At Full Slate, we constantly pore over our metrics and quiz our customers to ensure we’re meeting our core value proposition–enabling small businesses to use the Web to fill their appointment books, thereby reducing phone tag, generating more appointments, and improving client satisfaction. To that end, we closely track what we call the ‘online booking rate’, which represents the portion of appointments self-booked by clients versus the total number of appointments booked for a business…and we track that metric over time.

And what do we see? Of course each business is unique, but for customers who actively promote online scheduling to their clients, we generally see the online booking rate increase from 0% before Full Slate to 10-20% in month one and then to 60-90% by month three. That’s right, out of every 10 appointments booked, many customers see 6 to 9 of them self-booked by clients, all in just a few short months.

As we’ve posted before, there are many ways to encourage your clients to book online, from inviting them via email through Full Slate…to adding it to your voicemail greeting…to pointing them to your online schedule when they call. Most of your clients won’t need to be pushed, however, they simply need to be made aware of the option to book online. Studies have shown that about 7 in 10 consumers want to book online…and, per the metric above, that’s exactly what they do when they can.

We love to see those high online booking rates, because that’s when our customers are most satisfied with online scheduling.

“Having my customers schedule their own appointments online is a HUGE timesaver.“

“…it frees me up from answering the phone all day, so that’s fantastic!“

“I tell people they can go to my website to make an appointment – that way I don’t have to return calls in the evening.“

And yes, you too can get the majority of your clients to book online!