Survey Shows Benefit of Adding Online Scheduling Software Component to Social Media

July 5, 2012 - PRLog -- Scottsdale, AZ – Businesses and organizations that rely on Appointment-Plus online scheduling software to improve their booking processes are not only scheduling appointments through their Web site, newsletters or e-mail messages, some are also scheduling them through their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media pages, according to a recent survey conducted by the world’s leading provider of online scheduling solutions.

And almost 60 percent of those surveyed clients that offer online scheduling through their social media pages are experiencing an increase in the total number of appointments or reservations they book, illustrating the added benefit of including an online scheduling component to their social media efforts.

“Just as online scheduling has become a necessity for many businesses and organizations to grow and remain competitive, so too has social media,” says Bob La Loggia, CEO of Appointment-Plus. “Our online scheduling solutions mesh perfectly with social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and those that leverage these technologies to their advantage can expect their bookings to increase.”

Conducted in May, the survey shows that 66.7 percent of respondents that have added Appointment-Plus (http://www.appointment-plus.com) online scheduling to their social media pages believe that doing so has been beneficial to their business or organization. Other findings of the survey include:

• 25.9 percent of those respondents now schedule between 25 and 50 percent of their appointments or reservations through their social media pages.
• 66.7 percent of those respondents have a “Book Now” button on their social media page.
• Facebook is the most common social media site utilized by respondents (93.3 percent), followed by Twitter (42.9 percent), LinkedIn (38.7 percent) and YouTube (22.7 percent).

A perfect addition to social media business pages, Appointment-Plus provides the scheduling industry’s most proven and dependable features and functionality to automate, streamline and simplify the entire scheduling process from start to finish. This includes online self-scheduling, whereby individuals can book their own appointments and reservations from any Internet connection—including mobile scheduling on smartphones and tablets such as the iPad—at any hour of the day; automated e-mail and text message reminders sent prior to a scheduled appointment or reservation time; and robust reporting and record-keeping capabilities.

Especially well-suited for enterprises, franchises, corporations and large and medium-sized businesses, Appointment-Plus offers the most advanced suite of services designed to enhance the unique scheduling needs of these groups. Included in its Scheduling Cloud™ Enterprise Solution are:

• Application programming interface (API) functionality and Web services that allow for seamless integration with existing software systems.
• A highly scalable system that allows organizations to easily accommodate increases in workload, users and growth across numerous locations.
• The most configurable scheduling software system available.
• 24-hour support from its headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz.
• Dedicated business and support contacts.
• “Turnkey”, existing solutions that are instantly ready to go live.
• Custom graphic user interface (GUI) development.   

In addition to its premier functionality, features, services and customer support, Appointment-Plus also provides the scheduling industry’s most complete collection of plug-ins, integrations and modules to help businesses and organizations operate more efficiently and effectively. Among the items featured in its Marketplace are syncs with QuickBooks, Google Calendar and e-marketing service providers Constant Contact, iContact, MailChimp and Vertical Response.

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About Appointment-Plus: Appointment-Plus (http://www.appointment-plus.com) is the worldwide leader in online scheduling solutions for growing businesses, enterprises, higher education, government and logistics.  With over 15 million end-users and 85 million appointments booked since its inception in 2001, Appointment-Plus is one of the fastest growing cloud-based services in the world. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., organizations ranging in size from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses use Appointment-Plus to book an average of 3.5 million appointments monthly.