Why manual booking and management systems hamper growth

• 21st September 2021

Inefficiencies within any business create barriers that inevitably lead to slow growth or, in some cases, stagnation; not ideal when trying to build back in 2021. 

To help activity-based businesses bounce back stronger, we’ve put together this blog to highlight the importance of online booking and management solutions. 

Friction in the booking journey = Lost business

As with any other sales process, if the journey from lead and enquiry to booking confirmation is slow, or if the customer needs to take a lot of steps to complete a transaction, you’re putting barriers in the way of growth and will undoubtedly lose sales & bookings.

If your booking process is manual, then you’re inherently slowing the customer journey down, creating friction and losing business. 

Manual bookings processes include;

• Prospective clients having to send an enquiry or pick up the phone.
• Your sales or admin team have to respond to the enquiry, with the potential of some back-and-forth communications.

As well as giving the customer plenty of opportunities to drop out, barriers to sale caused by manual booking systems also puts pressure on your team – requiring a lot of time and effort for every booking.

Less time for more pressing tasks

Not only do manual processes slow down the booking journey for your clients, but they tend to create mountains of admin that can drain time and resources from your staff’s working day, and in some cases, suck their motivation away.

How to improve the customer journey with SMART booking solutions

By introducing more automation and simpler processes with a booking & management system, you’ll be introducing tools to your business that will actually boost business growth as well as improve efficiencies and productivity. 

With SMART booking solutions you’ll also have access to customer data and real-time reports that help insight, commercial tools to help upselling or creating promotions, or even messaging tools to directly engage with your clients.

Furthermore, offering your clients more self-service options and greater control over their bookings and courses, is itself a selling point.

Manual processes slow your business and stifles your growth 

Things change, technology advances and the way we go about our lives and business evolves – especially post COVID. If you’re still manually taking bookings, sending reminders, or taking payments in person, then you’re spending your time on activities that can be dealt with automatically and considerably quicker.

By investing in SMART booking solutions, you can create a more streamlined booking process, greater efficiency and free up the time within your team to work with more productivity and a focus on growth and longevity.

Want to find out more? Get in touch and let’s book you free, no obligation demo