September Newsletter: Back in Gear and Driving New Developments

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Is September over already? It only feels like two minutes ago, we were sending kids backs to school and getting our noses back to the grindstone. Time flies when you’re busy and love what you do (or when you have too much work and not enough time). 

At SimplyBook.me, September is a time for us to get our heads together and look at the planned developments for the year ahead. We might already know what we’re going to do, but maybe we need some clarity, a cohesive strategy for how, and a timetable for when. 

So this year saw us get together in Bukovel, Ukraine, to throw ideas around and make structured plans and projections for the upcoming year. It’s not all about business development either. It was a chance for teams spread around the world to come together and get to know each other better. So we can work together to drive new developments.

September Developments

September wasn’t all play in Bukovel. There were some valuable releases, along with a lot of development and preparation for upcoming projects – more about that later. 

Waiting List Feature

Yes, the waiting list finally made it! 

The waiting list feature for clients is helpful for companies with significant demand for their services. So, the system will notify awaiting clients if somebody cancels and the service is available on a specific date. We know that many of you were anticipating this feature quite intently. 

Once you activate the feature, you can assign waiting list eligibility to any service or classes in your system with a checkbox. Suppose an eligible service is fully booked, but another client also wants to schedule a spot. They can still finish the sign-up process; however, the appointment has a flag that shows it as a “waiting list” booking.

For more information about how to use the waiting list feature, you can check out our in-depth article and the video.

Enhancements & Bugfixes

Just a couple of updates, in case you were waiting for them.

• Excel export in Detailed booking report – Fixed exporting of Intake form fields and also new fields added there (e.g. “Time of test result” for tickets)
• Dashboard enhancements – Dashboard weekly revenue amount fixed. Now the revenues are updated and changed according to the payment processor, invoice and booking statuses, discounts. Also, the number of popular services is fixed in charts

Upcoming Developments in October

Google Drive Upload Feature

If you’ve been waiting to have clients upload documents, we have the first option available coming soon. Upload to Google Drive is under development now.

Right now, we have the Intake Forms feature that allows users to collect pertinent data for their clients per booking. However, sometimes users must upload documents (scans of supporting documents, signed release forms, etc.). This new plugin will allow a client to upload documents to a booking for access by the company.

The uploaded documents will either connect to a client record or a specific booking. For example, a client might upload a driver’s licence scan to use a dune buggy. This would connect to the client record. However, they might have to sign and upload an insurance form for the specific booking. All documents will be accessible from the client history and booking details. For increased security and client data protection, you’ll be able to restrict document access to admin and senior roles.

Client App Enhancements

At present, all client app users have to log in every time they want to use the app. On approval for cookie usage in our client app, we will enable clients to stay logged in on their personal devices. It’s convenient for users when they don’t have to log in every time.

Developments to the Service Add-on Feature

If you add service extras so far we have only had a text name and the price. To make it easier for your clients to see the benefit of your service add-ons, we will be adding the option for you to include both an image and detailed description to better display and sell your service extras.

Clients are far more convinced when they can see a benefit to including a service extra.

In Case You Missed It…

This month we have had a nice mixture of guest authors for our blog. Some returning favourites and a couple of new faces have joined us with some interesting insights and information.

 From Meenz Nautiyal at Nextiva, we had some insightful commentary on the future of contact centres. Is it possible to run an effective call centre with remote workers? Anand Srinivasan approached a vital aspect of starting any business, but specifically a beauty business. How do you go about securing funding?  And Sheikh Adil had some helpful tips on how small businesses can effectively leverage digital advertising for their businesses.

Two new guest posters this week are Victor Blasco from Yumyum Videos and Rithesh Raghavan from Acodez. Victor gave us some invaluable information about the right way to use explainer videos to turn interested potential clients into paying ones. Rithesh had some helpful information on how to create a marketing funnel for consultancy businesses.

If you’ve been toying with the idea of supplementing your business income with some affiliate marketing, and wondering how to make the most of your SimplyBook.me affiliate link, you might want to check out the article.

And if you are looking at ways to make your different business tools work together for the best performance and least amount of work for you, checkout out the integrations article, and on our website.

One last thing

You might remember that SimplyBook.me acquired Harmonizely back in June. Well, since then there has been no small amount of development and synchronising with the SimplyBook.me methodology and approach. After some significant hard work, it looks like SimplyMeet.me will be ready to launch in October.