Schedulicity’s New ‘Deal Manager’ Helps Service Providers Thrive w/ Daily Deals

BOZEMAN, Mont.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Schedulicity (www.schedulicity.com), the leader in online appointment scheduling for small businesses, today unveiled Deal Manager, a new, first of its kind scheduling service that allows appointment-dependent businesses to define the maximum number of appointments that can be generated over the lifespan of a given promotion and configure how many promotional appointments will be accepted per day or for the entire duration of the deal.

“Deal Manager is easy to implement for both merchants and daily deal providers. We expect this to drastically enhance the value of the daily deals for merchants while allowing their customers to easily schedule and redeem services.”

Deal Manager was created directly in response to the proliferation of daily deal companies and the potential challenges they pose to small businesses. Many service providers are inundated with discounted appointment calls after partnering with a daily deal site, particularly at the beginning or end of a deal cycle. As a result, discounted appointments will often cannibalize full-priced services and inconvenience loyal existing customers and potential full priced walk-ins. In addition, merchants may need to hire more resources to just to accommodate the spikes caused by daily deals.

“The rapid adoption of daily deals by consumers and merchants has revealed a need to thoughtfully manage the flow of leads generated from deals,” said Neal Polachek, President of BIA/Kelsey. “Solutions like Schedulicity’s Deal Manager help small businesses take advantage of the promotional opportunities offered by the deals phenomenon without becoming a victim of its success.”

The effects of daily deals on small businesses are a topic of heated debate. While some businesses believe daily deal promotions are a way to bring in new customers, other experts believe they actually harm the business as well as cost the service provider money. Rice University conducted a survey-based study of 324 businesses that conducted a daily deal promotion between August 2009 and March 2011, finding that 55.5% of businesses reported making money, while 26.6% lost money and 17.9% broke even on their promotions. According to the study, “Only about 20 percent of customers using daily deals return to businesses to buy at full price.”

“While we’ve seen the power of daily deals and potential benefits for merchants, there are also some draw backs if merchants aren’t careful,” said Schedulicity CEO Jerry Nettuno. “Deal Manager is easy to implement for both merchants and daily deal providers. We expect this to drastically enhance the value of the daily deals for merchants while allowing their customers to easily schedule and redeem services.”

This development can also help daily deal providers easily integrate calendars on behalf of a merchants. "It's critical that merchants get a specialized service to help manage and schedule the coupons purchased through the daily deal sites -- especially Groupon and LivingSocial,” said John Sofield, VP of business development of daily deal website, The Dealmap. “Many businesses completely underestimate the cost of scheduling and the distractions daily deals can create. This solution from Schedulicity is an absolute essential to support the growth and expansion of the deal space."

Schedulicity takes the effort out of time-consuming tasks by completely automating and streamlining the entire scheduling process for daily services. Appointment-dependent small businesses that offer scheduling 24 hours a day through Schedulicity’s digital channels are able to easily and effectively attract new business, increase the frequency with which their current clients book appointments, and concentrate on providing the best possible service during their business hours.

Beyond the regular subscription rate, there is no additional cost to the service provider for Deal Manager. Schedulicity is completely free for the consumer.

About Schedulicity

Schedulicity is the leading online appointment scheduling solution for small businesses. To date, more than 5,000,000 appointments have been booked through Schedulicity (an appointment is booked every five seconds) in more than 1,900 cities across the U.S. and Canada. Over $450 million in commerce is being booked per year using Schedulicity. To sign up for the service or to find a service provider near you, please visit http://www.schedulicity.com or Schedulicity’s Facebook page.

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