Are You Losing Bookings: A thought about online bookings

The ongoing debate over online contactless bookings

At risk of causing big upset, which is not at all intended, I am going to discuss a conversation I have had with multiple people when discussing automated bookings and CRMs.

One of the most frequent reasons people don’t like to use BoothBook or other automated booking systems is:

‘I always like to talk to my customers so I can build a rapport and explain why our service is the best (insert other reasons here) and BoothBook doesn’t give me the opportunity to do that’

My 10c on the matter

Firstly, the people that don’t book, can still make contact. As well as that you can have lead capture information that is input in to the CRM side of BoothBook for those that don’t go ahead to book. Which allows you to do your selling.

Secondly and get ready for an upset… Yes you want to talk to them…. What if they don’t want to talk to you?

How many bookings do you lose by not giving the option to book without contact?

I for one can’t stand it. Face to face, online, over the phone… I know what I want so leave me alone. If you don’t I will find someone/somewhere who will. If I am buying online and it says ‘contact for a quote’ or ‘fill in your details and we will get back to you’ or even ‘enter your email for pricing’ (this is a feature that BoothBook offers but not one that I choose to use). I will go back to my search results and move on to the next company… And let me assure you that my girlfriend would have a lot more hand cream if the shop assistant didn’t insist on putting some on me to ‘feel the quality’.

So what if it’s just me?

I did a little research on people’s buying and communication habits. Reading articles from social studies on Forbes, Accenture and Marketing profs they all have the same underlying thread. Millennials, which is arguably our biggest market, insist on a seamless buying platform that allows them choice, customer service is still key and online visibility is more prevalent than ever.

Conclusion

So listen, I’m not suggesting that you should cut out manual contact with the customer… Far from it. What I am saying is if someone wants to book without any contact, let them. Use the time you have saved for the leads that are yet to book and need that little nudge over the line, because what seems like the best thing to you, could alienate an entire demographic of buyers.

Thanks for taking your time to read this. I would love to hear your thoughts. 

Ben 

Booth Book