Operations and management are two of the biggest burdens faced by small business owners. Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there that can automate time-consuming operations, management tasks, and even the entire booking process so you don’t have to worry about the details anymore. In this guide on how to automate client bookings on your website, we discuss the various ways this can be done and provide links to various booking tools and schedulers you can use to do so. This guide on how to automate client bookings on your website will show you how to get your clients coming back again and again without having to perform lots of repetitive, manual labour in the process.

Sign up to an appointment scheduler

We recommend:

• Acuity Scheduler (https://acuityscheduling.com)

• Calendly (https://calendly.com)

• Timely (https://www.gettimely.com)

Where on your website do you want the booking form?

Now that you know where you want to build a booking form, it’s time to determine where on your website it will live. This is the most important decision to make because it will directly impact whether or not people complete your booking form.

If clients have to go to a separate page before they fill out your contact form, chances are they won’t bother at all. It makes sense to place it directly after something that might motivate someone to book with you: for example, placing your booking form below information about what happens during each session could help convert those who are most likely interested in learning more about what your services entail.

Typical website locations:

• Contact page

• General service page

• Specific service page

• Paid consult service bookings - where you charge upfront when they book an appointment slot

What should you offer to book?

One benefit of automation is that it allows you to offer customers a wide range of options for booking your services. For example, if you offer photography as a service, then you could include a variety of different add-ons like prints, albums, and canvases in addition to the initial booking of a photography session.

As each client needs something slightly different, automating your website can allow you to customise your packages according to customer requests. In doing so, you’ll be able to develop a higher degree of repeat business because each order will be customised just for them. This allows re-education to new and repeat customers of products and services they might not know that you offer.

The only extra work on your part is the initial strategy deciding what to include and then setting that up within your booking form. You are able to customise what days you wish to work and when you would like to block off for holidays or break time. And since automation puts management in your hands, all you have to worry about is turning up at the correct time to fulfil the work that is booked.

How can you monitor and improve booking conversions?

You can use a variety of tools to optimise your website, but in our experience, it all comes down to planning. If you’re setting up automated booking notifications, set clear goals and evaluate progress frequently. This will allow you to iterate more efficiently and effectively manage your online operations.

Evaluate what is the proportion of clients that show up vs no-shows. Are your reminder messages frequent enough and is the messaging clear?

Start by gathering data on all of your site's traffic sources (yes, even if they come from Google) and keywords - then map that information against conversion rates by channel.

Want a client booking system added to your website? Get in touch with our web development team to get started.