Scheduling Appointments With Deal Offers

Abstract

Provided herein are systems, methods and computer readable media for scheduling services and other types of appointments in conjunction with purchasing and/or redeeming deal offers. Merchants may customize a scheduling system to provide scheduling capabilities and deal redemption capabilities to consumers interested in scheduling appointments. A consumer may use the scheduling system to select dates and times, merchant locations, and/or staff members, among other things, when scheduling appointments, and provide deal and/or other payment related information to the merchant. Merchants may use the scheduling system and consumer date received therefrom to track resources across numerous locations, keep apprised of their staffs' availability, receive/generate analytics data related to the affect deals have on their business, and gain a better understanding of their customers. The scheduling system may be integrated into the merchant's website and/or linked to deals offered by a third party promotional system.

That which is claimed: 
     
         1 . A method of scheduling an appointment, comprising:
 presenting one or more deal offers;   receiving an indication of a selected deal offer being selected from the one or more deal offers, wherein the selected deal offer is associated with a merchant;   determining whether the selected deal offer is associated with scheduling functionality;   in response to determining the selected deal offer is associated with the scheduling functionality, accessing merchant availability information associated with the merchant;   receiving a scheduling request comprising scheduling details;   scheduling an appointment based on the scheduling request;   updating the merchant availability information based on the scheduling details;   receiving a deal identifier associated with the selected deal offer, wherein the deal identifier is associated with a discount in connection with the appointment; and   associating, by a processor of a networked machine, the appointment with the deal identifier to enable the discount to be applied to the appointment.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein associating the appointment with the deal identifier occurs after the appointment. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the merchant availability information comprises at least one of:
 available days and times;   service details;   class details;   location details;   service provider details; and   appointment padding times.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 receiving merchant resource information associated with a resource of the merchant, wherein the merchant resource information is associated with the appointment; and 
 in response to the appointment being scheduled, causing the resource information to be unavailable for other appointments. 
 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein receiving the merchant resource information comprises receiving information related to at least one of:
 tangible equipment required to perform the appointment; and   time required by a service provider to perform the appointment, wherein the time required by the service provider is defined by at least one of: (1) a duration of time and (2) a start time and an end time.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein receiving the information related to the time required to perform the appointment comprises receiving at least one of:
 padding time to be included between the appointment and another appointment to be performed by the same staff member; and   processing time that is available during the time required for the appointment, wherein the service provider associated with the appointment is available to perform other services unrelated to the appointment during the processing time of the appointment.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein associating the appointment with the deal identifier comprises:
 receiving information associated with the appointment from a scheduling system;   receiving the deal identifier associated with the appointment, wherein the deal identifier is retrieved from a networked database maintained by a third party based on the information associated with the appointment;   receiving a request to redeem a deal associated with the deal identifier; and   setting a status of the deal to redeemed.   
     
     
         8 . A method of  claim 1  further comprising, in response to receiving the merchant availability information:
 analyzing scheduling data; 
 generating, by a processor of a networked machine, a new deal offer based on at least the analysis of the scheduling data associated with the deal identifier; and 
 providing the new deal offer to a consumer. 
 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein providing the new deal offer occurs subsequent to receiving an indication of a merchant approving the new deal offer. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein generating the new deal offer is in response to receiving an indication of the merchant authorizing a promotional system to execute a promotional campaign using deal offers. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 8  further comprising:
 identifying patterns in availability over a period of time; 
 determining when consumers are less likely to schedule an appointment; and 
 generating a proposal for the new deal offer based on when consumers are less likely to schedule an appointment. 
 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 8  further comprising:
 identifying patterns in availability over a period of time as a result of analyzing the scheduling data; 
 determining when consumers are more likely to schedule an appointment from the patterns; and 
 generating a proposal for a high-demand deal offer based on when consumers are more likely to schedule an appointment that is discounted less than the selected deal offer. 
 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 8  further comprising:
 identifying patterns in availability over a period of time as a result of analyzing the scheduling data; 
 determining when consumers are less likely to schedule an appointment from the patterns; and 
 generating a proposal for a low-demand deal offer based on when consumers are less likely to schedule an appointment that is discounted more than the selected deal offer. 
 
     
     
         14 . A method for tracking analytics data, comprising:
 monitoring sales data;   monitoring scheduling data;   generating, by a processor of a networked machine, analytics data based on at least one of the sales data and the scheduling data; and   causing display of information conveying the analytics data to a merchant.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the analytics data comprises at least one of:
 an indication of a number of appointments booked using a deal offer;   an indication of a percentage of appointments booked using a deal offer compared to a number of total appointments booked; and   an indication that a deal offer has caused an increase in scheduling of appointments.   
     
     
         16 . A system comprising:
 circuitry configured to:
 present one or more deal offers; 
 receive an indication of a selected deal offer being selected from the one or more deal offers, wherein the selected deal offer is associated with a merchant; 
 determine whether the selected deal offer is associated with scheduling functionality; 
 in response to determining the selected deal offer is associated with the scheduling functionality, access merchant availability information associated with the merchant; 
 receive a scheduling request comprising scheduling details; 
 schedule an appointment based on the scheduling request; 
 update the merchant availability information based on the scheduling details; 
 receive a deal identifier associated with the selected deal offer, wherein the deal identifier is associated with a discount in connection with the appointment; and 
 associate, by a processor of a networked machine, the appointment with the deal identifier to enable the discount to be applied to the appointment. 
   
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 16 , wherein the appointment is associated with the deal identifier occurs after the appointment. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 16 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to:
 receive merchant resource information associated with a resource of the merchant, wherein the merchant resource information is associated with the appointment; and   in response to the appointment being scheduled, cause the resource information to be unavailable for other appointments.   
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 16 , wherein the circuitry configured to associate the appointment with the deal identifier comprises the circuitry configured to:
 receive information associated with the appointment from a scheduling system;   receive the deal identifier associated with the appointment, wherein the deal identifier is retrieved from a networked database maintained by a third party based on the information associated with the appointment;   receive a request to redeem a deal associated with the deal identifier; and   set a status of the deal to redeemed.   
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 16  further comprising, in response to receiving the merchant availability information:
 analyze scheduling data; 
 generate a new deal offer based on at least the analysis of the scheduling data associated with the deal identifier; and 
 provide the new deal offer to a consumer.