Boost Christmas sales by digitising your offline sales strategy with TIMIFY

Before Coronavirus, many retailers wouldn’t have considered an online appointment booking system as something essential for their business model.

However, as we enter the run up to Christmas in the wake of fresh coronavirus restrictions, the conditions for retailers have changed dramatically – and so have the potential solutions.

TIMIFY isn’t just about letting customers book appointments online instead of by phone or at a reception desk.

Installing our system as a digital backbone that connects your services to your customers opens up new possibilities to diversify your customer offering.

Use those new possibilities to get customers safely returning to stores, adding new online and offline services to help customers find what they want – whether buying in-store, online or simply receiving advice and guidance from your expert team.

Such innovations could help your business capitalise on a desire from consumers to favour local businesses over online retail giants, to support them during the pandemic.  

Below we explain how TIMIFY’s flexible and multi-faceted system does this; first by enhancing your customer offering, and then optimising promotion of these offerings via every available digital touchpoint.

STEP 1:  Add new depths to your services and customer offering

Beyond allowing customers to book appointments online, TIMIFY offers a variety of functions which bring new facets to your offline sales strategy – both during and after COVID-19.

• Innovate for Christmas: offer the chance for expert assistance on your Christmas shopping via a pre-booked appointment, perhaps even specialising in particular members of the family (e.g. meet our toy experts for a tour of what’s hot, or even an online video session at Santa’s grotto!).

• Organise in-store pickups safely: bring easy booking and faultless organisation to new in-store pick-up services, helping to keep sales moving despite COVID restrictions.

• Manage queues online: if your services allow pre-booked appointments to exist alongside drop-in customers, our Queueing app makes it work. The app finds a booking slot for drop-in customers amongst existing bookings, then shows a countdown time to the appointment. Customers can avoid waiting at the store and return just before their appointment.

• Offer video consultations: video meetings have become a key part of consultations, services, events and product launches, even more so due to COVID. TIMIFY lets you create services which, when booked by a customer or staff member, will auto create and schedule video meetings into your calendar, then send participants all joining details.

• Get customer feedback automatically: if your services adapted significantly due to COVID restrictions, you need to know how customers feel. Our feedback app automatically prompts them to complete a short survey form immediately after any appointment.

• Automate customer notifications: if you are managing a rush of appointment bookings, TIMIFY automates messaging to confirm bookings, provide information, and inform of any rescheduling or cancellations. This minimises mix ups and relieves admin work for your team.

STEP 2: Promote new services through every touchpoint

Now that you’ve added new elements to your service offering, make sure everyone knows about it. There are numerous ways TIMIFY can help to do this successfully.

• Share your booking widget or booking link: these components allow instant booking from wherever the customer is browsing online; from websites, social media, and customer newsletters, to email signatures and even physical stores (via a scannable QR code). Add general widgets for booking any of your services, or target widgets for booking a specific service on strategic touchpoints.

• Bring campaigns to life with online booking: add an online booking element to enrich marketing campaigns for new services, or even use online booking to incentivise take-up of a new campaign or offer.
  • For example, customers could receive exclusive access to a new product or service only by booking an appointment online, whether it be a one-to-one consultation, in-store pickup or even by attending an online launch event.

• Offer complementary services: build intuitive suggestions for your wider services into your booking experience. TIMIFY’s Upselling App lets a business promote complimentary services to a customer while they are completing an online booking form for their chosen service. These services are added with a simple click, rather than customers having to begin a new booking form for each service.

Do you need more ideas?, click here to learn more: Eight simple tips to get your customers to book even more appointments online

While these are some common ways to use TIMIFY to boost your sales strategy and service offering, there are many more we don’t have space to explain in a short blog post.

Get in touch with our support team and, or visit our website to find further information about how TIMIFY can help your business.