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Scenario for the Appointment Booking System

A cable service company employs customer service representatives who handle calls from customers wanting to have cable installed. The cable installation requires that customers be present to let the field service engineer into their residence. Customers generally do not want to spend the entire day waiting for the engineer to arrive, which means that they are much happier if the service representative can give them a time range.

When the customer calls to schedule the cable installation, the service representative asks the customer for a general time when he or she expects to be at home. The customer service representative then attempts to book an appointment for this approximate time. During this process, the ABS returns a time window during which the field service engineer can arrive. The customer service representative can then book appropriately skilled field service engineers for a particular time range. Installing the cable takes approximately one hour, so the service representative may give the customer a time slot from 8 A.M. to 12 P.M. Booking field service engineers for a time range rather than a specific time allows some leeway in case problems occur—for example, traffic jams or jobs that run for longer than anticipated.