This is the use case whereby a call-to-action (CTA) button is exposed where no prior information is known or passed along. Typically from the homepage of a website, a visitor is able to simply and directly “schedule an appointment”.
The visitor has a highly visible button on the homepage, inviting him or her to get in touch.
In this use case, all information to schedule a human-to-human interaction needs to be collected, since no pre-configured parameters are available. We do not yet know exactly what
- the visitor wants to talk about;
- we don’t know his/her location,
- preferred meeting type, …
This implies a five step scheduling process:
Step 1 - Subject (S)
- We start with exposing all different categories, and letting the end-user choose a specific meeting subject from one of the categories.
Step 2 - Office (O)
- In step two we ask the end-user to indicate where (s)he would like to meet, and (s)he can choose to list his/her specific address, just a city name,….
- Next, we expose the different meeting types or meeting channels that are associated with the chosen subject. This means that a filter is applied, depending on chosen subject: only those meeting types that are activated for the chosen subject will be exposed.
- Pexip Engage supports four meeting types: in office and on location, two face-to-face meeting types, and phone and video meeting, two virtual meeting types. For each meeting subject, any combination of channels can be activated. This way a company decides centrally through which meeting channels certain expertise gets exposed.
- When the meeting type is defined, the list of available offices is presented. Here again, a filter is applied, where only those offices that support the chosen meeting subject, through the selected channel, are exposed. In this third step, the offices are listed in increasing distance from the earlier entered location (step 2).
Step 3 - Timetable (T)
- Depending on configuration, availability in an office is shown in a timetable as accumulated across the different agents associated with the chosen office, or an individual agent in the office can be selected – the company decides how they want to expose their resources.
- The availability time slots that are shown are again filtered, this time per subject, location and meeting channel. When across an office, they are aggregated across all the agents that support the chosen subject and meeting type.
- Moreover, each agent can connect any external calendar to his/her Pexip Engage account, ensuring that his/her actual, real-time, availability is taken into account: Pexip Engage will connect in real time with each of these calendars, for every agent shown, and display only available time slots that have no existing meeting in any of the collected calendars.
- The end-user now selects a day, time and meeting slot that he considers convenient, and confirms this slot.
Step 4 - Questionnaire (Q)
- Next, we move to the second to last step, where subject-specific questions are presented to the end-user. These questions are fully configurable by the customer: they are meant to collect additional, subject-related, information from the end-user, prior to the meeting - to prepare the advisor.
- Any type, number and combination of questions can be added: A/B-questions, multiple choice answers, number answers, short text, long text,…. A help text can be displayed with each question, and each question can be either optional or mandatory.
Step 5 - Personal contact details (C)
- Once the end-user has answered all mandatory questions, he moves to the fifth and final step, which is entering his/her personal data – so only now does Pexip Engage ask someone to provide his/her personal information, ensuring end-users don’t feel forced to provide too much data too early in the process. This way we reduce drop-offs, and we maximize the amount of successfully completed scheduling flows. Basically, we create a customer commitment by ensuring the meeting (and all of its whereabouts), before asking for personal information.
- There is also a structural limit in what personal information is asked for: Pexip Engage aims to collect only basic personal data – this is again aimed at not scaring people off, or at having them drop out because of a lengthy process. The basic ‘must-haves’ for Pexip Engage are first name, last name and email address. Having this is actually sufficient to know, register, and interact with a customer.
Summary
So without any existing or prior collected information, we have taken as little as five steps to allow an online visitor to schedule a human-to-human interaction about a subject of his choice, in a location of his/her choice, with an agent of choice, through a meeting type of his/her choice.
