Article
Don't make these mistakes with online booking - the 5 most common mistakes
After starting an online booking, the life gets better? Not always.
Online booking can be a new pain in the neck, if the entrepreneur stumbles into the most common mistakes right from the start. Read how you can avoid the five most common mistakes related to online appointment booking. Then and you will rock with online appointment booking like in the picture above.
Online booking does not do the work for you
Don't sit with your feet on the table and wait for customers to find you. An online booking is like a store, an online store or, for example, your Facebook page: it will need the same marketing methods as your product and services need.
How many of your clients accidentally finds your store if they don't know where it is located? As in sales - promotion, marketing and information will help to increase the number of your bookings.
Launching an online booking is often an excellent idea. However, if you don't know whether you are getting new bookings or not, online booking can turn into a disappointment. First ask yourself, would you - as a consumer - make a booking using your website? Would you book a massage online? Probably yes, and you'd be happy to.
On the other hand, you might not make a booking for a visit to a cafe or a spontaneous lunch, unless the booking gives you some special benefit (for example, the chance to take a seat at the best table in town).
Take our five-point checklist, and your online booking will shine like a star!
Avoid these five mistakes with online booking
There is a simple way to avoid mistakes: test, market and give some benefits to your clients.
- Testing was not done. When the settings for your online booking are done, don't forget to log out and test your online booking "with the eyes of the customer".
Too often, the entrepreneur only notices weeks later that the appointment calendar was forgotten to be published, no times where available or contact information of the company was not added. Because the testing was not done, you could lose dozens of new customers in a couple of weeks. - You did not let your clients now about your new online booking. Would you start a new company, and not tell anyone about it? Hardly.
Your customers may find your online booking calendar accidentally, but the best way to get them to book their appointment online is to tell your customers about it. So don't forget to market your online booking, just like you would do with your company's services! - Customers do not have a reason to try out your online booking for the first time. According to research, the first time booking an appointment online is the scariest for your clients.
After the customer has used your online appointment booking for the first time, more than 90% of them will come back and book online next time. So don't forget to launch a campaign for online bookers: Give some benefit for those booking an appointment online. Customer can redeem by making their booking by themself (for example, a product package at a discounted price). - Nothing to be booked. An empty appointment calendar will drive your customers into the arms of your competitor. Your appointment book must have free times available at all times!
Remember, you do not have the opportunity to negotiate with your customer when booking online. So, it's better to open too many time to be booked than too few. Reorganizating bookings is a better than no customers at all. - You made booking too difficult and cancellations too easy. Do you want to collect as much information about your client as available, even before the treatment? Don't!
Each additional field in the booking flow reduces the probability of a new booking by up to 80%. Make booking as easy as possible for the customer, and ask the customer to fill for as few information as possible during the booking flow. Do the opposite with cancellations: don't allow the customer to get a full refund, for example, if your customer cancels the appointment on too frivolous grounds.
