January Newsletter – Loyalty is important

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Did everyone have a great New Year? How can January be over already?

Now that the Christmas lull is over and we are well into a prosperous 2022, it’s time to step up the SimplyBook.me development machine.

We’ve had a steady approach to January 2022, and we can see things will get better for most businesses. With any luck (keeping fingers crossed), this whole pandemic business will be over this year, and we can all get back to a new version of normality with all the benefits that it brought.

So what has 2022 brought to the Simplybook.me booking system so far?

January Developments

Enhancements

This month the POS system has released some enhancements to improve the functionality and intuitiveness of the processes. Some additions to the POS are the options to add coupon and promotional codes to existing bookings and the ability to update the final booking with service extras and upsold product add-ons. No cancelling the booking and reentering it. Just edit it before checkout. We have also added similar possibilities within the admin interface.

Another update this month is to the API. To improve API integration between your systems and SimplyBook.me, you can now allocate a membership to a registered client via the API functions.

Loyalty System Custom Feature

Have you seen the article on our new points-based loyalty system yet?

If not, you should really have a look.

As this is a points-based system, you can allocate a set number of loyalty points to each service or class, which your clients will earn automatically at every purchase. When your clients have earned enough loyalty points, they can redeem them from your booking page as gift cards.

The gift cards are standard vouchers that you can sell for cash to any other customer, but you can define the number of loyalty points needed to buy a fixed amount gift card.

Clients will be able to check their balance from their client login, and you can manually add extra points if you want to reward or give a gift to your clients.

Security enhancements

The world of cyber security is constantly changing. There’s always another code to exploit or hack. Sadly that is the way of things.

This month, two security updates are blocking “bad words” from registration names or descriptions and prohibiting entering tags and code scripts from all registration fields for both clients and companies.

Upcoming Developments

We have a few big projects on the cards coming up but not ones we can talk about right now. You know how it is. You don’t let the competition know what fabulous projects you’re working on.

More security enhancements

More security enhancements are coming up:

• The “log out for all devices” function is coming up in February for users who change details such as passwords, user names, and 2FA validation methods
• The ability to request a one-time authorisation code through both Google Authenticator and SMS upon password change

Authorization via Telegram

Due to changes in the rules surrounding the sending of “App-2-Person messages” SMS messages in the US (A2P 10DLC), we’re implementing an alternative registration pathway. Instead of using SMS, we will enable registration confirmation through Telegram.

In Case you missed it

We’ve had some excellent content from our guest posting favourites this month.

Sam O’Brien had some interesting insights and tips for using social proof as part of your marketing strategy. Meanwhile, Gaurav Sharma gave some really useful instructions on fixing your underperforming content. This month, our other guest author was Christian Heritage from D-tox, with a wealth of information about what attracts people to a networking event.

From us, we started the year with some New Year’s resolutions that should be on every business owners list – even if you don’t make resolutions, you should really make an exception for these. We have explored alternatives to Calendly – you know that one comes up a lot.

If you’re thinking about the relative merits of adding pages to your booking website over building a custom business site, you should really check out how many page types and functions you can add to a booking site.

And finally, if you have a creative streak in your soul or simply a desire to pass on your knowledge, writing that book right now could do more than adding another string to your bow. It could also add more bookings to your calendar.

And just incase you don’t keep a close eye on Gartner Digital comparison websites (Capterra, Software Advice & GetApp) We had some happy news this week .

SimplyBook.me consistently outperformed by being featured in 29 GDM reports

That’s all for now, folks

So now that January is gone, we can look forward to February. Let’s look forward to Valentine’s Day, whether single or attached, and spread the love. More importantly, make the most of Valentine’s marketing opportunities available.

Love is in the air, and Spring is just around the corner.