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Online Diary Allows UK Driving School to Increase Bookings by 50% in Less Than 6 Weeks

by: Keith Longmire

Sound impossible? Just another over hyped headline?

You’d certainly be forgiven for thinking so. But this is precisely what UK driving school owner Gary Rowlands reports after less than 6 weeks of using the Intelligent Online Diary.

Like many driving schools, Approved Driving School gets bookings from 3 routes:

· Directly to the School over the telephone.

· At the end of each lesson the instructors will always seek to book the next lesson with their pupils.

· The instructors and their partners or spouses also tend to take bookings too.

As you might imagine, diary coordination was a nightmare. No matter where the master diary was kept, whether in the office or with the instructors there were always either gaps, which mean lost money, or double bookings, which cause problems and can lose good customers.

Online Diary - Coordination Made Easy
The Intelligent Diary is an online diary, accessed through web browsers and through a Pocket PC smart phone.

Nothing new in that you might say.

But, unlike existing PDA online diaries, the Intelligent Diary is instantly updated through the integrated mobile telephone. No matter where or when you check your diary, it is 100% up to date.

And it doesn’t matter how many people make bookings for you.

Each instructor carries their Pocket PC with them. When they take follow-on lesson bookings they enter it directly into the online diary through the Pocket PC. The driving school can access every instructor’s diary through the office PC or through their own Pocket PC. All bookings made are instantly updated on the online diary the bookings seen by the instructors or by the school staff are always up to date. Partners and spouses can be given access too.

Get Your Life Back Under Control
“I used to spend all my time on the telephone trying to confirm bookings with the instructors. Trouble was, they keep their phones switched off during lessons and we couldn’t always catch them between lessons. This is a competitive business. We used to lose about 50% of new customers because we couldn’t confirm lesson times straight away” says Gary Rowland. “Now I can see all the instructor’s diaries, place a booking for a lesson and confirm it right away”.

The benefits for Gary were immediate and obvious. Bookings have increased by 50% or more. Maybe just as importantly, now Gary is no longer constantly fighting fires he has more time to work on his business. He is already thinking of expanding across London and beyond.

“Every driving school has this problem”, Gary says, “We’ve got it taped.”

Gary knows that the online diary sets him apart from his competitors. As an additional benefit, he is finding more instructors want to work with him at Approved Driving School. The word of more bookings and less hassle seems to be spreading quickly.

Make Double Bookings a Thing of the Past
It is not only Gary that has benefited though. His instructors are making more money than ever before. And double bookings are practically non-existent.

“Double bookings used to be my nightmare”, says Richard Nelson. “Gary would make educated guesses on our availability to try and make sure we got as much business as possible. Sometimes it would go wrong and we would get double booked. Sorting out double bookings was a real pain. With Intelligent Diary this hardly ever happens now. It has made my life a whole lot better I can tell you”.

Does Your Business Need the Intelligent Diary?
This is a real case study. Gary even stunned us with his 50% increase in bookings. But Gary is more than happy to stand by his figures. What’s more, he is now an Intelligent Diary reference customer and is more than happy to take calls from anyone genuinely interested in buying the Intelligent Diary.

So, could you benefit from the Intelligent Diary?

If you or your team spend significant time out of the office for whatever reason and have multiple people making appointments for you, the answer is almost certainly yes.

About the author:
Keith Longmire is a self-confessed technophile and a director of Intelligent Diary. His philosophy is, "If it doesn't deliver cost-effective business benefits, it's worse than useless". Take a look at Intelligent Diary for more information.

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