Bill – Page 2 – The Full Slate Blog

Open for Business!

by BillApril 8, 2009October 17, 2016AnnouncementsLeave a Comment

We are very excited to announce that we passed a major milestone this week. After conducting a very successful beta program, we have decided to open up Full Slate to the rest of the world. Now any service provider looking to offer online appointment scheduling can take advantage of our robust, web-based service.

Start Now

Once again, we’d like to thank our awesome beta customers for working closely with us over the last few months. We’ve learned a bunch and have made a number of enhancements to the product based on their feedback. We could not have done it without them.

We want to make it as easy as possible for service providers to embrace online scheduling. New customers may take advantage of our free trial; we’ll waive the monthly fee until at least 10 clients book appointments with you online. It is quick and easy to get set-up – just click the ‘Try Now’ tab from our homepage.

Please try it out. And, as always, we’d love to hear what you think.

Onward!

Starting Out

by BillApril 1, 2009Build Your BusinessLeave a Comment

Great story to share about one of our beta customers – Malinda Newstrom (http://www.malindalmp.com/).

Undaunted by the current economic environment, Malinda recently decided to start an in-your-home massage practice. Having already completed massage school, she focused on a Open for Business key issue that many local service providers face: ‘how do I build a solid base of recurring clients?’

Malinda started out with a stack of flyers and some guerilla tactics. She networked, strategically placed flyers, and got a blurb in the local school newsletter. These landed her a few customers, but she needed more. When I approached her about becoming a Full Slate beta customer, she hesitated (“I’m not very technical”), but decided to give it a try. She was quickly up-and-running… and hasn’t looked back since.

Malinda recently published an inexpensive ad in a popular blog that covers her neighborhood. She offered a discount for first time customers. As a new sponsor, the blog wrote a brief post about her and included a link to book an appointment. Within the first 12 hours she had 4 newly booked appointments and a handful of inquiries. And more have come in since.

With growing awareness in her local community, Malinda is focused on delivering outstanding service to her customers and building her business through referrals and a loyal base of recurring customers – things that every local service provider should be focused on.

New features released

by BillFebruary 23, 2009New & ImprovedLeave a Comment

We released another great set of features today. Be sure to check them out…

Mini-website – Service providers now have increased ability to customize the landing page that clients see when booking an appointment. You can add a logo, change fonts, colors, etc. If you like, you can also edit the HTML and really control the look-and-feel of the page. You can find these features under the new ‘Company’ tab.
E-mail lists and templates – We now allow creation of custom e-mail templates that can be sent with a few clicks to some, or all, of your customers. Create your own template or use one of the seven that we provide. You can also include custom fields to personalize messages. Recipients can easily be selected from the new customer ‘list’ view. You can find these features under the ‘Clients’ tab.
Custom booking fields – You can now add a variety of fields to request information from clients at the time of booking. With booking fields, you can capture a physical address, special requests, promotion codes, etc., or create custom checkboxes or drop-downs. You can also specify whether the field is required or not. Booking fields can be found under the ‘Admin’ tab.

We’re very excited about these new features. Many of them were the result of specific requests from beta customers, so please keep your feedback coming!

Don't just survive… thrive!

by BillFebruary 15, 2009Build Your BusinessLeave a Comment

The New York Times recently published an article that explores what many local service providers have been experiencing for months. The market for local services – like the overall economy – is definitely in decline. More people are choosing to forego services or take a do-it-yourself approach, instead of patronizing local businesses. Hair is getting cut or colored at home. Dogs are getting bathed in the family bathtub. Homeowners are trying their hand at minor repair and maintenance projects.

The Times suggest that many local service providers won’t survive.

Call me an optimist, but I think the current environment presents an opportunity. Certainly, there remains a large segment of the population that want or need these services – and perhaps now more than ever. Maybe someone in the family recently picked up an extra job or is working extra hours to help cover costs and now they don’t have time (or energy) to cut the kids’ hair, bathe the dog, or fix the leaky faucet.

With competition heating up for a shrinking number of prospective customers, I believe local service providers have an opportunity to reach new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers. Here’s how:

Innovate – Try to understand what factors – other than price – may be affecting customer buying decisions. Offer customers new or modified services that make it easier for them to continue to patronize your business (longer or different hours, pick-up/drop-off, in-home services, etc.). Consider partnering with a complementary service provider to offer service bundles that better serve your customers’ needs.
Discount – Offer pricing and bundling that shows your customers that you understand the economic challenges they face. Discounted service bundles (e.g. “buy x, get one free”) are a great way to give customers a price break in exchange for their loyalty. Discounts for referring a friend will turn your existing customers into a virtual sales force.
Promote – During tight times, many businesses cut back on marketing in order to lower costs. This provides an opportunity for remaining advertisers to rise above the usual din and reach more prospective customers. Advertisers may also be offering discounts and specials to attract your business.

I believe that local service providers who are successful at techniques like these will not only survive – they’ll thrive. And they’ll have a strong base of loyal customers in place once the economy starts to turn around.

Multi-Provider View

by BillFebruary 2, 2009New & ImprovedLeave a Comment

Customers with multiple providers (employees) may have recently noticed a useful addition to the Schedule tab. We now offer a consolidated view of booked appointments across providers. Just click the checkbox in front of each provider whose appointments you want to view. Appointments are color coded by provider to make it easy to differentiate. And the semi-transparent, partially overlapping appointments allow you to view a packed schedule without having to pull out a magnifying glass.

We think this is a valuable way for a multi-provider organization to quickly view a high-level indicator of the health of the business. It can also be a useful way to spot trends in booking and better allocate your staff.

This is a feature we’d been planning to add in a couple months but accelerated in response to a request from one of our beta customers. So keep those feature requests coming!