THE CHALLENGE:
Our client, an Entrepreneurial Institute, provides training, research, fundraising, and networking opportunities to budding entrepreneurs within a community.
Entrepreneurs, with hopes of pitching their ideas and securing the Institute’s benefits, would book appointments, but the sheer number of incoming requests was becoming overwhelming for the staff.
The CEO reported that “some employees were booking up to 20 meetings a day to match the rising appointment demands”. As a result, the staff was overburdened, which led to an increase in delays and a drop in customer service quality.
Moreover, scheduling appointment requests was further complicated by the need to cross-reference and document multiple appointments across multiple schedules, which were recorded with highly manual methods: phone calls and emails.
THE OBJECTIVE:
Though the client was effectively using Salesforce® to manage their database of investors, partners, mentors and mentees, they recognized the need for a more robust scheduling method which would better serve their community.
The client chose SUMO scheduler, and requested a bespoke appointment scheduling solution with the following features:
- A Salesforce native platform that would retain key critical data
- Self-scheduling features for the staff to efficiently manage appointments
- Safeguards to ensure no more double bookings or missed meetings
- A customized routing system that would connect the entrepreneurs to the right representatives
THE SOLUTION:
SUMO’s Appointment Scheduler was built native to the Salesforce platform, meaning that the client’s critical data remained entirely within the Salesforce ecosystem. This setup reduced the risks associated with data being processed on external servers, thus fortifying security.
Furthermore, SUMO’s Appointment Scheduler allowed the institute to switch to communication methods that would automatically schedule any type of appointment without requiring an employee’s constant involvement: in-person, via phone, video, or even through a web conference.
Critically, a customized Assignment Engine allowed SUMO to automatically handle the matchmaking, scheduling meetings for Entrepreneurs with the right representatives by taking into consideration their availability, location, time, and the meeting method.
These features, coupled with the insertion of multiple calendars and schedules into an intuitive, configurable platform, allowed the Institute an at-a-glance view of all customer interactions, allowing them to deliver highly personalized service.
THE RESULT:
Through the implementation of SUMO Scheduler’s customized platform, the Entrepreneurship Institute experiencing no more issues with overlapping schedules, double bookings or missed meetings.
The proprietary Assignment Engine now automatically routes appointment requests to a representative or mentor based on their calendar availability, whereas the Self-scheduling feature has allowed the Institute to focus on scheduling follow-up meetings, helping young entrepreneurs further develop their ideas.
Owing to the above , the Institute’s staff has been able to claim back a significant amount of their daily work day, allowing that time to be directed to other important tasks.
