6 Ways Retail Brands Can Capture More Appointments (and More Revenue)
Your retail brand doesn’t have time to slow down. You’re moving fast, and forward, at all your locations to meet targets and grow revenue. You always need to be one step ahead, and appointments give you the edge.
But you need appointment scheduling that’s as agile and effective as the rest of your org while working at scale. It needs to be flexible and robust to coordinate availability across all locations, offer appointments strategically to maximize revenue, and make scheduling simple for customers.
If you’re seeing high drop-off rates and lost revenue, your scheduling likely isn’t seamless, consistent, and convenient for clients online. Empty books and missed marks are often the result of complicated scheduling processes or outdated methods.
Fortunately, technology empowers your brand to offer a better appointment booking process. With a scheduling platform, your brand can capture more appointments and reach revenue goals, all while creating client experiences that wow.
Capture more retail appointments to serve your scaling brand
Growing your brand and reaching OKRs can be hard in retail at scale, but appointment booking software can help. Here are six ways to boost your retail appointments and increase your revenue:
1. Empower customers to schedule appointments on their own
Place the power of scheduling in your clients’ hands, giving them the freedom to book what they want, when they want, how they want. If they have control over their own appointments, they’re more likely to schedule with your business and show up.
Plus, when clients manage their schedules, your team is free to focus on the bigger picture of your business. Instead of wasting valuable time playing phone tag, staff can focus on the higher-level tasks that make a larger impact on your bottom line.
With Acuity Scheduling, clients can access your books 24/7 from their phone or computer, schedule in a few clicks, and manage appointments at their convenience. They’ll find fewer barriers between your services and their needs, and your team can be more productive with the time they save.
2. Capitalize on customer excitement and momentum
Work to eliminate any friction in the appointment-booking process. Instead of forcing clients to schedule by leaving the page or picking up the phone, give them the option to click, find, and book directly from a call-to-action (CTA) anywhere on your site.
You’ve invested time and money into creating an engaging website experience for clients; your booking software should complement this. When CTAs across your site lead to a polished schedule, there’s a much greater chance customers will book. If they have to wait for a pop-up or sit on hold, they’re more likely to bounce.
Acuity Scheduling embeds directly within your website to create an online experience that makes booking an appointment enticing and painless. Clients can book immediately from any page while browsing your site.
3. Offer a streamlined scheduling process worthy of your brand
Create an online booking experience that aligns with the look and polish of your retail brand. When clients encounter a scheduling platform matching the feel of the rest of your website, they’re more likely to book appointments and engage with your offerings.
If the schedule doesn't meet their expectations, they’ll react with distrust or fatigue. Often, third-party scheduling tools have rigid user interfaces (UI) that don’t offer the flexibility to match your brand. While functional, they feel like someone else’s company (or even a scam), making clients hesitant to provide personal details. This results in missed bookings and lost revenue.
Using the Acuity API, you can customize the booking experience to reflect your brand. Use custom CSS to match the colors, font, and styling of the rest of your website. That way, your schedule has all the right branded elements, delighting customers and giving them the confidence that their details are in the right hands.
4. Create appointments they can’t forget
Strengthen your client experience to increase word of mouth and repeat bookings from loyal customers. If clients have a fantastic time shopping at your business, it’s, of course, much more likely that they’ll return in the future and recommend the experience to family and friends.
These great client experiences come from knowing your customers and creating services tailored to their preferences. To do so, your sales staff needs to know what matters to your client before they arrive, giving them time to prepare to make the session all about the customer.
Acuity Scheduling uses custom intake forms to empower providers with data before their clients even arrive at your store. By asking questions specific to your business needs when clients book, your team will have everything they need to make the appointment unforgettable.
For example, you can solicit information on customers’ preferred products, sizing, styles, pricing, any special events coming up, and more so that sales reps can prepare the most appealing merchandise. This provides your team with the information they need to make the appointment as productive (and enjoyable for the customer) as possible.
In addition to boosting sales, this consumer data also has value to your larger org. When you can understand trends about your clientele, you can improve sales training, standardize best practices, and make smarter decisions.
5. Understand what’s working for appointment holders—and what isn’t
Leverage your scheduling data to get a better understanding of your clients’ behavior. This can help you make data-driven decisions about your services to reduce cancellations and no-shows.
No matter how thoughtful your booking process is, there will always be clients who cancel appointments or fail to show up. By looking at cancellation details such as appointment type, time, cancellation date, and more, you can experiment with changes that reduce these numbers.
With an Acuity Enterprise plan, you can export appointment data from calendars across your brand’s locations in just a few clicks. That way, your team can look for patterns of behavior and adjust scheduling practices accordingly.
And, while data is great, sometimes a more proactive approach is effective. Acuity Scheduling automatically sends email and text reminders to nudge appointment holders and reduce no-shows. You can schedule these at a custom cadence that makes the most sense for your brand, or use a pre-built option.
6. Schedule appointments to maximize revenue across store locations
Offer appointments strategically across your locations to make the most of your employees’ time. This keeps your team at peak productivity during all open hours, maximizing their daily sales.
The key is identifying the right scheduling window for each location, as every store has different ebbs and flows. By offering appointments when walk-ins are typically slow, employees can maximize sales during downtime. If you keep sales associates free (and don’t offer appointment slots) during times of high traffic, they’ll be available to work the floor instead, creating an exceptional experience for those already in the store.
Finding the correct appointment cadence can be tricky, so scaling brands need up-to-date appointment data across all their stores. This includes appointment types, notes, durations, attendee names, and more. Acuity’s Enterprise plan offers visibility into all those elements from a single dashboard. That way, leadership can spot patterns and make adjustments so teams across your brand work efficiently—at every location.
And if you need more calendars as you bring on more locations, just add them. Acuity’s Enterprise plan supports unlimited calendars to give your team the flexibility to expand when you need to.
Fuel your retail growth
When it comes to capturing more appointments and increasing revenue, applying the right technology makes all the difference. With a powerful scheduling platform like Acuity, your retail brand can create a seamless, consistent, and convenient client experience that keeps your schedule full and goals met.
If customers can book their own appointments right on your site, you’ll see higher conversion rates and fewer no-shows. Once they’re in your stores, your sales team can use the information captured within the platform to make their appointment unforgettable and maximize your profits.
Acuity Scheduling’s Enterprise plan empowers your retail brand with the tools and features to grow. From brand-wide calendar dashboards and custom website embeds to insightful analytics and intake forms, your scheduling platform can bring in new clients and more revenue.
Make appointments unforgettable with Acuity’s Enterprise software today, or check out what our other scheduling plans can offer your brand.