Long Waits and Missed Opportunities: Why FIs Struggle Without Appointment Scheduling Software
Poor scheduling creates friction for customers and inefficiencies for staff. What is the fix?
For most customers, banking is no longer about stopping by a branch when it’s convenient. They want personalized service on their terms. However, the process of booking an appointment with a banker is still clunky. That clunkiness might seem minor, but in reality, it is costing financial institutions every day in the form of lost revenue and wasted employee time. Your financial institution needs a better answer, in the form of appointment scheduling software.
The Pain: Unnecessary Friction
When someone wants to apply for a mortgage or open a new account, they want immediate service. They don’t want to wait days for a returned phone call. They don’t want to get caught in an endless email loop. And they certainly don’t want to walk into a branch and find a long line during the lunch break they chose to visit. Yet that’s often what happens when financial institutions don’t have a scheduling system.
Without appointment scheduling software, it is unnecessarily difficult for customers to schedule a meeting with a representative who can help solve their problem or complete their transaction. And that comes with a cost.
The Hidden Cost of Missed Appointments
For every minute a customer spends not getting the help they need, they consider leaving for a financial institution that has the services they want. But the customer isn’t the only person experiencing unnecessary friction. Every minute your tellers spend trying to help a customer with a question they aren’t equipped to answer is wasted money.
However, the biggest cost of poor appointment scheduling is missed revenue opportunities. 75% of consumers prefer booking appointments online, and over 50% say they’ll switch to a competitor who offers online booking.
The Solution: Smarter, Seamless Scheduling
Appointment scheduling software may not be at the top of the financial industry’s radar right now, but the data suggests that it should be. Eliminating scheduling hassles has been directly linked to 2-3% increases in new account openings, and financial institutions that offer appointment scheduling for in-branch and online engagements achieve loan growth rates as high as 4x the national average.
To put it another way, appointment scheduling is a potential revenue goldmine. Too many financial institutions don’t know what their revenue ceiling is because they can’t even get the customers who want to buy their products to the table. Easily accessible appointment scheduling presents endless opportunities for growth if financial institutions are willing to take the necessary steps.
At Invo, we offer a top of class appointment scheduling software that integrates seamlessly with Google and Outlook calendars. Learn more about what it can do today.