If you weren't using online booking systems before the last year, there is a good chance that your company got quite familiar with using it to conduct business during the pandemic. The shift to digital or virtual has helped businesses lower the risk of viral infection through cutting down on contact, and is likely a trend here to stay.

But did you know that popularity of online calendars and bookings has been a long-time coming? Here are 5 reasons why online booking is a trend here to stay.

Provide relief for front-desk staff

Your team already has so much on their plate. Between answering member questions, maintaining your facility and all the tasks that fit nicely in between, they hardly have any time to be answering the phone. Traditionally, bookings for classes, courses, or sessions has been either by phone or in person at your front desk.

Allowing online booking as an option doesn't just give your team back precious minutes to accomplish more in the day. It also allows for your team to help members who perhaps don't feel comfortable with using a computer to book a class and need assistance by phone or in person. 

When the City of Medicine Hat launched Xplor Recreation, they completed over 500 registrations within the first 2 hours of sales! Plus, they saw a 95% reduction in the time spent on reservation requests. When everything was said and done, it took just 5 minutes for campers to reserve campsites instead of one week as it did traditionally.

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Expedites the booking process for members

Speaking of allowing more options for your members, you would be surprised how many of your members will hop right onto online booking if you make it available. Online booking isn't just quicker for your team; it's also more efficient and accessible for members to browse classes on their own time, and choose one to book online instead of picking up the phone.

Not only does it expedite this process, but this process gives members the option to choose add-ons they want, instead of having staff recite add-ons that they might not be interested in. Online booking software, such as Xplor Recreation, also is a smart solution to traditional booking in that it alerts members of future closures for holidays, level qualifications, and sends them questionnaires without taking more than 5 minutes to complete. It is a perfect solution to lengthy phone calls for both staff and members.

Allows 24/7 bookings

When you rely solely on booking by phone, with a staff member answering phone calls and manually booking members in for classes, you are restricting your availability to your hours of operation. While this is understood and works for most small businesses starting out, as you scale, you will find it is simply not enough time to process all of your booking requests.

From the member's perspective, it is also not ideal to have to wait until the next business day to book a class. In fact, a lot of people will simply not complete a transaction if they can't fulfill it right away. This is why marketing automation and triggered emails help create conversions.

The Richmond Olympic Oval offers over 170 types of activities and programs, so you can imagine how many booking requests they see. When they started using Xplor Recreation, their previous 30 minute wait time was eliminated completely, and they were able to deflect 1,400 unnecessary phone calls each week. More free time for staff and less waiting for members led to an increase of 29% in online sales!

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Reflects real-time changes in availability

Have you ever had to let a member know that the class they booked is full and has no room for them? Needless to say, it doesn't feel great to let someone down when they have been eagerly waiting for a class. But it's also impossible for your staff to know everything as it happens and make updates every single time a class fills up—even with broad staff communication in place. We are all human, and can't know everything all the time.

This is why online booking is such a crucial tool in preventing this. Your online booking platform can notify members of booking conflicts for facility bookings, or let them know if a class has reached its limit of participants allowed. 

A green solution to document storage

Finally, one of the greatest impacts of facilitating digital platforms instead of traditional ones is the green impact of it all. Think of all the receipts, paper slips, and other materials that are used in the booking process. Over the course of a year, thousands of sheets of paper can be used in booking classes for your members.

Online booking, instead, allows you to digitally save documents pertaining to members, including booking confirmations, member information, emergency contact information and more. Just ensure you are using a safe, secure storage solution so that documents are not lost. 

With Xplor Recreation, you can centralize and organize documents from anywhere. Xplor Recreation's easy-to-use cloud-based software can create, save, print, upload, and manage documents for your organization securely in the cloud.