There are several type of appointment-based businesses in our country ranging from dentists, medical specialists to car service centers, etc. These businesses tend to be very busy most of the time or require an extended amount of time for them to complete a particular task/assignment/work. But what will be your immediate reaction when you were to asked to deal with such appointment-based businesses as a first time customer?

For me = TROUBLESOME. Because I have to go through the trouble of finding the contact number, call them up and make an appointment. I know some allow you to walk in but some of them don’t. My question is, if I have never been to your business or I am a first time customer, how would I know how to make an appointment or which number to call? It’s still okay if your business is very well-known or a lot of people know how to make an appointment, or if your business has very accessible contact information. But how many businesses actually have any of those? Not many.

Dentist business is one of the appointment-based businesses

It’s funny how these businesses are still having such appointment-based model and most of them are still unwilling to change. If your business is unwilling to change, then at least make sure your information is more accessible to your potential customers – those first time customers. Otherwise, they will just choose another business which is more convenient to them. And believe me, during such competitive period when there’s a business closing down every few hours or so, you ought to believe your competitors are trying their very best to make their businesses more convenient and trouble-free for the customers.

Unless, those businesses are too proud of themselves that they don’t need those potential customers.

So how can these businesses change? Here are few simple ways which I can think of but do bear in mind that I’m not an expert when it comes to marketing.

• Prepare more name cards or contact cards, and pass them around to spread the word about your appointment-based business.
• Allow walk-ins but gives priority to those who’ve arranged for an appointment.
• If possible, put up a big sign at your store if walk-in is not available for the day. I don’t think the customers want to take the trouble of finding car park, only to realize there’s no available time slot anymore.
• Have a blog or publish your contact information online. Make such information as accessible as possible.
• Give very good service to your existing customers and hopefully they will help spread the word AND the contact information for you (make sure you have enough contact cards to be distributed). Or better still, reward the customers for bringing new customers in!
• Have different time slots for walk-in and appointment-based. This is to ensure that those who are lazy to make an appointment can still choose your business.

I’m not sure whether this list can help or not. But I do feel that a business should try to make it as convenient as possible for the customers. I understand that certain type of businesses HAVE TO be appointment-based but I also believe that it is up to them to make the entire ordeal as trouble-free as possible. Remember the key phrase here is businesses should make life easier for customers, not harder.

And now, I need to go and hunt for a good dentist in my area who has very accessible contact information…I don’t think I want to go around my area trying to SPOT a phone number so that I can call and make an appointment.