Managing your appointments

This topic explains how you as an Agent can manage your appointments, including cancelling and rescheduling appointments, accepting incoming appointment requests, and processing completed appointments.

It covers:

• Viewing an appointment to see all its information, and if necessary action it
• Asking the customer to reschedule an appointment at a date and time that suits them
• Rescheduling an appointment yourself (where you select the new time)
• Assigning an appointment to a colleague, keeping the same date and time
• Cancelling an appointment altogether
• Confirming an appointment that has been requested by a customer
• Completing an appointment after it has taken place
• Reopening an appointment that was previously marked as completed
• Recording that the customer didn't attend an appointment.

If you need to cancel or change the date or time of an appointment, you must do this from within the Engage Backoffice. This ensures that customers are notified and their automatic reminders are updated.

Viewing an appointment

There are two ways to find and view an appointment:

• From the Calendar tab, where you can search appointments by date, and then click on a particular appointment to view it.
• From the Appointments tab, where you can search appointments by status, and then select View to view a particular appointment.

When viewing an appointment, various actions will be available depending on the current status of the appointment. These are all described below.

Viewing appointment details

The appointment details include the answers to any questionnaire the customer completed, and any Internal Notes.

To view these details:

1. Find and view the appointment.

   A panel will open showing a summary of the appointment under an Appointment tab.

2. Select View detail page.

   The panel expands out. On the right side of the panel are up to four tabs with the following icons:

            

3. Choose a tab to view more information:
   • To view the answers to the questionnaire (if one is available for the selected subject), select Questions & Answers

   • To view Appointment metadata, select

     Appointment metadata is information that is sent to your organisation's internal systems (such as CRM or AMS), and will only appear if this functionality has been implemented by your Administrator.

   • To view, edit or add Internal Notes about the appointment, select

   • To view the appointment History, such as when it was first created or last updated, select

Asking the customer to reschedule an appointment

You can change the date or time of an appointment by asking the customer to select a new date and time that suits them. You might need to do this because:

• you can't attend an upcoming appointment at the original time
• you missed the original appointment time
• you want to schedule a follow-up meeting for a completed appointment.

To ask the customer to reschedule:

1. Find and view the appointment.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select Reschedule.

   The Reschedule appointment panel appears.

3. Select Request customer to reschedule.
4. Optionally, Add a message for the customer.
5. Select Send Request.

The customer receives an email that includes your message, asking them to make alternative appointment suggestions. The email includes a link they can use to select a new time, and to cancel the appointment.

The appointment remains in your calendar and in your appointments list with a status of Request.

Rescheduling an appointment yourself

You can change the date or time of an appointment by selecting a new date and time yourself, and automatically informing the customer of the change. You might need to do this because:

• you can't attend an upcoming appointment at the original time
• you missed the original appointment time
• you want to schedule a follow-up meeting for a completed appointment.

To reschedule the appointment yourself:

1. Find and view the appointment

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select Reschedule

   The Reschedule appointment panel appears.

3. Enter the new date and time.
4. Optionally, Add a message for the customer.
5. Select Reschedule.

The customer will receive an email that includes your message, informing them that their appointment has been updated. The email also includes links for them to cancel or reschedule the appointment.

The appointment appears in your calendar and appointments list with a status of Request.

Assigning an appointment to a colleague

If you can't attend an upcoming appointment, another option is to keep it at the same date and time but have one of your colleagues attend instead. To do this:

1. Find and view the appointment.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select Reassign.
3. You'll see a list of Agents who are available at the selected date and time. Select one of these Agents.
4. Optionally, Add a message for the customer.
5. Select Reassign.

The customer will receive an email that includes your message, informing them that their appointment has been updated. The email also includes links for them to cancel or reschedule the appointment.

The appointment will no longer appear in your calendar or appointments list.

Viewing and adding internal notes

Internal notes are a way for you to provide reminders to yourself, or information to your colleagues, about a particular appointment or customer. Internal notes are not visible to customers themselves, only to other Employees in your organisation who have access to view that appointment.

To view and add internal notes:

1. Open the appointment (either from your own Appointments tab if it is one of your own appointments, or from the Calendar tab if it's for you or someone in your office).

2. Select the Notes tab .

   If there are already notes for this appointment, you'll see them here.

3. To add a new note, or edit the existing note, select the edit icon :

   

4. Enter the information you wish to note, and select Save.

Cancelling an appointment

If you can't attend an upcoming appointment and can't reschedule it or assign it to a colleague, you should cancel it. When doing so, you can add a message to the customer informing them of the reason for the cancellation.

1. Find and view the appointment.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select Cancel appointment.

   The Cancel appointment panel appears.

3. You may be asked to select the Reason for the cancellation from a list of options (if your Administrator has set this up as a requirement).

4. Optionally, Add a message to the customer explaining the reason for the cancellation.

5. Select Cancel appointment.

The customer will receive an email that includes your message, informing them that their appointment has been cancelled.

The appointment will no longer appear in your calendar or appointments list.

Confirming an appointment

If you or your Office Manager has set your appointments to Confirm Manually (rather than be accepted automatically), or if you've asked a customer to reschedule an appointment, then you'll need to accept the proposed appointment. To do this:

1. Find and view the appointment. It will be under the Requests tab.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. The Customer suggestion section shows the date and time proposed by the customer. If it is okay, select Accept. (If it's not okay, use the drop-down button to reschedule the appointment.)

The customer receives an email that includes your message, informing them that their appointment has been accepted. The email also includes links for them to cancel or reschedule the appointment.

The appointment appears in your calendar and appointments list with a status of Upcoming.

Completing an appointment

After you've attended an appointment with a customer, you can mark it as completed. This allows you to record information about the appointment, such as the time taken or the outcome. This information also helps Administrators with their analytics. Whether you need to mark an appointment as completed will depend on your organisation's workflow, so check with your Administrator.

To complete an appointment:

1. Find and view the appointment.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select Complete appointment.

   The Complete appointment panel appears.

3. Update the date and time taken for the appointment.

4. You may be asked to select the Reason for the completion from a list of options (if your Administrator has set this up as an option).

5. Add any information about the appointment in the Outcome Remark section.

6. Select Complete appointment.

The appointment appears in your calendar and appointments list with a status of Completed.

Reopening an appointment

If you need to see the Internal Notes and details of a completed appointment, you can reopen the appointment.

1. Find and view the completed appointment.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select Reopen appointment.

The appointment appears in your calendar and appointments list at the original time with a status of Past.

Recording that the customer didn't attend

If the customer didn't attend the meeting and didn't reschedule it, you can tag the appointment accordingly. This information helps Administrators with their analytics.

To do this:

1. Find and view the appointment.

   A panel will open showing details of the appointment.

2. Select the arrow next to the Complete appointment button and select Customer didn't show.

The appointment is deleted from your calendar and appears in your appointments list with a status of Completed.