Boost your income with online booking software

By Maëlys De Santis

Published: 12 November 2024

When you hear the word " online booking", you immediately think of booking your next holiday or a flight to sunnier climes. But have you ever thought of setting up booking software for your business? This service can be used in all sectors of activity: transport, hotels and rental are the best-known, but so are convenience stores and catering outlets (restaurants, hairdressing salons, leisure activities, etc.).

Many tools exist to help you manage your bookings more effectively and fill your diary more fully, including SimplyBook.me, Planyo, Myrezapp and Bookeo. This type of service mainly concerns the BtoC sector, but also applies to BtoB.

We'd like to shed some light on the challenges of online booking, and give you 10 reasons why you should implement booking software in your company.

CONTENTS

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Online reservations: the current state of play and some insights

The advent of the internet and smartphones has drastically changed consumer behaviour. Online booking is no exception. This service offers a number of advantages to both you and your customers. We'll go into more detail below.

A few figures to illustrate this trend:

In 2017, online restaurant bookings increased by 30% in France.

La Fourchette

Online booking in the restaurant industry in 2017:

Source: Food Service Vision

With regard to the hotel sector in particular, here are some of the results of a study carried out by Google :

Mobile use in online booking increased by 18% in 2017.

Google predicts that online bookings will increase by 9% in 2018.

The strong growth in the hotel and restaurant sector bodes well for similar results in other sectors.

Do I need online reservation software?

While offering hotel guests a booking calendar is becoming increasingly commonplace (not to say essential), the online booking service is not just for hotels or e-tourism in general.

Any local shop or business that takes bookings should adopt online booking: restaurants, cinemas, sports classes, beauty salons, medical or paramedical practices, theatres, leisure activities, hairdressers, etc.

10 reasons to use online booking software

Why implement such software? Still not sure? Here are 10 reasons why you should take the plunge and introduce an online booking programme in your business.

Reason no. 1: immeasurable time savings

There's no denying it: making appointments by phone is time-consuming. When you're busy making an appointment over the phone with a customer, you're not in the middle of styling, serving, informing and collecting money from another customer.

Given that our customers can book on their own, at any time of day, we've gone from 95% of calls to 30%!

Béatrice Auvray, Sky Circus CEO and user of the MyRezApp solution.
MyRezApp is a 100% mobile, turnkey booking solution. Managing services, availability, reservations, payment, etc.: MyRezApp simplifies and multiplies your appointments.

Online booking software frees you from the time you spend on the phone so that you can devote your full attention to the customers in your business.

Reason no. 2: increased visibility

By setting up an online booking solution, you have visibility at all times over availability, bookings, the most popular services and the most popular time slots. You have greater control over your calendar and can organise your business more efficiently.

Your business benefits directly. You get data that can have a direct impact on your sales. For example: why not offer a promotional offer at off-peak times to attract more customers and broaden your customer base?

What's more, your entire team has access to reservations. The collaborative aspect of booking tools optimises your team management and organisation.

Reason no. 3: No more missed appointments

Missed appointments are not only a waste of time (making the appointment, preparing for it, etc.), but also a net loss of revenue for your company.

Online booking software sends an appointment confirmation by SMS and/or email to your customers, as well as automatic reminders as the due date approaches.

Another advantage: flexibility. If they can't make it, your customers can cancel a booking quickly and easily online, in a matter of seconds. You'll be warned in good time, so you can adapt your business and accept new bookings.

Reason no. 4: accessibility at all times

Are you unavailable by phone? Are you away on holiday? Do your opening times not match your customers' availability? This is no longer a problem when it comes to filling your booking calendar.

A customer who can't reach you by phone is lost.

Reservations can be made at any time, even outside your opening hours. That's the beauty of this solution. Being able to make an appointment thanks to a service available 24/7 is the number 1 criterion for 51% of French people (source).

Reason no. 5: mobility

Booking is not only accessible at any time, but from anywhere. Increasingly, web users are making appointments via their mobile phones.

According to a study by Google, the use of mobile phones to make bookings increased by 18% between January and June 2017. A service that's available anytime and simply from your smartphone: that's the key to boosting your booking rate.

Reason no. 6: your website is personalised

You are meeting a need of your customers by offering them the freedom to make their reservations via your website. To go the whole hog and offer them a complete experience that reflects your image, here are a few things to personalise so that both you and your customers can find your way around perfectly:

the range of opening hours - you don't have the same opening hours as your competitors,
the language(s) of your site - don't forget some of your customers,
the accessibility of your site - so that no-one is deprived of your services,
the text of booking confirmations and SMS and email reminders, etc.

The SimplyBook.me solution, for example, offers a wide range of functions, including in its free version, for setting up a simple online booking system that is accessible to everyone, personalised and no less effective.

Take this example: you run a hairdressing salon, and you enter the resources available according to the days of the week and the opening hours of your salon. This means that your customers can not only book an appointment at a time that suits them, but also find out whether their regular hairdresser is available. You offer a 100% personalised customer experience before the appointment even starts.

Reason no. 7: fewer tools, greater efficiency

Are you hesitating because you don't want to install, learn and use yet another piece of software on a daily basis? Rest assured, all online booking solutions have API connectors to integrate directly with your existing tools. Everything happens on your website, and customers don't need to leave it to make their reservation.

For example, Planyo integrates seamlessly with all CMS (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.). It also offers the option of synchronising appointments, once they have been booked, with your Google calendar or iCal, for example. Planyo offers a wide range of integrations: contact management, accounting, CRM, marketing tools, etc.

Reason no. 8: better management of your schedule

You have a clear calendar and can quickly see which times of day or which days of the week or month are the busiest. Thanks to this information, you can organise yourself better and manage your schedule more efficiently. For example, you now know when to give priority to deliveries. You can plan your additional tasks for off-peak hours, so you won't be interrupted.

Reason no. 9: transparency

Your customers don't have your diary in front of them when they call you. When they book online, they choose the time that suits them from among all those available. Even so, customising your diary in advance leaves you in control of your time: you alone decide on opening times, exceptional closures and so on.

Transparency also applies to prices: the rates you charge are displayed online. Your customers know what to expect and there are no nasty surprises.

Reason no. 10: online deposits and payment

The final advantage of booking software is that your customers can pay online. This can be for the full amount or your customer can pay you a deposit. Once again, this saves you time at the appointment, as you no longer have to collect money from your customer.

What's more, online payments are secure, which reassures both customers and businesses. Payment by bank card with 3 D Secure or via PayPal are two options that make transactions easier.