Positioning your "Appointment" link

Attract and retain customers with web based appointment scheduling software

The goal for most businesses is to attract new customers and retain existing customers by offering features that make it easy and convenient to do business. Remove the barriers that might prevent clients from booking an appointment. Turn potential customers into actual clients and retain your current client base.

 

6 Tips to help with positioning and style for your online scheduler link

Location, location, location! In real estate they say location is everything. The same is true for web pages. Proper placement and style of your link to appointment scheduler is important. We tell you what works and what doesn't.
Consider placing links to your Flash Appointments Client Scheduler everywhere clients are likely to want to schedule an appointment.

1. Home Page: Your home page is a great place for existing clients to access your online appointment scheduler. They will be one click away from booking a new appointment with you.

2. Service Pages: For every page on your site that describes a service or set of services you will want provide quick access to the online scheduler. Make it easy for them to become a client when they see something that they want.

3. Be Consistent: Place the links in the same relative position on each page. Your customers will appreciate the ease with which they can find and navigate to the online scheduler.

4. Prominence: Make the links stand out so that customers quickly see them as they scan a page. Place the link near the top of the page.

5. Wording: What should your link say? Again, be consistent with the wording style of your web site. Here are some ideas for your site:

• "Schedule Now"
• "Make an appointment online"
• "Online Scheduler"

6. HTML Code: The following is an HTML code sample. Simply copy it and paste it into your HTML document. Important: You must replace the number "1" at the end of the link with the business identifier number that was supplied to you in the email after you signed up.

<a href="http://www.flashappointments.com/client/launch.cfm?busId=1">
<strong>Make an appointment online</strong>
</a>

 

Things to avoid

1. Do not place the link near the bottom of the page. If your customers have to scroll down to find the link to book appointments online, it means that a lot of customers will miss it and fewer online appointments will be booked.

2. Avoid placing your link in a banner type image. If it looks like advertising most users will ignore it.

3. Do not animate your appointment link unless it is very subtle. Studies show users will ignore it. Like animated ads - users find animated links distracting and annoying.

4. Avoid wording of the link that is too general. Here are some examples that don't work well:

• "Calendar" Users may associate the word calendar with a schedule of events
• "Reservations" Users may associate reservations with hotels and airlines.

 

Other tips:

Increase your customers use of online scheduling
Drive more traffic to your site
Integrate online scheduling into your business