When is the last time you reviewed your analytics to see how many appointments were scheduled online for service? Making sure the advisor completes the appointment in your CRM if the customer showed in the lane? 

Out of the customers who came in for their appointments - did the service advisors track their coupons by collecting them or use the right op-code in the system you use? 

Tracking your online appointment traffic for service is essential. Making sure you take the time each month to see how many customers that hit the service drive have booked an appointment. And if there is a significant percentage who did not schedule an appointment - having started the appointment process - make sure to take the time and check & review how easy it is to book the actual appointment. There could be a site issue that you are unaware of! 

To avoid these issues, which can have a dramatic impact on the lane - especially with the Holiday surge you will see for year-end - here are some of the best practices to follow: 

Review Monthly Appointment Reports 

If you are using a vendor to schedule service appointments, then they most likely offer you a monthly performance report. The report should provide the following information: total web traffic, appointments booked, bounce rate, and how many people started to schedule an appointment but ended up exiting. This will help you find any possible breakdowns. 

One of the top reasons the customer will exit without booking their service appointment -  having clicked through an email blast - is due to their not having their information readily available such as their VIN, Mileage, etc. If your system requires that information to schedule the appointment, then it can (and most likely will cause for customers to exit without scheduling).  

To avoid the issue, your scheduling tool should offer a “quick appointment tool” where the customer is able to book an appointment without having to sign in or have all of their information. If the customer is a repeat customer - as an advisor - you should be able to pull their information ahead of time. Allowing you to assist the customer better as there is nothing worse than the customer booking their appointment for specific services to then show up at the service drive having to repeat what it is they are in for because the advisor did not take the time to review the appointment log for the day. 
 

Click to Call 

There are trends in the industry - regarding mobile traffic - where the customer is on the service scheduling page but decides to “call in” instead of booking their appointment. This is great, BUT not so great if you are not tracking the clicks & recording the calls. 

In the perfect world, all calls would be answered, but it is inevitable that there are going to be missed calls. That said if you are tracking the calls you are not only able to ensure the customer is assisted. But you are also then able to review how many customers are using this method versus booking the appointment online. 

Top Referral for Service Appointments 

Off the top of your head do you know what platform generates the most service appointments? If not, you could be missing out! 

For example, if your monthly service offer email is the top source for generating appointments than you would want to review how many customers who booked the appointment using the email also happened to redeem a coupon too! 

Taking the time to review which coupon it is that they redeemed. This will assist you in better serving your customers. If they aren’t redeeming the coupons than it is a sign to make a switch and try something new! 

Bottom line: 

Who doesn’t want to be able to forecast monthly revenue based on appointment traffic? Building up the top referring platform for appointments?

Do yourself a favor and set aside a time to review your monthly service appointments. Seeing where you are generating the most traffic, and examine how many customers exit without booking. And if they did not book - did they call in to schedule the appointment!?

How do you track service appointments? Do you have a provisioned line for mobile for click to call? What percentage of appointments are attributed to click to call?