Online Scheduling / Advanced Contact Forms

Hoody

Supportive Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
6,347
Location
Bowling Green, Ohio
Name
Steven Hoodlebrink
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.

lead example 1.jpg lead example 2.jpg lead example 3.jpg lead example 4.jpg


What are you seeing? lead example 5.jpg
 

Mikey P

Administrator
Joined
Oct 6, 2006
Messages
112,314
Location
The High Chapperal
scheduling would be impossible for us but our request a quote form gets used pretty much every day, at least once.
 
Last edited:

JohnHawkP

Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
475
Location
Melbourne
Name
John Paton
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

Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2010
Messages
414
Location
St. Charles IL
Name
Steve Mastio
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
 

FredC

Village Idiot
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
26,231
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
 

FredC

Village Idiot
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
26,231
@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?
 

FredC

Village Idiot
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
26,231
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
 

Hoody

Supportive Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
6,347
Location
Bowling Green, Ohio
Name
Steven Hoodlebrink
@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.
 

FredC

Village Idiot
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
26,231
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hogjowl

FredC

Village Idiot
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
26,231
Oh...I believe.

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

Appointment_Scheduling_Q4.png


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

Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2010
Messages
414
Location
St. Charles IL
Name
Steve Mastio
Oh...I believe.

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

Appointment_Scheduling_Q4.png


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

Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2010
Messages
414
Location
St. Charles IL
Name
Steve Mastio
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

Boy Sprout
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
23,468
Location
Redding
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.
 

smastio

Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2010
Messages
414
Location
St. Charles IL
Name
Steve Mastio
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

Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
475
Location
Melbourne
Name
John Paton
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
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nomad74

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom