The Surprising Truth About Appointment Scheduling Trend

Online appointment scheduling is one of the biggest breakthroughs for service providers and customers. The majority of people face extreme struggles while booking an appointment with the staff or telephonically. Traditional appointment booking is tiresome and time-consuming for both customers and providers. Around 52.2% of the practices spend 10 hours a week managing appointment scheduling tasks.

Moreover, Online appointment scheduling directly relates to business growth and revenue generation. The ease and convenience it brings are unparalleled. People tend to choose healthcare facilities that offer convenience. Trends and numbers are there to prove the success of online appointment scheduling.

Blooming facts about the appointment scheduling industry

• • Real Picture
    Online appointment scheduling has gained immense popularity in the past few years. The numbers suggest that around 46% of total appointments were booked online by clients themselves.

• • Raving Revenue
    Businesses have seen an increase of 37% in average revenue using online booking systems. There is no denying that increased appointments lead to increased revenue.

• • Reign of smartphones
    Not at all surprising! Mobile phones dominate the sphere by 82%, as most clients use phones to book online appointments.

• • Bright Prospects
    The future looks bright for online appointment booking systems with the following projections-
    • • 94% of the customers are likely to find a new service provider who offers online appointment booking facilities.
    • • Online scheduling enhances lead generation by 26%.
    • • There is a 29% of reduction in no-shows with automated reminders.

Appointment scheduling for the Healthcare sector
Healthcare sectors seem to benefit the most among all the industries that use online appointment scheduling tools. Medical appointments involve numerous struggles for patients and practices both. Do you know missed medical appointments cost around $159 billion per year? The pain is not alone for healthcare practices. Patients suffer on multiple levels, and that gives rise to frustration.

• • Every 1 in 5 patients has to wait for practice to open to book an appointment.

• • 36.4% of people complain that they are being put on hold.

• • Telephonic appointment bookings are troublesome too. Only half of the people who try to book appointments over the telephone succeed in the first attempt.

The good news is that approximately 35% of the clients think an online appointment facility is one of the deciding factors when picking a healthcare practice. The biggest advantage of online scheduling is that 40% of the bookings are for the same day or next. There are no long queues or waiting periods. The practitioners get their own set of benefits. With the help of online scheduling, they get one or two extra bookings for the day because there are no lags in schedules.

When it comes to getting reminders, texts or health tips, patients have shared a positive response that is a huge encouragement to adopt online patient management solutions. Around 73% of the patients have given the nod to getting health news and updates via text.
Another aspect that has reduced the cost of no-shows for healthcare businesses is conversion to virtual or telephonic appointments. No shows can easily be converted into virtual appointments. The data is astounding. 2.8 Million virtual appointments were conducted during just two months in 2020. Around 1.1 million canceled appointments were saved by converting them into telephonic or video consultations.

What do customers want?
Apart from every fact and figure, customer satisfaction is the most important aspect of any service. The pandemic provided the necessary push to online scheduling, and the culture picked up once the customers realized how convenient it was. The true preferences of customers lie with-

Millennials are the biggest supporters of online scheduling services. Around 90% of millennials book appointments online. That is a huge number and truly depicts how popular online scheduling has become.

The trends and figures are clear indicators of the growing utility of online appointment scheduling. More and more businesses are opting for scheduling systems for their businesses for all the benefits it brings. Contact us today to know more about the online scheduling system that can help you grow your business.