News Report 8: Appointments Made Easy

In the article found on the New York Times website entitled “Making Appointments for Doctor or Dinner” Bob Tedeschi informed readers of new online booking companies. These companies take one of the most dreaded business tasks, setting up appointments, and make it incredibly easy with their online interface. The companies HourTown, Genbook, and BookingAngel are especially helping small service businesses that waste a lot of time by playing phone tag and writing e-mails to set up appointments. The way it works is that the person trying to book an appointment will have access to a calendar and can mark all the times they will be available for an appointment. The business they are trying to book with will go in and look at those times and send something back to them confirming which time works for them.

With technology constantly surrounding us and people spending more time using their phone for the internet rather than actually talking on it, these online booking agents will be incredibly attractive to use. It can be a bothersome process to try to book an appointment if you are trying to book with smaller service business that might only have a couple of employees. This can also be an important feature of a business that does actually have an appointment maker. These businesses can market this addition to busy professionals who do not have time to book their appointments by phone. If they simply enter their availability they will get a response which will fit their schedule. I think it is a good idea and I would probably use it on occasion, but I like the interaction with the business. The service will make business less personable. (WordCount: 282)

Article published March 31st, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/technology/31ecom.html?ref=technology