How Retailers Benefit from TIMIFY

Content

Retailers have unique needs and business models, which can make choosing an online appointment system more complex. Flexibility and variety in TIMIFY’s functions are crucial, from simultaneously scheduling an adviser, equipment and room for an appointment to adding a booking button to a company app.

We aim to meet every expectation of our clients, big or small, and in turn deliver on the expectations of their customers.

Below we outline some of the functions, tools and characteristics we offer and believe are most beneficial to retail sector businesses:

1. An online scheduling solution customised to your brand:

For many retailers branding is the major issue. Through their brand, customers identify and build trust towards a product and service. Our software allows you to seamlessly integrate online booking with company colours, logo and slogans throughout, without customers realising they are using an external service. You can also tailor the steps a customer will follow in the appointment booking process: from booking a particular employee or location, gathering key data to aid an appointment or showing only a predefined list of services most relevant to that particular customer.

2. A personalised booking process. Get key information in advance:

Customer service is a key differentiator. Gathering key information online before an appointment maximises the quality and efficiency of time spent with the customer in the appointment.

Don’t waste time finding out budgets, favourite colours, styles and sizings in the session when this can be easily obtained during online booking. Armed with this information, your in-store team can prepare a personalised appointment every time, complete with any relevant products to cross or up-sell. Our retail clients have found that basket sizes are three to four times larger from sales made via online bookings.

The basket size increase 3 or 4 times when a person received a personal advice, after booking an appointment online

3. An Upselling app to offer related services or products:

Make customers aware of other services related to the one they are booking. The app allows add-on services to be selected during the booking of the original service, meaning the customer doesn’t have to start another booking process for another service.

For instance, a store selling wedding services can allow a customer booking a dress-fitting appointment to seamlessly add additional services such as cake testing and make-up tests in just a few clicks. It’s a simple but effective way of boosting not just the shopper’s basket size per purchase, but also their sense of a helpful and relevant customer experience.

4. An online Branch Manager Tool:

Our Branch Manager tool offers companies with multiple locations the ability to track valuable information such as top-selling product, best performing branch, most booked time slot and trends in when online bookings are received. This powerful tool gives a 360 degree view of all your branches in a single dashboard.
Such insights can better inform the decision-making process, aid marketing departments in targeting key customer behaviours during promotions, product launches and more.

5. A truly omnichannel scheduling experience:

Customers interact with brands through both on- and offline channels. Your customer might be aware of your services via a paid ad in a search engine, then move to your Facebook page a few days later before finally booking a personal shopping consultation through your company website. This skipping between different touchpoints can be difficult to track and capture.

Integrating TIMIFY booking widgets to your emails, Facebook page, apps and more ensures a seamless customer journey with the ability to make a booking or amendment from any platform at any moment.

7. Enough flexibility to set up your online bookable services:

Create pre-determined 'Preparation and follow up times' for specific appointment types where you know that prior preparation, technical set-ups, staff changeovers or room cleaning post-appointment will always take place. This additional buffer time will be auto-assigned every time that specific service is booked, guaranteeing every element of an appointment is accounted for and leading to a smoother customer experience with fewer unscheduled delays.

10. Simplified resource scheduling:

Add all of your different resource types to the calendar and create ‘dependencies’ between services and the resources they require. For example, for an appointment to try a custom-made suit, the seller can auto-assign a salesperson, a tailor to take measurements and a changing room. When a client books the appointment, all related resources will be booked automatically.

In addition, you can split this booking into separate phases to make the most of your resources. The whole suit-fitting service has a duration of one hour, but for the first 20 minutes you only need to assign a salesperson to advise the customer. The following 30 minutes will then require the tailor to take the measurements and the final 10 minutes allow for the customer to finish in the changing room and make a payment.

By splitting the booking into three intervals, the tailor needs only be booked for the 30 minutes they are required, allowing them to be utilised elsewhere.