Online Scheduling / Advanced Contact Forms

[Hoody]

How many of you are implementing online scheduling/booking or using a more invasive form on your website to capture more data for less back and forth?

I'm noticing in some markets phone calls still outweigh online booking / contact form submissions, however in other's people choose the booking/form submissions at nearly 5:1. I have a few clients that it is 8:1 preference to using the forms or booking option compared to phone calls.

Here is a small sample of 5 clients that we're tracking lead amounts and user behavior.




What are you seeing?

 

[Mikey P]

scheduling would be impossible for us but our request a quote form gets used pretty much every day, at least once.

 

[JohnHawkP]

Yeah

Same as Mikey

Before i sold my last business we had over 60 guys and instant booking/scheduling was beyond us.

We put calls directly through to the guys when we could as they scheduled their own work.

One in five leads were online and these were automatically allocated and sent to the correct guy so that took pressure off the call centre.

 

[smastio]

Hoody - I would love to chat with you about this topic and learn more from your side. I can share more from my side "real" time as well. Call me sometime. 630-444-2000

 

[FB19087]

scheduling would be impossible for us buy our request a quote form gets used pretty much every day, at least once.

I think most of my text messages come from people filling out forms on your sites

 

[Mikey P]

lol....


whos the more social outcast, you or Jimmy?

 

[FB19087]

@Hoody are you including calls that are not clicks/events from the page but are generated from it?
How many of the call events are carried out after the click has been registered?
How much contact form spam?

 

[FB19087]

lol....


whos the more social outcast, you or Jimmy?

well once you factor in threema/signal/whatsapp/fb messenger I'll say Jimmy


but no....I don't sit around texting all day like a teenage girl

 

[Desk Jockey]

well once you factor in threema/signal/whatsapp/fb messenger I'll say Jimmy


but no....I don't sit around texting all day like a teenage girl

Fred...definitely Fred. But by choice.

Fred doesn't like people. People don't like Jimmy.

 

[hogjowl]

I like Jimmy!
But I like Puddles too
So I’m not one to judge

 

[Desk Jockey]

I like Jimmy!
But I like Puddles too
So I’m not one to judge

Yeah butt no-one likes You!

 

[hogjowl]

Yeah butt no-one like You!

Yes, I’m one of a kind.
There’s no one like me

 

[Desk Jockey]

Yes, I’m one of a kind.
There’s no one like me

No one wants to be!

 

[DAT]

I feel like a song coming on...

 

[DAT]

Oh yeah!

 

[Hack Attack]

Scorpions ol school classic german band..

Marty ol school classic..umm err

 

[Hoody]

@Hoody are you including calls that are not clicks/events from the page but are generated from it?

How many of the call events are carried out after the click has been registered?

How much contact form spam?

These 5 examples are using CallRail and we've integrated Analytic Call Goals. We do also provide standard event tracking and don't have a way to confirm if the call was successful. Most of those clients are tracking calls from the website internally themselves.

No spam - we use a few different measures to block spam for clients. Between a hefty blocked list in Wordpress itself and recaptcha we don't see any. The event doesn't fire if the submission was unsuccessful.

Admittedly the House Call Pro one could be skewed in the fact that we're only tracking that they reached the booking page. I working with Roland on how to set up a Zap to track successful bookings. That way I'll have data to provide how many people reached the booking page and then out of those how many successfully booked. The client can make decisions in how they present their services, pricing, etc.

 

[FB19087]

We don’t get much spam but we do get the occasional human spam

 

[smastio]

Interesting stats on consumer wants and online booking...

 

[FB19087]

Now that is surprising. A company (getapp) who makes money advertising biz app finds that the public prefers, at an astonishing rate, to book online through biz apps.
Couldn't have predicted that in a million years.

 

[hogjowl]

So cynical
I think I love you

 

[Nomad74]

I like Marty.

 

[smastio]

So I'll put you down as a non-believer...

 

[FB19087]

Oh...I believe.

I believe you or someone else photoshopped that to take the "doctors or hairdressers" out..........

I'd bet a lot of money the results would be way different if the question said "(e.g., plumber or electrician)"

https://lab.getapp.com/research-online-booking-importance-of-appointment-scheduling/

but who knows...maybe the "nearly 200 North American consumers who have booked an appointment in the past 12 months" would surprise me

 

[smastio]

Oh...I believe.

I believe you or someone else photoshopped that to take the "doctors or hairdressers" out..........

I'd bet a lot of money the results would be way different if the question said "(e.g., plumber or electrician)"

https://lab.getapp.com/research-online-booking-importance-of-appointment-scheduling/

but who knows...maybe the "nearly 200 North American consumers who have booked an appointment in the past 12 months" would surprise me

I kinda agree... I wish that there were a similar analyse based on service providers that have "more known" frames of time than Plumber and Electricians. They tend to have no idea how long they might be at a location; whereas - carpet cleaners, gutter cleaners, air duct cleaners have more or an idea how long they might be there.
As I said - it was interesting! Actually Hair stylist pretty much know how long you will be sitting int he chair. Doctors can move you along with tests; but a plumber has no idea how long he/she might be there. It's a statistical analyses of 200. I usually like to see 1000 or more. 5 doesn't make a trend, but 200 is a bit more realistic. I am actually going to compare online order vs calls and others from a client that has had our tool for the last 4 years. Stay tuned "with baited breath, I'm sure" Lol I'm going to guess that his last two years might be 30-40% , we'll see...

 

[smastio]

22% of this clients orders were online vs call and others. Interesting it has not changed proportionally in 4 years. I see that as an area of opportunity. BUT, as stated earlier 1 does NOT make a statistical analyse. I would love for the guys/girls here to do their own analyse and ASK people as they are cleaning - Would you prefer to call us on the phone or book us online.

Oh and before you ask - Total orders were about 10,000

 

[Nomad74]

I tried the to do the online booking thing for my business. It was just too much trouble. There are too many variables in carpet cleaning. I tell people that if they don't like my price when I show up, they are free to tell me to go pound sand.

 

[hogjowl]

Just wait
In another 10 years, you won’t be able to use a screwdriver

 

[smastio]

I tried the to do the online booking thing for my business. It was just too much trouble. There are too many variables in carpet cleaning. I tell people that if they don't like my price when I show up, they are free to tell me to go pound sand.

What program did you try?

 

[JohnHawkP]

I tried the to do the online booking thing for my business. It was just too much trouble. There are too many variables in carpet cleaning. I tell people that if they don't like my price when I show up, they are free to tell me to go pound sand.

Too many variables is a pain.

Even offering 4 times to book a job each day, say 8am 10am 12pm and 2pm, can be tricky.

The actual job might take 30 minutes or 6 hours