January Newsletter – New Year, New Plans, New Ideas

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January 2021, what does it mean to us? 2020 took a lot away from us; it destroyed businesses, eliminated jobs, and took our social interaction to the bare minimum. January is a new month, a new year, and maybe even a new decade – depending on how you count these things – and we are at the beginning of something new.

A new awareness of how our environment can affect our species’ health is at an all-time high. A new appreciation of our fellow humans and new ideas and plans are emerging and developing through necessity. New working environments, new approaches to fitness, health, and wellbeing have become so much more than aesthetics.

For the whole month, we have dedicated our attention to how new trends will shape the various service sectors in the coming year. We’ve also targeted marketing trends and channels to rebuild businesses after the debacle of 2020.

New For January

For much of this month, we’ve dedicated our developmental energies on creating efficient and effective systems for clients using our software for the global roll-out of COVID-19 vaccinations. The best way to move forward is to have widespread immunity or significantly decreased mortality rates, which has been a high priority.

However, that’s not all we have been doing. January has been a time of optimisation and enhancement of existing feature and functionality.

Client-Side Optimisation 

We know that maximising client access and speed is a priority for both you and your clients. Optimising access speed for clients is crucial for business with high volume traffic to their booking site (or widget) and clients using the mobile client app.

• To do this, we’ve created a data caching protocol in the background to optimise data transfer when high numbers of clients are accessing your system at the same time. Consequently reducing server load and the possibility of server timeout.
• Another optimisation to the client-side booking is that clients can make multiple cancellations when a single booking is a recurring or group appointment. 

Admin Calendar Optimisation

So we haven’t just optimised client access, we’ve made some enhancements to the admin calendar too.

• Appointment Filtering for companies with many services or short timeframes, there are sometimes too many entries for a browser to show. Applying filters to high volumes of data reduces load time on underpowered devices. Data transfer from the server-side is already optimised, but not all devices have the power to 
• Bulk Cancellations are available from the admin calendar where you need to remove groups and recurring bookings from the calendar. No one wants to cancel each booking individually.
• Scanned & Validated Status can be applied to bookings where a ticket or code was scanned on attendance. This is to allow admins to see all appointments’ attendance status at a glance. For simplicity, it is also possible to filter appointments by validation status.

Coming Up Later

So we’ve had a slow and steady month to start the new year. Our vaccination and testing schedule systems are ready, so we can start innovating for the renewal ahead for 2021.

We have a few surprises and developments up our sleeves, so you should stay tuned for fabulous new features and updates.

Beyond new developments in the SimplyBook.me scheduling management system, we also have more great content and advice scheduled from our guest bloggers. We also have more developing trends and client case studies from two amazing women in counselling and therapy. Not to mention more videos tutorials to make life easier.

If you missed any of the business trend articles and want to ensure you stay on top of your game this year you can find them here:

• Fitness Trends in 2021 – The Emerging Shifts in Health & Fitness
• Educational Trends & Self Improvement for 2021
• Self-Care & Beauty Trends of 2021 – Developing Trends for Salon Businesses
• Medical Trends in 2021 – Testing, Treating, Vaccinating & Predicting Healthcare

If you want to switch up your marketing to reach new and broader audiences, these might give you the boost you need:

• Social Media Trends for 2021 – Get On Board Quickly
• How to Use Live Video Streaming for Online Marketing
• How to Improve Your Facebook Strategy Today
• The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing for Service-Based Businesses
• How to Market Your Business on a Small Budget
• How to Use the Marketing Tools for your Strategy Overhaul