ONLINE APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING - KPN

The “Workspace Management Services” Business Unit of Getronics creates reliable and flexibel work environments for large companies. A team of 50 Getronics project managers sucessfully find the balans between added value and cost reduction. The rol-out of a project often involves a large scale replacement of hardware and/or software.

The appointment scheduling challenge

• Upgrade 15.500 end users to Windows 7, located in 19 different buildings
• Schedule and manage 15.500 appointments in a short space of time
• The computers are upgraded remotely through the network and during the upgrade the end users must be online but may not use the computer
• The network capacity is the limiting factor, so the number of simultaneous upgrades is limited to 20

The online appointment scheduling solution

• The end users receive an invitation email for the upgrade. The email has a link with which the end user kan schedule a personal appointment for the upgrade. Obviously taking into account the limited network capacity and available timeslots
• After the appointmet is scheduled, the end user automatically receives a confirmation email including a link with which the end user may change the appointment if necessary
• The scheduled appointment can automtically be added to the end user's Outlook/Google/Lotus notes calendar to avoid missing the appointment
• The end user gets a reminder the day before to avoid forgetting the appointment
• Finally the scheduled appointments are fed to the automated upgrade tool that executes the upgrades on time

ONLINE APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING
Rotterdam School of Management

The appointment scheduling challenge

Over the last 40 years, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University has built up a reputation for being one of Europes leading business schools. The faculty has over 7.500 students and about 1.200 annual graduates. Vijf RSM student advisors support these students with daily questions on learning strategies, exam planning or even personal problems and challenges.

Before the RSM started using Reflex, the advisors' office was receiving a multitude of requests for appointments by phone, email or students arriving in person. This proces was very time consuming considering the fact that the advisors had to schedule and manage about 3.500 appointments a year.

"You have to interrupt your work to agree on a suitable date and time for the appointment. That costs at least 5 minutes per appointment. Furthermore the students still emailed later to reschedule the appointment. Sometimes it takes up to 6 emails or phone calls to agree on another suitable date and time. All together taking up about 20 minutes per appointment."

The online appointment scheduling solution

The advisors' office went looking for a way to save time for advisor's as well as students. After an online search they found Reflex Online. The advisors' office an the students are very happy with the online appointment scheduling system. Not only does it save a lot of time but it also improves the service. The students don't need to email or call if they need to schedule or reschedule an appointment, and the reminder service also ensures that appointments are not forgotten.