Many businesses rely on appointments as a source of new customers and, accordingly, revenue, and during the first few months of your business’s growth, you might see a steady increase in the number of appointments you receive. But what happens when you reach a plateau, and your appointments stop growing as quickly—or even worse, what if your numbers actively decline?
Fortunately, there are some foolproof strategies that are all but guaranteed to increase your total appointments.
General Principles
To be successful, you first need to practice the following key principles:
- Make it visible. If you want your customers to book appointments, they need something visible—that means it should be easy to find your business, and even easier to spot the “book appointment” button. If customers can’t find you, they won’t book with you.
- Make it easy. You also need to make the appointment booking process as easy as possible. Not all customers will have the same familiarity with technology, so you need to make your booking process accessible and straightforward.
- Try new things. It’s also a good idea to try new things. If you aren’t satisfied with your booking rates, something is off, and only a change can make an improvement.
Top Strategies for More Appointments
With those in mind, these strategies can help any business secure more appointments:
1. Modify your design. First, try making alterations to the design of your website and/or appointment booking page. Sometimes, simple changes like a tweak to the colors, fonts, or button sizes of your page can be all it takes to boost your conversion rate. If you’re using a platform with multiple templates, like SimplyBook.me, you can toggle between multiple options and see which one performs best.
2. Minimize steps necessary to get an appointment. Next, adjust your appointment booking process to minimize the steps necessary to finalize the booking. The shorter this span of time is, and the easier the process is, the more appointments you’re going to get. Reduce the number of fields you require your customers to fill out, and make sure the process is clear and easy to understand.
3. Send reminders to older customers. If you have a significant volume of customers who have booked with you before, make sure to send them reminders when it’s time to book a new appointment. Ideally, you should have a platform that does this automatically, sending texts or emails that prompt your customers to return for a follow-up or new appointment.
4. Offer promotions or discounts. You can boost appointments in the short term by offering special discounts or promotions, such as 25 percent off your first visit, or a free gift when you book an appointment within a given time frame. This is especially important early in your business’s development, since you’ll need to give your customers a reason to switch to your service.
5. Start a referral program. You could also start a referral program, giving your current customers incentives for introducing new people to your business. For example, you could give an existing customer a $10 gift card each time one of their friends books their first appointment with you. According to Nielsen data, people are four times more likely to buy a product when referred by a friend.
6. Offer bulk appointment setting. Instead of making your customers book their appointments one at a time, allow them the ability to book multiple appointments at once, or purchase multiple appointments at a discount (to be booked in the future). It’s a convenient, appealing option that naturally encourages people to book more appointments. As an added bonus, they’ll likely book further in advance.
7. Sell memberships. In a similar vein, you could sell memberships to your customers, which allow them to book an unlimited number of appointments for the duration of the membership. For example, you could sell a month-long membership for $100, which allows as many $10 appointments as they’d like. This will increase revenue, and serve as an incentive to book more appointments at the same time.
There are dozens of ways you can get more appointments, and they’re even more powerful when they’re working together. Experiment with multiple strategies, and don’t be afraid to invest in new techniques. As long as you’re measuring your results, you’ll be able to determine which tactics are working and which aren’t, and eventually isolate those variables to come up with the best workflow.