Online scheduling

[Brad Smith, RPT]

Thanks Fred and Jason,  
I've wanted to do online scheduling since 1995, and now it's time has
come. Customers are using it, and most people love it. 
I've been doing it for about 5 months now.  I looked at several of these
types of services, and this one seemed the best in price and ease of
use. 
www.appointmentquest.com
I'm currently booking 4 tunings per day to allow for a few shop hours at
the end of the day.
Out of 20 appointments per week, I'm averaging 18-19 booked online, no
phone calls required. 
Sounds like braggin?  Yup. I'm SO happy to have less phone time at
night!  :-)

The trick is organizing yourself along the lines of the functionality
they provide. 
You have to figure out, where you have the most customers, and ways to
overlap the geographic regions, so that you aren't crisscrossing town
too much. 
I have 3 schedules, which I put the various towns into, and arranged the
schedules to offer times that work for me. 

If you still want to book things 'live' while on the road, you need
Internet access to block out the appointments you make 'live'. 
I use a cell phone Aircard, that plugs into my HP iPaq.  Service costs
$39 per month for 150 minutes of Internet access at about 155K speed.
Worth it to me. 
You can also get 24/7 Internet access for $99 per month with this
Aircard.  I've not needed to go that route yet, but might.
http://www.sierrawireless.com/ProductsOrdering/AC5551xRTT.asp

The appointment quest service does have a 'confirmation' function, so if
you didn't want to be this wired up for access, you can choose to
confirm your booked appointments with the risk of having to reschedule
someone.   My goal is to make it rock solid reliable for people to
schedule, and I will jump over tall buildings to honor the booked time
and not move people around.  I believe that giving them this convenience
translates into higher value for my services. 

Also, I want to train my customers to fit my scheduling needs, because
I'm a 'push over' when someone asks me for exotic time constraints, etc.

My goal is to never have to call anybody for routine scheduling. For
that luxury, I'm willing to have a less than perfect schedule. 
And, when they book online, they review my pricing schedule, which
reduces the need for me to have to sell every little thing in person. 
Always trying to find ways of automating things. 

Now, when my phone rings I happily answer it, talk briefly and send them
to the website for scheduling.  The customer gets the 'feel good' they
need by talking in person, and I get less stress from trying to
scribble/schedule and steer the car at the same time. 
I can finish with an incoming call quickly before the hide glue dries,
or before my food gets cold. 


Best regards,
Brad Smith, RPT
www.smithpiano.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Brown [mailto:thepianoman@adelphia.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 10:20 PM
To: 'Brad Smith, RPT'; pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Online scheduling


 Anyone else check out Brad's web site? I did and the idea of online
scheduling really appeals to me. Is anyone else out there using this
method? Fred Brown RPT Atlanta, GA

-----Original Message-----
From: Brad Smith, RPT [mailto:staff@smithpiano.com] 
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2005 7:18 PM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Shop string dispenser

Hi All,
I saw Andre Bolduc's pinblock class in Nashville, and he briefly
described a rack they have in their shop, for storing and dispensing
strings. I want to build one but can't find my notes from the class.
Anyone else have the 'gist' of his idea; or have suggestions on best way
to store coils and dispense quickly while restringing? Thanks!


Best regards,

Brad Smith,RPT
www.smithpiano.com




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