Top 10 reasons to use online appointment system for doctors
Doctors are lifesavers and that is why they shouldn’t be too far from those who need healthcare. With more and more people having the need to seek medical attention, doctors need to make their services accessible and available to their clients. One way they can do this is offering online appointment scheduling for clients. In this time and age where everything and anything can be found on the internet, you need to take advantage of the opportunities that online appointment system for doctors presents.
While you may not have products to sell or own an eCommerce store, you need to know that consumers expect service providers to make it easy to buy from them. Doctors provide medical service, so accepting appointments through your WordPress website offers that convenience that your clients expect of you. If you are skeptical about providing online appointment scheduling service for your patients, here are ten reasons that will convince you to do so.
1. Your Clients Want Convenience
Having an Online Appointment System is one step to making your customers satisfied with your services. New clients will want to book an appointment with you once they know that you have made your booking process easy. If they are impressed with their meeting with you, they will keep coming to you for treatment.
But how will they become loyal clients if they are turned off by your method of booking? This is why it is important that you use the online appointment system to woo them first. Most new patients will prefer booking an appointment online to talking on the phone with one of your staff whom they haven’t met before.
2. Patients Don’t Have to Wait Long Hours
If your clients still need to come to your clinic to book an appointment to see you, then you need to start thinking of using the online appointment system as soon as possible. No patient wants to spend hours waiting to book an appointment when there are system online doctors out there who are offering equal service with a booking system that makes appointment scheduling quick and stress-free. Sick patients want to be attended to as quickly as they come into your clinic. Instead of making your patients wait hours for their turn to book an appointment, provide a scheduling system and save them the stress.
3. Reduces Patient No-Shows
Patients can sometimes forget that they have a doctor’s appointment causing them to disappointment you on the scheduled date. With an online appointment system, however, there will be fewer disappointments as the system is designed to send reminders and confirmations to clients after they book an appointment. This way clients can look forward to their meeting with you and prepare well for it. Online scheduling system helps you to be organized and plan your activities around your meetings with your clients.
4. Saves You and Your Employees Tons of Time
Before this time, many service providers who require their clients to book appointments in advance relied on their staff to do the bookings manually. In fact, in some companies where the secretary had too much workload, another hand was employed to oversee bookings and scheduling.
Now, however, you do not need your staff to ensure that bookings are done correctly. Your clients can go online and book appointments for themselves. For one thing, you can be confident that the correct information will be entered in the booking form since the patients will fill it themselves. Most importantly, it saves you and your staff time. The time that would have been used to answer phone calls or reply to emails of clients who want to book appointments can be used to accomplish other tasks, thus increasing productivity in the workplace.
5. Allows Clients to Book at Any Time and Place
With their mobile devices and the internet, patients can book an appointment from wherever they are and at any time. This is one of the major benefits of using the doctors online system. Agreed, many people may still use the telephonic appointment booking method, but these methods have a lot of challenges. Foremost among them is that the patient cannot call to make an appointment whenever they like. It must be within the hours that the phone lines are open. With the online booking system, however, you can book an appointment at any time and from any place.
6. It’s the trend
These days, most people are internet and tech-savvy, so they prefer to do everything on their smartphones and computers. It just makes things easier for everyone. Making your service available to people online shows that you are following the trend which is allowing your clients to reach you via their smartphones and gadgets.
Another thing you should know is that most service providers whose customers need to book an appointment before they can be attended to use the Online Appointment System to make the process easy and fast for their clients. Why would you want to stick to traditional ways of scheduling appointments when others have gone past that?
7. Better Management of Your Schedule
The online booking system puts you in control of your schedule and appointments. Now, you can organize your activities and plan ahead for the day without fear of last-minute cancellations on the part of clients.
With the booking system, you can control the number of people who can view your bookings and you can also make quick changes to the schedule. You can specify how long in advance an appointment can be canceled by patients. This way you are sure of how many patients you will be attending to in one day.
8. Gives You an Edge in Your Industry
The convenience of online appointment scheduling enhances user experience, and this is what your patients want. Both prospective and existing customers will want to stick to a service provider that has their best interest at heart.
Your patients who know how easy it is to book an appointment with you and who knows that you are good at what you do will likely spread the word. Their good word and referral can go a long way in expanding your client base. If you want to reach more people, offer quality service and watch others advertise your business for you.
9. It is User-friendly
If you are worried that your client might find the online booking system difficult to use, relax! Most booking systems are easy to use and does not require any installation before clients can use them. Patients can access and book appointments directly without having to go through an instruction manual to learn how to do so. Your patients will be delighted to book an appointment on an online system that presents no challenges at all.
10. Mobility
If you have all your patients information in a particular computer or register, you will not be able to access it from anywhere else unless you are in the clinic or wherever the computer is. This can be a setback when you urgently need a patient’s information but are not close to the computer.
With the Online Appointment System, you can access and manage patient information from anywhere. Since all the information on your appointment system is backed up on cloud, you only need a device that is connected to the internet to get the information you want.
The advantages of using an online appointment system far surpass any disadvantages it may have. Over time, you and your clients will adjust to the new booking method and you will begin to reap the benefits that are associated with it.
Using WordPress Plugins For Booking
WordPress is an excellent platform for running a website that will promote your business and publishing great content for readers. For online doctors, WordPress is especially beneficial because it has booking plugins that allow your patients to book appointments with ease.
Adding booking functionality to your WordPress site helps to convert new patients to loyal clients. Patients don’t just want good health treatment, they want efficient service, they want you to value their time and make their satisfaction your priority.
How do you know that your website needs a WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin?
After creating your website, It’s necessary to know if you really need a WordPress booking plugin or not. The truth is, not all businesses need an appointment booking system but if your practice requires that your client book an appointment first before seeing you, then you absolutely need it. If you are a doctor, a dentist or therapist, a booking system will save you time and cost and also increase your efficiency.
The features to look out for when choosing a doctor appointment system include:
- Multiple calendar views
- Cancellation policies
- Multi-language support
- Customizable service options
- Email and SMS notifications
Most times, when medical practitioners who offer online doctor service create a website on WordPress, their challenge becomes installing the necessary plugin to allow their patients to book appointments. One of the best WordPress plugins for doctors is the Bookly plugin.
The Bookly WordPress plugin is an online booking system that allows businesses of various kinds to offer their client convenience and greater customer satisfaction. There are many reasons why it is a fantastic choice for doctors. Consider the following:
1) It Maintains a Fully Customizable Booking Form
You can change the look of the booking form to suit the needs of your business. The layout of the form can be altered to whatever works best for your business and brand. You can add new fields, change color, customize the text and hide or display specific fields with Bookly.
2) Sends Out notifications
Bookly reminds you of upcoming appointments by sending SMS and email notifications. The plugin will alert you of all appointments made through the booking plugin as the date draws near. It also sends out notifications to customers who have booked an appointment, telling them whether or not their bookings were approved.
3) Import and Export Your Customer List
You can import patient information into the plugin whenever you want. Plus, Bookly allows you to export various kinds of information including your customer list, appointment log, and other customer details.
4) Compatibility with WooCommerce
Bookly Pro is compatible with WooCommerce and this is a great relief for service providers who are confused about the payment gateway to use. No matter the size of your business, you can use Bookly and enjoy the benefits of using the WooCommerce payment gateway.
5) Multi-Language Support
There are a few plugins that support as many languages as Bookly does. Patients who can’t speak English fluently can book appointments in their native language. Bookly’s compatibility with WPML makes it possible for the patient’s language to be translated into English or any of the other eleven languages that the plugin supports.
6) Unlimited and Searchable Customer List
The plugin provides you with Filterable and searchable customer list, allowing you to manage your client base efficiently. It also allows you to open and assign WordPress accounts to each of your patients, go through their payment history and take down short notes about them.
7) Simplifies the Work of Employees
With a plugin like Bookly, the task of booking manually will be eliminated and employees will have more time to engage in other activities that will benefit your business. Having too many people in the queuing up in your clinic to book an appointment may make the place rowdy and unorganized. It might be too much work to ask your employees to manage the crowd while carrying out their various duties. An online booking system like Bookly helps to avert situations like this.
Conclusion
Having the ability to help sick people get better is a rare privilege that only doctors and a few other professionals have. While it gives great fulfillment to see your patients regain their health, you want to make the process of receiving treatment easy for them. The online appointment system gives you a chance to show that you are interested in the welfare of your patients even before they get to meet you.
The booking system also allows people in different locations to come to you for treatment. While being an online medical doctor will help expand your client base, remember that you will also be putting a smile on the faces of those who have benefited from your efficient service. The Online Appointment System is a trend that will continue to gain popularity. It has come to stay and will make appointment scheduling a piece of cake for clients.
