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Ideas, tips and techniques for new generation selling and customer support.
Monthly Archives: August 2009
2009
“This self service device is available from 2:00 to 2:05 AM”
Nice idea. Maybe if the limited-time trial works out, they’ll expand it just a liiiiittle bit. Heck, it might catch on…
Filed under: appointment scheduling
Tagged: customer experience, customer satisfaction, customer service
2009
Long flu shot lines hinder delivery. Appointments could help.
I can’t help but notice an unspoken sense of helplessness in all the coverage about flu shots … the millions and millions of flu shots that will be given.
It’s a project of unprecedented magnitude, and while government authorities are working their tails off to get everyone vaccinated, they seem to be overlooking a proven opportunity to improve reach: offering appointments can reduce wait times, which helps compliance. (“Compliance” is healthcare’s word for whether patients actually do what providers recommend.)
Citing a CDC advisor who calls it “potentially the largest mass-vaccination program in human history,” the Washington Post said Saturday
To prepare, more than 2,800 local health departments have begun recruiting pediatricians, obstetricians, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics and even dentists, along with a small army of volunteers from churches and other groups. They are devising strategies to reach children, teenagers, pregnant women and young and middle-aged adults in inner cities, suburban enclaves and the countryside.
Last night ABC News ran this two minute clip. (You’ll have to sit through a commercial first.) At about 0:36 remaining, Ryan Owens says “Many children will go to their pediatrician. Others will have to go to the health department and line up, just like these people are.”
He turns and points to a lengthy queue.
This is ridiculous: it discourages people from getting shots.
Of course we’re biased; we believe in the convenience and effectiveness of Web self-service appointments, and we sell the stuff. But seriously: this is a public health issue. People are less likely to do something when there’s a long wait.
Conversely, when the time factor is under control, compliance increases. Evidence:
- In May we reported on a talk at the Pediatric Academy Societies’ annual meeting saying Appointment scheduling issues keep children from getting vaccinated.
- At last April’s “Health 2.0 meets Ix” conference in Boston, Kaiser-Permanente VP of PR Holly Potter (@HTPotter) reported that Kaiser has found (with its millions of Web users) that when patients can pick an appointment time online, at their convenience, they’re 40% less likely to no-show.
This isn’t rocket science: You know yourself, when there’s a long line for something you’re less likely to do it. It’s just that healthcare hasn’t quite woken up to the opportunity. (Kaiser has, most haven’t.)
We hope private providers and public health officials alike will give us a buzz. Spread the word.
Related resources:
- Blog post: Medical journal article shows reminders help patients stick to the plan
- Our healthcare solutions page
- Case study: Sonora Quest labs TimeTrade smooths patient traffic and guarantees service within five minutes of scheduled appointment time
- Case study: Berkeley HeartLab Centralized scheduling helps provide cardiac patients with top-notch care
- Case study: Family Health Care Clinic Family Health Care Clinic delivers better care, 25% more visits, $2.5 million more revenue
Filed under: appointment scheduling
Tagged: appointment scheduling, government, healthcare, waiting
2009
New Consumer Research: Appointment Based Services Seen As More Valuable
We’ve been talking for months about how making people wait can be rude and costly), and about the long-term value of good customer service, especially the value of letting people pick an appointment time via the Web.
What we couldn’t say, until today, was that we knew in advance the outcome of new research that’s just being published today. Findings include:
- Depending on the service in question, upwards of 30% of the people who visit a business for service expect instant attention – in some cases even if they don’t have an appointment.
- People are more patient waiting for professional services than for consumer services – extraordinarily patient with doctors. (But don’t try that if you’re not a doctor.)
- People associate positive attributes – important, high quality, tailored-to-me and professional – with appointment-based services compared to services delivered on a walk-in basis.
- The group rated walk-in services as impersonal, crowded and rushed.
The survey was designed and executed by Beagle Research analyst Denis Pombriant, a sharp guy with a strong eye for picking a winner: he was one of the first to spot Salesforce.com shortly after its founding. His report includes findings that we haven’t discovered anywhere else, including “the ten- and twenty-minute rules” and latent demand for appointment scheduling in some segments.
Beagle’s white paper summarizing Denis’s findings is available free here. (If you’re new to our site you’ll be asked to do a quick one-time registration.)
Filed under: appointment scheduling
Tagged: appointment scheduling, impatience, ustomer service
2009
Information Week: Do SaaS vendors eat their own dog food? (We do.)
In yesterday’s Information Week, Mary Hayes Weier penned The SaaS Industry Should Eat Its Own Dog Food,looking at whether vendors of cloud computing / software as a service practice what they preach. Some do, some don’t. She points out that Salesforce.com, which is doing a good job of kicking the butt of non-SaaS CRM systems, nonetheless uses Oracle for accounts payable.
I think it’s actually a case of the right tool for the job: using the cloud when it’s appropriate. I can’t speak for Salesforce’s thinking, but I know TimeTrade uses a mix. We ourselves use Salesforce for sales and marketing, but our A/P is desktop, as are our productivity tools. Word is still much more productive than Google Docs, and it’ll be a loooooong time before Google’s spreadsheet comes close to Excel. That was true for Excel 2003 and it got a lot truer when Excel 2007 transmogrified into a whole new power tool.
For you speed freaks out there, I want to note that SaaS is getting smarter. A frequently heard swipe at SaaS is that when your app runs in the cloud, you’re governed by the size of your pipe to and from the cloud: every click is a page load. Well, not so much: clever Flash and Ajax methods let more be pre-loaded so it can run fast.
Of course for appointment scheduling, we can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t use the cloud – especially since the more you scale the application, the more you depend on accurate real-time resource availability information. That’s why we’ve been cloud since our founding in 2000 – the same time as Salesforce.com.
2009
Cool: Self-service appointment scheduling at a “virtual trade show”
We talk about Web self-service all the time. How about this: a Web self-service trade show?
FOSE, the Federal Office Systems Exposition, is a massive annual event. In keeping with the times, they’re expanding their outreach: for the first time they’re offering Virtual FOSE: a virtual reality trade show, this Wednesday, August 12. It’s free – beats the heck out of the usual request for travel budget, eh? Register here.
Here’s what TimeTrade’s booth looks like:
Our overhead marquee scrolls, touting our self-service appointment scheduling and customer service. The “flat screen” below the marquee is our traditional display of our blue-ribbon government customers and integrator partners.
Visitors to Virtual FOSE can “walk in” to booths, see a display of staff who are there (online) for live chat, browse the “literature” ((documents and links) from the literature stand, and put it in their “briefcase” for future reference as they travel from booth to booth.
This is the kind of thing we love: efficiency and convenience, especially in government related areas. Hope to see you there! Again, click here to register free.
Filed under: appointment scheduling
Tagged: appointment scheduling, customer service, efficiency, government
2009
Respecting customers’ time, part 2: Shrink the Stink
A Friday night post – some weekend reading, or maybe for you it’s Monday:
Waiting stinks.
And it’s a costly waste of time.
So let’s toss around some ways people use to shrink the stink.
Some businesses get it, and do a variety of things:
- “Take a Number” dispensers at the deli counter. Doesn’t save you any time, but gives you a good shot at “first come, first served.”
- Walk-in queuing systems are the software equivalent of “take a number.” (Sprint stores have a TimeTrade queuing system for walk-in service.)
- Cordoned “enter here” queues (at banks, post offices, airports) reduce the risk of getting stuck in the wrong line. (Why don’t supermarkets do this?? Don’t you hate it when the cashier turns on the “call supervisor” light for your line??)
- Restaurants offer “call ahead seating” to grab a place in line before you even get there, to reduce your wait.
- Some ERs publish their wait times on the internet. Associated Press, April 2009. And some let you call ahead and grab a place in line, then check back to see how close your turn is. That one’s not just a convenience, it keeps you (and your kid) from hanging out with sick people for hours.
- Then, of course, there’s making an appointment (or a reservation, as it’s called in non-service businesses).
#1, 2 and 3 still make you wait, but you can mill around. They don’t reduce your waiting time, but they do reduce the discomfort. In a sense, they make the waiting a little better.
The others, though, make your life better, because they address the value of your time. And now that I think of it, “Take A Number” and queuing systems do let you roam around and perhaps pick up a few items, letting you use that time.
Complex subject, this. One thing’s for sure – there’s a lot of waste involved in waiting lines, and that makes it an opportunity for improvement.
Think about it.
2009
Airlines and X-Rays: Customer Service in Capacity-Based Businesses
I had a shower-stall epiphany yesterday, a collision between thoughts rattling around in my head. I saw a pattern that spans many unrelated industries: customer service in capacity-based businesses.
It hit me because of events in two vastly different industries a week earlier:
- That Sunday I was on the phone with Southwest Airlines, and their system said “Our hold time is unusually long. If you want our system to call you when it’s your turn, press 1.”
- Two days later I had my adventure with the x-ray appointment (not) at a local clinic.
What do airlines and x-rays have in common? Both are capacity-based, which means customers need to be matched up with availability. And there’s a world of difference in how these two managed the customer experience.
- Southwest had their robot do the waiting, so I didn’t have to.
The clinic has lots of friendly, courteous people, but responsibility for my waiting time apparently hasn’t dawned on them. “Come on in, and we’ll get to you when we can.”
Think about this. Waiting stinks (and is a costly waste of time), so what ways can you think of to improve the customer experience?
Later this week I’ll return to this, but give it some thought. Maybe in the shower.
For a refresher on the cost (and value) of people’s waiting time, see our very first post: It’s RUDE to make people wait. And costly. That’s where this photo first appeared. It’s a real-life case study.
Filed under: online scheduling, scheduling software
Tagged: customer experience, customer service, healthcare, impatience, waiting
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