When you first begin teaching, it’s likely you’ll be managing bookings over email, taking cash at class, or maybe you buy a little sumup machine or offer BACS payments. It’s all quite manual, both for the customer and for you. As you grow and expand, you might start to think is it time to look into booking software.

There are many advantages to having a digital booking system:

• You’re taking payment before class which mitigates the risk of no-shows

• Customers are more likely to attend a class they have booked

• You’re able to collect customer information

• You have a permanent record of class attendees for insurance

• Reminder emails can be set to help customers keep track of bookings

• Customer has a confirmation of what to expect and what they’ve booked

• It gives you the chance to easily offer bundle deals such as 5 class pass or unlimited monthly deals.

So now you’re sold on being ready for a booking system… how much do they cost? What do you need to think about? And how easy are they to put in place?

Thinking about what you need

Class Information

Sounds obvious but you need to be able to describe what your class entails, customers like to have information to hand, they might be nervous about trying a new class, it’s important you provide helpful information about what they can expect.

Payment

You need to be able to take payment. Most booking systems connect to a payment gateway like Stripe or Paypal. They all charge a transaction fee, you can’t avoid this. It’s typically something like 20p plus 1.5% of the transaction, so for a £10 class that would be 35p. As a rule I’ve typically found Stripe to be cheaper than Paypal, but do investigate for yourself. If you go with Stripe they actually have a great app so defiantly download that. Once you’ve setup your payment gateway, you can get started on your booking system.

A note, if you’re using a standalone site like Eventbrite, they have their own payment system. There are pros and cons to using a site like Eventbrite, it can be good for visibility as they promote your event to their community, however you can’t embed this within your site and they have a much higher booking fee. I would say Eventbrite works better for one off events, but not as your weekly class system.

Waiting Lists

This functionality can be really helpful if space is limited for your classes, it creates a sense of scarcity and it’s usually an automated feature that emails customers when a space becomes available.

Passes/ Bundles

If you want to encourage customer loyalty, it’s sensible to offer bundle deals with a slightly higher pay as you go fee. I would always say keep offering pay as you go to give customers loyalty. This might be a bundle such as 5 classes, 10 classes etc to use over a set period. Or you might want to do unlimited offers, such as a trial week for new customers or a monthly package.

Cancellations & Transfers

Where possible it needs to be easy for customers to manage their bookings. Life happens and sometimes we all need to transfer a class we can no longer make.

Reminder Emails

It’s handy to send customers a reminder email 24 hours before their event, this is also an opportunity to answer frequently asked questions.

Is it Easy?

This sounds obvious… but make sure you look at test sites and trial how it is for your customers. As someone who goes to lots of yoga classes, I honestly find some booking systems SUCH a pain and it does give me a bad experience.

The Practical Bit

There are lots of different booking systems available. It’s not that one is the “best,” you need to have a look for yourself at what feels right. This isn’t an exhaustive list but here are some of the most commonly used platforms:

Bookwhen

Acuity

Mind Body

Glofox

Wellness Living

You need to think about how it will fit within your website.

Will you link from your website (if you have one) to a standalone page, or will it sit within a web page (embedded). I think the latter is neater and it’s always best to keep customers on your site, however if you don’t have a website it’s great to have a standalone page. If you want to be super basic you could have an instagram bio site with a link to your booking page and bypass a website altogether. The issue with this is you won’t be discoverable in Google search, but as a temporary solution it could work well. The jury’s out on to app or not to app. Some customers love it, for others they wouldn’t dream of downloading an app. I’m always a fan of the ethos, ‘easiest for the greatest number,’ so be mindful of what your customers want.

How much does it cost?

Most booking platforms have packages that offer different functionality. When you’re new to a booking system, you will likely need the “lite” or “standard” package, it’s usually charged based on volume of bookings, however be mindful the full functionality might only be available on certain packages so many sure you know what you need.

I would estimate initially around £25-35 per month when you’re starting out, it’s highly unlikely you will need a software that’s over £100, be careful to always make sure you’re not going for a Porsche when a Nissan will do (me pretending like I know about cars!). Plus also remember your transaction fees.

If you want tips on optimising the booking system you have, I wrote another blog on this recently.

Get in touch if you want help or advice in setting up a booking system for your business.