So, you are trying to find ways to boost sales using an online booking system?
Truth be told, you are already on the right track. Investing in online booking software is certainly a wise decision on your part. Of course, switching from manual booking to online scheduling can be frightening. But if you are trying to improve sales and increase revenue, online booking is the way forward.
Do you know that 67% of people like to book appointments online?
Surprising, Isn’t it?
Services businesses can jump on this bandwagon to maximize sales using the right tools. The good thing is that you can easily integrate online scheduling with your CRMs or management software. For example, you use gym software for online bookings, scheduling, and fitness class appointments.
Who can benefit from online booking software?
The ways we do business are changing a the world moves online. In 2023, around 64.6% of people across the globe are using the internet one way or the other. As a result, SMBs and enterprises are trying to engage customers through digital adaptation.
According to Statista, food, event, and fitness are the top 3 industries using online bookings to engage customers.
Other industries that are utilizing management software with online booking systems are:
- Cosmetics
- Legal
- Taxation
- Household services
10 Tips on Increasing Sales through Online Booking Systems
Integrating an online booking system with your in-store or online businesses is no guarantee of revenue increases. To improve sales, you’ve to tap your businesses’ uncapped resources and potential. Below are some creative ways through which a small business can boost its sales using online booking software.
Booking Appointments from Multiple Platforms
A good online booking software is one that provides an omnichannel experience to its users. After all, no business can strive while relying on a single source of traffic or leads. So, while integrating the online booking system, make sure your customers can schedule appointments directly from your:
- Website
- Google Business Profile
- social media channels
Businesses can generate leads with social listening using a reliable DM marketing tool. This way, you’ll be able to offer true omnichannel experience to your customers across multiple platforms. They can easily make appointments and schedule classes or personal sessions without visiting a specific portal.
Providing 24/7 Booking Support
The biggest advantage of online appointment software is perhaps the 24/7 support availability. In simple words, you can automate the booking process, allowing people to fix appointments at any time. Whether you are open or closed during off-hours or due to holidays, the software will be up and running. Such flexibility allows you to secure leads when they are warm and generate more bookings.
The best part is that you don’t have to worry about missing calls from potential clients. Your customers will be making appointments on their desired day, considering your availability.
Enabling Self-Scheduling
One of the many conveniences that scheduling software offers is the ease of appointment. These tools make booking easy by providing options to potential clients, ensuring you get more customers. Depending on your businesses, they can pick:
- Different locations
- Hours
- Trainers or consultants
Of course, self-scheduling for a multi-location business is hectic, but not with software scheduling. An appointment scheduling system enables customers to view and book appointments during the available time slots.
Creating Upselling Opportunities
Another way to boost sales using an online booking system is through upselling. You get to promote relevant services or products to customers who are already looking for similar solutions. All you need to do is bundle similar services or products, considering the requirements of your ideal audience.
For example, if you are in travel services, you can entice customers to upgrade their transportation packages. This can be done by showing ingenious visuals or displaying the benefits of respective services.
Similarly, you can urge them to spend more by suggesting useful courses, discounted services, or popular meals. You can promote such add-ons by displaying customized offers or packages that meet their needs or desires. For example you can use menu templates to promote your restaurant or food shop. However, don’t try to oversell your services as this may cause disappointment among them.
Reducing Human Errors
A lot can go wrong during manual booking, whether you are taking appointments over the phone or in person. You have to cope with incorrect dates, improper timings, and double bookings, just to name a few. A small error or wrong data entry can destroy your schedule for the day or whole week.
Online booking systems are perfect shift scheduling tools that reduce such human errors. So, you can rely on them for error-free data entry when it comes to online appointments.
Booking software ensures you have enough appointments spread throughout the week or month. Thus, these tools save you from overbooking while ensuring you aren’t under booked. You’ll have a steady flow of customers visiting your business looking for services that you expel in.
Improving Overall Customer Experience
When it comes to curating your business online, user experience plays a crucial role. It’s the make-or-break factor that can single-handedly win you clients in the digital world. In fact, online booking and appointment software with better user experience can increase conversions by 400%.
Surprised?
However, the key to successful lead generation is improving the overall customer experience. You should make online booking seamless and as easy as possible. One way to do so is by eliminating common hurdles that often distract or discourage customers from registering.
For instance, you can provide customers with alternate ways of registration while booking online. Businesses usually ask for email addresses when customers try booking appointments, but not everyone has one. Instead, you can let them register using their social media accounts to simplify their user journey.
Rewarding Clients for Online Scheduling
Another way to boost your sales is by rewarding customers for booking your services online. As mentioned earlier, about 65% of people have access to the internet, or Wi-Fi hotspot and such an offer can generate great results. Since making an appointment online is a breeze compared to via phone, people will be more interested in your offer.
In case you are unaware, there are tools for booking appointments using Facebook automation.
However, the key here is to offer services at discounted prices or with a freebie. You can also bundle multiple services to incentivize the customers while ensuring an increase in overall sales.
Minimizing No Show-Ups
One of the biggest obstacles for small services businesses is the no-show-ups. People book appointments online and miss them for multiple reasons, such as absent-mindedness or lack of time. But you can easily overcome these hurdles by implementing additional features of online booking systems.
Take Advance Payments
An ideal way to reduce no-show-ups is to take deposits or scheduling fees in advance. However, the method comes with a drawback as the number of bookings may decrease. People don’t like to pay upfront unless they’ve experienced the services first-hand or have loyalty to the brand.
Send Welcome Emails
Another way to reduce no-show-ups is through consistent follow-ups using automated reminders. This is where online booking software comes in handy, as they often have integrated options.
Booking software lets you send instant confirmation as soon as someone makes an appointment online. Most service businesses like to send a “Thank You” email or message as a confirmation. Additionally, you can also put the process on automation by preparing a message series.
Keep Them Engaged
The right way to keep the signed prospects engaged is to send different messages in sequence.
For example, if they’ve booked a week in advance, remind them about the appointment before 24 or 48 hours. You can send an email message that entails “things to know in advance” about the process. You can also send push notifications stating, “Looking forward to seeing you.”
Let Them Amend Bookings
We recommend you send reminders to customers a few hours before their appointments. People tend to forget appointments they made a few weeks earlier. A soft reminder or push notification can be helpful in such cases. Additionally, as a last resort, let them make amends to booking to avoid cancellation.
Collecting Emails for Follow-Up Marketing
The sole purpose of online booking systems is to convert prospects into customers. Businesses often use cold emailing scripts to generate leads and they’ve proven to produce results. But you can also use scheduling software to collect emails during the booking process when they are registering for an appointment. However, you can also ask for their email addresses at the end.
The trick is to entice their interest and let them know they’ll be getting useful information or valuable discounts. Small services businesses often collect emails by offering a per cent or dollar discount in return.
Coming back to the benefits, email marketing can improve sales and increase revenue by 35%. In fact, you can enjoy consistent ROI by nurturing prospects through email marketing. All you need to do is earn customers’ trust and offer valuable information and compelling services.
Gathering Insights for Better Advertising
Online scheduling systems are great sources of market insights as they collect plenty of customer data. You can analyze the data to know which services are popular among customers. Additionally, you can gather information on the ideal time or days when you are getting more bookings. Using this information, you can run comprehensive marketing campaigns to target the right audience.
Final Thoughts
Integrating online booking software can open new doors of possibilities for companies, especially service businesses. You can boost sales by letting your potential customers book appointments online from multiple platforms. Online booking systems provide the ease of scheduling appointments at their own convenience while businesses can prevent human errors. Additionally, you can gather market insights, upsell services, and improve customer experience to boost your sales further.