Interesting development in Online Scheduling Visibility
Since the middle of 2015 Google have been testing Knowledge Panel feature and Place Actions Forms to allow scheduling via Intuit’s Demand Force with appointment based businesses. This sees Google integrating online “Make an appointment” software into local businesses’ knowledge graphs more often than it used to.
The logical conclusion is that participating businesses should eventually outrank others that are not involved in the program. To date the companies participating are:
- DemandForce/ Intuit (original trial)
- MyTime
- Genbook
- Zocdoc
- Booker.com
It will be interesting to see how wide Google make this offer to participate and what the cost is for those Cloud companies who will no doubt need to pass on to their user base.
For now Google have posted an application form (of sorts) which includes this text:
At this time Google is not actively seeking additional action link providers, but if you own/work for a website or mobile app which offers restaurant reservations, appointment booking, online ordering, or other similar services which can be directly reserved online by end users, and would like to let Google know, you are welcome to fill out this form. Responses to this form will be monitored but may not receive a direct response, you may be contacted if we continue to expand this feature in the future.
Watch this space.
