Online booking

For the patient, online booking removes the main barrier: no need to ring during opening hours and wait for someone to pick up. For the clinic, it is a channel that works in the evening, at weekends and whenever the receptionist is busy with another patient. But it only works on one condition: the schedule in the system matches the real one.

What to track

• what share of bookings comes in online, and at what times of day;
• how many online bookings were confirmed and how many ended in a no-show;
• how many people started a booking and abandoned it halfway, if your system shows this;
• whether an online booking and a phone booking have ever landed in the same slot.

Work out the no-show rate separately for online bookings and for bookings made through reception: the number of no-shows divided by the number of bookings in each group. That shows where confirmation is weaker.

Common mistakes and what to do

• An out-of-date schedule. The patient picked a slot, but the doctor is not in that day. One mistake like that costs the clinic this patient's trust.
• Too many steps. Every extra field is a reason to close the page. Keep only what you need: service or doctor, time, name, phone number.
• Nobody confirms the booking. A patient who hears nothing from the clinic after booking online can easily forget the visit. Decide who confirms these bookings and when.
• A new patient with no conversation. Someone with a complex case often needs to talk before the visit. Set up a short introductory call after they book online.

Online booking does not replace the front desk; it takes the simple cases off its hands. Complex questions are still settled in a conversation with a person. You can read more about how I set up front-desk work on the services page.