So many businesses and services need a reservation service to help manage queues. It seems that a company such as Yahoo, AOL or Google would be able to develop a site that would allow everyone--including small businesses, to book reservations for appointments or services. People trying to make appointments should be able to search and find open time slots, and make confirmed appointments using their PC or Smart Phone. Service providers would have to upload their availability, and should be able to choose options on how appointments should be made: For example: they could require people to use their credit card to make the appointment subject to a "no-show" fee, if the service provider desires. They may want to provide a logo for customer to see, they may require "new customers" to do something different than "repeat customers" The appointment length might be different depending upon the service selected etc.
I could see the service be used by doctors, therapists, lawyers, hair salons, barbershops, tax preparers, CPAs, escrow & title companies, financial advisors, engineering consultants, city services (building permits, for example), auto inspection & repair, etc.
Obviously, the scheduling button should be located on the businesses web site, but it could also come up with searches. For example, If I want to have my car smog-tested on Thursday at 1PM--could the search engine find the nearest business that has an opening at that time slot? Right now, there is no way of doing that search, that I know of.
Eventually, it could be operated similar to "pay per click" in that businesses would pay per appointment made & confirmed. Businesses would eventually save money because they could eliminate a administrative task.
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