What Is The Best Online Booking System For You?
August 9, 2021
What Is The Best Online Booking System?
Struggling to fill the spare capacity in your calendar and manage your business’s appointments? Private and public sector organisations are increasingly turning to online booking software as a means to drive traffic and initiate business.
With customer booking habits towards a product or service being maximised through online channels, you can select from a range of systems that are tailored to enhance the guest experience and help you get on with what you do best – the day-to-day running of your company.
At BookingLive, we have previously explored how you can capitalise on the customer engagement opportunities that an online booking system presents, but what service will offer the greatest benefits?
To help you pick the perfect platform for your establishment, we take a closer look at three of the best online booking systems and what they can bring to your booking reservation process.
BookingLive
“Make smarter decisions. Turn relationships into revenue.”
Through constant learning and bold vision, we have established ourselves as one of the world’s leading booking platforms. BookingLive are trusted by central government, NHS trusts and businesses ranging from small independent firms to large, international organisations across 75+ countries to manage their booking appointments and most important customer relationships, driving additional revenue streams, managing complex booking needs, dropping administration by as much as 6 months per year per team member and providing globally leading user experiences.
With over 12 booking types available, BookingLive are confident that we can deliver an online booking and reservation system that matches up perfectly with your business and budget. Our small and medium-sized business product is a mobile-first online booking system, enabling your customers to book appointments 24/7 on any device for total convenience and control.
Recognised as an affordable small business solution, we have also implemented a PAYG pricing model for SMBs. This means if no payment is needed for your booking, there is absolutely no charge as setup and management of your booking platform is completely free.
To ensure the best possible performance and stringent data security for our end-users in the UK, our cloud infrastructure is deployed into the AWS London region. Storing our client data in the London region also ensures GDPR compliance.
This allows BookingLive to focus all its efforts on continuously improving our feature-rich system so that you can grow more meaningful connections with your customer. We provide all new clients with set-up training and help you cut costs, save time, and extend your marketing reach through efficient booking management, innovation and interaction. With over 3000+ integrations via Zapier BookingLive’s online scheduling and booking solution has the functionality and features to meet even the most demanding of booking use cases.
Calendly
“With scheduling hassles and interruptions gone, your day is cleared for accomplishment.”
Whether it’s scheduling a board meeting, one-on-ones or simply touching base with an existing client, Calendly uncomplicates the back-and-forth nature of organising calendar appointments. By letting users streamline their appointment schedules, it eliminates calendar conflicts by opening your availability to the days and times that work for you.
For individual professionals such as teachers, sales personnel and recruiters, this online scheduler has proved to be a lifeline with up to 700 app integrations available via Zapier to fully automate your workflow.
Calendly offers exceptional efficiency by working in tandem across all of your calendars. You can connect with up to six of your Google, Outlook, Office 365, or iCloud calendars so you’re never duplicating bookings.
Rescheduling appointments is also seamless which helps reduce cancellations, while the integrated time zone detector aligns different time zones for punctual global gatherings.
Calendly can prove to be costly for bigger teams as it charges per user rather than charging a set price for multiple users, which would make monetary sense for businesses with large numbers.
OpenTable
“Once installed, customers can see real-time availability and book a table through your website.”
Dishing up bookings for nearly 60,000 restaurants worldwide, OpenTable is the busiest service in its space. With its simple user interface design, it enables customers to easily book a table at their favourite eatery or even unearth a hidden gem whilst on holiday.
As well as instantly giving you access to a substantial network of diners, this leading restaurant reservation software allows you to set up table combinations and custom floor plans to optimise your dining space.
When it comes to connecting to popular POS (Point of Sale) systems, OpenTable enables you to analyse customer spend and visit frequency without the hefty monthly fees. It can also be linked up with TripAdvisor, Google and other review sites, allowing you to provide booking options beyond your website, as well as generate greater awareness through customer feedback and food imagery.
Although the ability to customise bookings and make special dining requests is constrained, OpenTable still offers a vast array of integrations to bring your restaurant bookings operation to Michelin star standard.
From waitlist capabilities that immediately notify diner(s) when a table is ready, to a digital takeout menu with a shareable order link, OpenTable is guaranteed to keep both your bookings and guests’ stomachs at full capacity.
Chili Piper
“The most advanced scheduling and routing software for B2B revenue teams”
Designed to be used by sales teams, Chili Piper automates and streamlines all the different strands of the meeting scheduling process.
Chili Piper excels in connecting customers and potential leads with the right people/teams by easily scheduling meetings with prospective customers and clients from anywhere with a single link. It is perfect for syncing meetings to your reps’ calendars, increasing customer satisfaction and converting inbound leads.
Once a meeting is booked, the app automatically sends a calendar invite and meeting reminders, and records the information of the meeting in Intercom and Salesforce.
With a pricing model based on the varying levels of “heat” that derive from chili peppers, it can be argued that the paid versions don’t offer enough to justify the extra expense ahead of the free version.
As there is no paid scheduling facility in place, businesses are unable to generate any instant revenue from bookings or charge for no-shows.
BookingLive: Find out more
Your booking system decision will come down to the components and features that are vital
to you and your business. These should include simplicity of use and ensuring that visitors
accessing your system from a mobile device has an enriched and user-friendly experience.
As your company grows, you should also consider issues such as increased traffic, the
availability of system support and the security of your data.
BookingLive runs live demos every Tuesday and Thursday @12:30 local UK time. Click HERE to book your session or HERE to speak directly with a solutions specialist.
BookingLive: Small Business PAYG Online Scheduling & Booking Automation
We are supporting thousands of small business owners across 74+ countries with PAYG online booking automation systems. With your free account you can set up your products and services in under 5 mins and have your bookable items live and ready for customers to purchase 24/7 on any device from anywhere. If you want to take payments through your online booking & scheduling system it is charged PAYG meaning that a small percentage is charged per sale made.
This flexible risk-free solution provides small business owners with an industry-leading customer experience, automation of administration tasks, automated payment handling and it doesn’t cost anything until you make a sale.