing how we’ve helped NatWest and Samsung to move away from a call-up booking process and drive profitability with our Retail Choreography solutions
