Friday Feature: Accepting Payments on Your Booking Website [VIDEO]

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No one likes the feeling of handing over their hard-earned cash for a necessary or luxury service. If it’s a treat like a spa day or massage, it puts a pall on the whole experience. For necessities, the feeling is even worse because you know you can’t put it off or get away with not doing it, like a trip to the dentist or car service. One way of mitigating that draining feeling is to let people pay for their service when they book their appointment. Accepting payments on your booking website can make the entire customer experience significantly enhanced.

Benefits of Accepting Payments

We can’t forget that accepting payments is also beneficial to you and your business. Customers who book appointments paid in advance are unlikely to “forget” or fail to show up for their appointment.  Consequently, no-shows decline to almost nil (aside from genuine emergencies and illness).

Accepting payments also opens doors to exciting ideas that could benefit your business. When you have the Accept Payments feature enabled on SimplyBook.me, you also have access to new features that you can use to enhance the customer experience and increase your activity. Features such as Memberships, Packages, Gift Cards, Point of Sale, Products for Sale and Service Add-ons can be fantastic additions to a business that increase revenue and retain clients.

Using Accept Payments with Other Features

Across the service industries, the diversity is astounding, but even the more prosaic and necessary services can use some of the tools above to assist their business. The car mechanic who has a lot of MoT and car servicing on their books might want to offer a package of services for a year, or even two. The dentist might offer a package of three dental checkups over twelve months*.

The hair or beauty salon might offer a VIP membership package, for a nominal sum, which provides the holder certain benefits,  discounts and members-only event invitations. The masseur, hypnotherapist, or life coach could offer the ability to buy a gift card for a friend, or a percentage off coupon for the next session.

All of the features and hypothetical scenarios above are beneficial to both the customer and the business. The customer feels valued, and the company retains a client.

Payment Gateways and Methods

Thankfully, SimplyBook.me has a wide range of payment gateway partners to choose from so, you can check your location to find out which ones operate in your area(s).

You can utilise different payments gateways to accommodate your clients. Some clients prefer to use third-party payment processors, while others prefer to use their credit cards. There are even options to allow your clients to pay with cryptocurrencies. If none of those appeals, you can enable your clients to pay by cash or card when they arrive.

*Based on the recommendation of having a preventative screening every six months.