Appointment Scheduling

By Ken Marty

Almost all business requires some type of appointments, and the call center business is no exception. And what is an appointment anyway, but just a complex way to look at a schedule.

In the “old days” before the personal computer, you bought the time-tested appointment book - or even a simple notebook or binder  - and promptly started taking appointments, writing down names and marking off appointments with a combination of X’s, slashes, and arrows.  Of course, it was always full of eraser marks, whiteout (remember that stuff) and the ever-lasting coffee ring when the book was used as a coaster several times during the day.

At the end of the day came the unbelievable delivery of this information to the customer, probably making copies and either faxing them off or storing them in a cubby somewhere until the client picked them up, or at worst trying to relay all of the newly acquired appointment information over the phone.

Today things are not all that much different, but there are better methods to achieve the same result in a more professional, 21st century world.  The same information still needs to be recorded, changes still need to be made, and the delivery of information still must take place.

Recording the information can become much more complex, but the end result increases efficiency at least two-fold. I have yet to see the elimination of the coffee ring, but at least with these more modern methods the client won’t need to see it.

So, what information will need to be collected?  Basically, two parts: the shift and the resource(s) involved.  The shift is a no brainer, it’s the start time and end time or start and duration of the appointment.  The resource or resources on the other hand, tend to take on a life of their own.

Normally, everyone thinks of the resource as a person or some contact, but that’s not always the case.  The resource may represent needed equipment, another vendor, maybe a customer, or maybe yet the resource could be the location where the appointment will occur.  This will all depend on what your client needs.  An appointment can include multiple resources, but must include at the least one, otherwise, what’s the point.

The resource can and will become a more complex issue when you start factoring in items such as vacation time, sick time,  and whether or not to allow double booking, just to name a few.  Taking that one step further each resource probably will need several ways to be contacted.  And, of course, when you start talking about how to contact someone it always leads to some hierarchy of how and when they need to be contacted, such as, “Call my cell first. If I don’t answer call me at home, but always send me an email and text me 24 hours before the appointment.”

So you can see the shift element of an appointment is pretty simple and straightforward, it’s the resource who’s really become accustomed to using a cell phone, BlackBerry or a Web browser who needs to be won over and probably will be the biggest headache you will have.  But, that’s who pays the bill, so deal with it.

Once an appointment is taken, it could lead to another issue of whether to also book a “recurring” or “follow-up” appointment days, weeks or months in advance.  This makes it imperative that the appointment scheduling package be equipped with flexible searching options, to quickly and precisely determine the next available open appointment.

Then there’s the issue of how appointment changes are made. We’d all like to think things are written in stone and never change, but the fact of life is everything changes.  With today’s technology, changes are more global than ever.  Everyone has access to the Internet, and who doesn’t have a cell phone with Internet access anymore.

A cancelation or appointment change should alert all parties involved in real-time so adjustments can be made and in that way keeping everyone on the same page.  This could be performed by allowing each party to confirm or deny a change request with the click of a button, a response to a text message, or a simple “yes/no” to an IVR announcement.  If, by chance an appointment does get canceled, the resources from another scheduled appointment, whether later in the day or week, could be contacted with the opportunity to move to an earlier time, all without human interaction.

The final step of the appointment schedule process would be the delivery of information.  The appointment schedule is really geared to being the input mechanism of the process.  For a total solution, it needs to take advantage of other systems such as an IVR call, an SMS or e-mail message, or even a Web site.

IVR, SMS and e-mail are excellent ways of communicating with customers and receiving feedback to be applied to appointments.  A Web site is really the icing on the cake by providing anyone in the know the ability to make changes, or at a glance see when the next appointment is to occur.

There are a lot of Web-based appointment scheduling packages available today, but finding one that integrates well with an existing call center system is the trick.

A Web-driven appointment schedule empowers the client to handle their day-to-day business.  It can provide different views of the schedule such as daily, weekly and monthly, plus the ability to handle any changes they would like to provide all in real-time.  It can even provide the client the ability to run reports against their appointment schedule or - even better - to see at a glance who has confirmed or denied an appointment.  And the best part is that the capability is provided by the call center and is tied directly to their account.

Appointment scheduling is never going to be a one size fits all part of life.  Each and every client is going to want it done their way and will expect different options.  Clients really don’t care how the technology works, they’re more focused on the services that are provided to them.  That’s where a call center has the opportunity to distinguish itself from the competition, by providing additional services with appointment scheduling, such as IVR reminders and confirmations, SMS text and or e-mail notifications.

(Ken Marty is a software engineer at AMTELCO, and was the principal designer of AMTELCO’s several scheduling solutions for call centers.)