Implementing a management system automates booking, scheduling, and payment collection, freeing up your time to focus on delivering outstanding experiences.
Running an experience or activity business is incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with its fair share of challenges.
One of the biggest hurdles is managing the logistical side of things—scheduling, booking, and payment collection. These tasks can consume a significant portion of your time, leaving you with less energy to focus on what you truly love: delivering amazing experiences to your customers.
Implementing a management system to handle these tasks can revolutionize the way you operate, bringing efficiency, ease, and increased profitability.
Here are ten compelling reasons why you should consider using a management system for your experience or activity business.
Working with many activity owners, I've realized that scheduling, booking, and collecting payments can take up to 70% of their time. It can be so time-consuming that, when they grow, they often need to hire someone to assist.
Analyze your normal workday. How many hours do you spend talking to leads, closing workshops, and collecting payments? If it’s less than a third of your working time, you’re either lying, have no customers, or are the most efficient activity owner in the world. If you’re not the latter, selling online will give you back so much time you’ll wonder why you didn’t start yesterday.
When selling over the phone, how often are you asked for a discount? You’re a nice person trying to make a living and landing a new customer. How can you say no to a small discount? Do you pass on the lead? Start selling online today, and you’ll never have to face this awkward situation again.
Here’s a script that might be familiar to you:
“Hi, I’m John. I’m calling to ask about availability for 2 people.”
“Hey John, thanks for calling. Let me check the schedule and get back to you.”
After 5 hours: “Yes, we have availability on Wednesday at 3 PM.”
“Ah, actually we want to be 3 people and can’t do Wednesday.”
This can go on for quite some time. Rest assured, the customer is not enjoying this communication any more than you are. But for them, it’s a one-time hassle. For you, it fills up your day. Imagine a life where full availability is shown and ready to be purchased, and those phone calls don’t happen. How much time will it free up for you?
When customers see that many dates are fully booked, it creates a sense of urgency. We all have instincts and preconditions.
Your customers face a decision-making process to understand that they want to buy your activity and that it’s going to be fun for them.
When a customer sees a nearly fully booked calendar, it’s one of the best ways to push them toward making a purchase.
Here are two reasons for this:
1. It’s “proof” that your activity and experience are in demand and therefore fun and worth buying,
2. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Customers think, “No one wants to miss out on that crazy, almost sold-out experience. I should hurry up and purchase it before it’s over.”
You have a great activity or experience, but it’s hard to book or can’t be booked online?
In 2024, this is a huge hurdle for many clients. You have to take into account that most of the potential customers that don’t know you yet are searching for experiences online.
Also, there is significant competition for activities and experiences, and if a competitor has an easier-to-understand and to book activity, many customers won’t bother spending time understanding when you have availability.
I’ll be blunt here. If you don’t have a web platform to sell your activity, you should not spend money on ads. Without selling online and being able to calculate conversions, it’s useless to invest in ads. You need to be able to attribute reservations to ad spend at least in a basic way to justify the investment in paid advertising.
Many customers have stories where they said yes to a schedule for a specific customer, then were distracted by a million other things they have to do.
We’re all human, and we can’t remember everything, especially with so much on our plate. That’s exactly why you should use a non-human software for you. When a customer makes a booking, it is logged immediately in the schedule and can’t be forgotten.
Communication is super important for customer satisfaction. For example, if you have a hot workshop, you should communicate that, otherwise the customer may be frustrated. Provide as many details and guidance as possible to make your customer ready and know what to expect from the activity. It can be tedious to send messages every time a day before the activity and you would probably not be doing that. Let your activity management system do it for you. This action will improve both the experience and the happiness of your customers.
You’re probably not working 24/7 selling your activity, but your booking and scheduling system can. From the data I have from my customers, people seem to book activities at the most unusual hours.
When you grow, not having a management system that handles the sales process for you means you’ll need more employees to coordinate bookings.
Customers using our platform reduced 90% of booking-related manual tasks while enabling 300-500% growth in sales. These numbers are truly insane and should be a huge factor in moving to sell online if you want your business to grow.
Leveraging a management system for your experience or activity business is not just a smart move, it's essential.
By automating bookings, streamlining payments, and improving customer communication, you can save time, reduce stress, and significantly boost your sales.
This would allow you to focus on what truly matters: providing memorable experiences for your customers. Don't let the manual tasks of scheduling and booking hold you back.
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