Service-based businesses from salons and dog groomers to landscaping companies and mechanics rely on appointments to serve their customers efficiently and keep revenue flowing. A point of sale (POS) system that’s designed for small business—with built-in appointment scheduling and email reminders—makes it faster and easier for merchants to fill their books, streamline operations, and grow. In the article below, we outline additional key benefits of POS appointment scheduling.

Save Time and Money

If your service business’s income is dependent on clients showing up for their assigned slots, a POS with staff scheduling, appointment bookings, confirmations, and reminders helps ensure you have customers walking through your doors and the team in place to help them. Leverage your system’s capabilities to maximize limited resources and save on overhead.

• Schedule only the staff needed to serve the appointments scheduled, cutting excess labor hours and boosting your bottom line
• Reduce costly no-shows with automatic email appointment reminders
• Decrease time-consuming manual labor with automated appointment scheduling, while also lessening the chance for human error such as entering an incorrect customer phone number
• Eliminate expenses associated with manual scheduling, including appointment books
• Translate time savings from automation into revenue-boosting activities
• If upselling customers on related services at time of booking, quickly add additional time to the appointment in the POS based on services selected

Build a Client Database

Creating and building on a customer database in your POS can mean higher profits for your business. Ask each client at checkout for their phone number and email address to send them promotions and discounts. Then, when they call for their next appointment, your staff can simply choose the customer from the database and all of their contact information will be automatically included with the booking. Additionally, a customer database gives you:

• Insights into consumer behavior
• Purchase and service histories
• A record of client notes, including customer preferences and preferred service providers
• A way to market to your customers with weekly or monthly texts and emails promoting special discounts, the arrival of new inventory, and company news

Strengthen Relationships with Your Customers

When you provide high levels of service and maintain contact with your customers, your business remains top of mind when clients are ready to make their next appointments. By using a POS with appointment scheduling, when they call in to book, customers spend less time on the phone because your system has all the information necessary to complete the booking. They also appreciate email and text reminders, which are easy to send through your POS and lead to:

• Greater customer satisfaction
• Higher lifetime customer values
• Brand loyalty
• Better online reviews—that new customers will read before deciding whether to visit your business

Gain Valuable Business Insights

The detailed reporting that comes with a POS is essential to your business. Besides features and applications such as inventory and pricing management, employee management, fast credit card processing—including contactless payments, and built-in loyalty programs and promotions, a POS system with appointment scheduling helps you determine performance like:

• The number of no-shows in a select period of time or by specific dates
• Total number of completed appointments by staff member
• Productivity comparisons among team members
• Total sales by staff member
• Appointment/service history by customer
• Understanding your most and least popular services, enabling you to realign your offerings and/or target your marketing to boost under-performing services
• Establishing your busiest days and times, which helps you staff accordingly

Pouring over an appointment book would take hours to glean this information, where a POS with appointment scheduling software will automatically surface the information and insights you need to make profitable business decisions. A POS like Exatouch® includes all these features and more!