Hello business owner or manager,
We had an incident with a client the other day that really reinforces how important it is to make it as easy for your clients to book as possible.
In the world we live in now people expect speed and inconvenience. If booking isn’t easy…. they go elsewhere.
My partner is a perfect example. She will always favour booking online and avoid speaking to people where possible.
She wanted to book a treatment at a day spa but found their online booking system complicated. After about 2mins (2 mins!!!) trying to make her booking with no success, she decided to try another venue.
Her booking with that company was lost with a blink of the eye.
Online was my girlfriend’s preference, however there is still a big % of the hair and beauty market that prefers to call/email and speak to someone. So you should always have a phone line (or at least messaging service) available and an email that’s actively checked.
And make sure your online bookings are fast, easy to figure out, and most importantly the system WORKS!
This brings me back to the situation with a client, a south-London based hair salon. They take most bookings online and will often try to guide enquiries to their online portal to book.
We created a 40% off for new clients offer, funnel and ad campaign, which in the first 10 days took £600 in new bookings.
Not a bad start, with big growth expected in the first full month, being September.
In September they took….. £160.
Just 5 of their 85 September leads booked, just 6%. When a conversion rate is that low for a great offer, something is wrong.
It didn’t take us long to figure out that it was too difficult to book (surprise, surprise). There were a number of barriers killing booking ease and convenience for customers.