The processing of design meeting requests generated by consumers is hugely important to KBB retailers – here Sean Power, UK & overseas country manager for Conversional, reveals how businesses can benefit from implementing Straight Through Processing principles.
Straight Through Processing (STP) is an automated process first employed by financial services companies in the 1990s to streamline and automate financial transactions. By employing similar principles to the appointment booking process, KBB retailers today can receive similar benefits. One of the most significant advantages of STP and automatic processing is the ability to streamline the entire KBB design appointment process.
With STP, appointments can be scheduled automatically, eliminating the need for back-and-forth communication and saving your sales and admin teams precious time. With automated processes in place, retailers can handle a larger volume of appointments and consultations without sacrificing the quality of service or requiring additional administration resources. This efficiency translates into higher productivity and the ability to serve more customers within a given timeframe.
Sales and marketing teams work hard to receive the budget they are awarded and any waste of this allocation harms the overall performance of the business. Implementing STP principles to your appointment booking process ensures that every opportunity is capitalised on to its maximum. This increases the ROI of marketing initiatives and helps to make sure you get more for less expenditure.
In addition, adopting STP principles, KBB retailers can enhance the overall customer experience. For instance, automated appointment scheduling eliminates the need for manual co-ordination and reduces customer waiting times. Convenience and efficiency leave a positive impression on customers, increasing their satisfaction and likelihood of a successful sale and a recommendation for the retailer to others.
Neither manual nor automated bookings can be made without the customer visiting your website. Your usual techniques and campaigns to drive traffic to your site still apply even when STP processes are in use. Once the visitor is convinced about your service enough to book a meeting with you, the process to do so should be as easy as possible. This starts with having an easy-to-find call-to-action button available on each relevant page on your site.
For retailers with multiple sites, the customer should be able to choose which location they wish the meeting to take place at. This also applies to retailers who provide an at-home or online consultation service. The aim is for the customer to be able to engage with you in the most appropriate manner for them.
KBB retailers have two options for implementing an STP process in their business. They can either manually create a process in-house by using various tools, or use a ready-made tool to simplify the implementation.
There are several steps needed to create an automated meeting booking process. These include: determining the types of meetings you want to automate; selecting a meeting scheduling tool that fits your requirements; incorporating it into your website; personalising meeting types; integrating the scheduling tool with your team's calendars; setting up automated confirmation and reminder notifications; customising the tool's interface to match your branding; and ensuring the scheduling tool automatically adjusts for time zone differences to avoid confusion. Finally, you need to set up an automated follow-up email after the meeting to thank customers for their time and provide next steps, and include a feedback mechanism to gather valuable insights for improving your services.
If you don’t have the necessary skills in your business to create an in-house solution – or you feel that there are better things to do with your time – then you have the option of implementing a ready-made solution. These are created to ease the process of implementing automated meeting booking services from start to finish and would normally include every function you need. This can be a great solution as they typically take less time to implement and offer a more comprehensive solution to those created in-house.
Increased efficiency, improved customer experience, enhanced communication and collaboration, better data management, cost control, and a competitive advantage are just some of the advantages that retailers can enjoy by embracing these technologies. By leveraging automation and streamlining their operations, KBB retailers can effectively meet customer demands, drive growth, and succeed in a rapidly evolving market.
