When the Netherlands was to open up again after more than two months of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers were demanded to offer their customers winkelen op afspraak – shopping by appointment. To meet this demand and be able to welcome their customers again, market leading shoe chain Scapino wanted an appointment scheduling software system, and in just a few days, Qmatic got them the solution they needed.
Scapino has 171 stores all over the Netherlands, selling a wide range of shoes, clothes, toys, and sports equipment. They wanted a solution where their customers easily could book their own 30 minute appointments for shopping, or short stops for returning goods.
A big assignment
The various Scapino stores can host different numbers of shoppers depending on their size and design, and all the 171 branches can take well over a thousand shoppers at any given moment. And over a thousand shoppers entering and leaving 171 locations every 30 minutes makes thousands of possible bookings a day. In other words, there is a lot of data to administrate. Scapino found Qmatic via LinkedIn and requested a demonstration of our appointment scheduling software.
Qmatic’s solution to Scapinos challenges was a cloud implementation of Qmatic Orhcestra 7. Connecting this and its Appointment Management and Web Booking modules to Scapino’s email server made it possible for customers to easily see and choose from open time slots at the different branches, schedule their shopping appointment, and get a confirmation via email or sms. The web-form is very user-friendly, and the appointment is made in just a few clicks. The confirmation serves as an entrance ticket.
A quick implementation
The entire system was up and going in just a few days: The servers and the database were installed on Friday, completing configurations made on Monday, and testing performed before the online booking opened on Tuesday. And when the stores opened on Wednesday March 3rd there were already 12,000 shopping appointments made!
Rules regarding the number of visitors allowed per store, floor or square meter change fast in the Netherlands, and the system’s capacity has already been extended. Scapinos’s customers enjoy their winkelen op afspraak, and employees describe the appointment booking solution as a success.