The little things that make people book

Is your business based on collecting bookings? Do you want to entice more hesitant potential customers to book your services? Do you need more cashflow? Of course you do.

Some of the biggest factors in collecting more bookings and growing your business are actually the little things.

There are a host of overlooked tweaks and optimisations that you can make to increase the chances that someone books your services and becomes a paying client.

If you’ve nailed the main elements of a booking-based business, its time to start refining your approach to increase consumer confidence in making an appointment and parting with their hard-earned money.

Flawless online business details

Let’s think about what people do when they want to book your services. They Google you.

Likely they will find your Google My Business profile amongst your other pages and they will both consciously and unconsciously scrutinise it before they book. They’ll also clearly rely upon it for pertinent information and links to your site.

Increase confidence in your business by having an immaculate profile with every field filled out. Have links to you contact details, website, social media pages and have a properly sized logo. If you have missing details and imagery – you won’t create confidence in the legitimacy and professionalism of your business.

Testimonials

Having collected testimonials from clients to boost your profile and value in the eyes of a potential is increasingly important. having no or low testimonial scores may send them packing, especially if your market is competitive.

This is also connected to your above Google My Business profile, so to really give the best impression possible and boost the confidence of somebody mulling your services, ask your best clients to fill out a Google review. Incentivise this process if you must.

Obsessive branding detail

Sure, you have a brand right? You’ve nailed down a logo, your colours, maybe a tagline and a font. You’re good right? Not yet.

Get obsessive. People will be subconsciously judging your perceived professionalism based on how clean and consistent your branding is. If your social media pages don’t match your website perfectly, no good. If your font changes size or your colours shift, no good. If your logo is not exactly the same with proper framing, also no good. Be obsessive. Impressions matter.

Call to action primacy

Your call to action is the button and text combo or hyperlink text that leads directly to your booking page.

This will often say something like ‘book now’.

Keep it tight and simple and front and center. Your website should be dedicated to this call to action as well as every social media post you create. Your mission is to direct people to your booking page in almost every interaction, so make it attractive, central and also the only option on-page.

Burying this call to action, having multiple options or making it hard to find will decrease bookings very easily.

Optimised booking form and payment

Many people who have almost booked your services can leave at the last moment when they get cold feet. This is what we call shopping cart abandonment or a high checkout bounce rate.

Although you can’t eliminate it, you can do a few things to make people commit.

  • Create an easy booking form with the least amount of options possible. Don’t ask the world.
  • Be sure it’s cleanly branded.
  • Have a guest checkout option.
  • Have multiple well-known payment options like PayPal and credit cards.
  • Clearly display your ecommerce security credentials to create peace of mind when pulling out the credit card.

Social media booking

If you don’t have Facebook or Instagram booking options and business pages, you might want to reconsider. Instead of just linking to your website booking form, try branching out when using social media to post about your service services.

By keeping people on-page and in-feed, you ease the booking process and cater to people who don’t like clicking away from where they were.

Cater to social media users by centralising this booking process, which also carries the weight of a well trusted and known platform.

 

 

 

 

 

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