From salon appointments to restaurant paint night events, and one-on-one consultations to live product demos, there are so many ways a business can benefit from having an efficient booking system. And not only that, but one that’s built directly into the business’s website. 

By empowering customers to schedule appointments, make reservations, or sign up for events, brands can focus on delivering an awesome service instead of coordinating the signups for it. 

There’s just one thing though: 

You need customers to actually use your online booking system for that to happen. 

There are a ton of WordPress plugins and external apps that can help you create a booking system. But, today, we’re going to look at how to use Amelia to design a fast, convenient, and user-friendly system that will help you get more bookings and increase customer satisfaction. 

Get more bookings with these 5 Amelia plugin features 

The Amelia events and appointments plugin is always coming out with new and revamped features to improve your booking system. 

Here are 5 features your customers, users, and attendees will thank you for: 

1. Create booking options that match the type you need

Before you set up a booking system for your website, you really have to think about the best way to present this information to your visitors. 

For instance, if people are signing up for an event like a webinar, does it make sense to create a multi-step form? Or is the information best presented in an event calendar format?

In this view, attendees can quickly see upcoming events and what sort of capacity is currently available. 

If you feel like they’d benefit from seeing more details about an event, it might be better to present this data in an event list format instead: 

It all depends on what type of event or appointment you’re booking and what it’s going to take for a visitor to go from Point A (entering the booking system) to Point B (actually booking an appointment or reserving a spot). 

By choosing the right type of booking form, you can remove a lot of the friction that often occurs during this process. 

2. Include search and filters to speed up bookings

You shouldn’t assume that people will instantly know what they want to do. 

In some cases, yes, you’ll have repeat customers or attendees who know the provider, location, or service they want to book. In other cases, though, you’ll have first-time visitors who would benefit from seeing what all their options are. 

For those that are looking for something specific, it would be a good idea to include a search bar (like in the calendar example above) or filters. 

For instance, this booking form allows users to sort their results by Class and Instructor:

For service-based booking systems, in particular, this feature is really helpful. Not only does it reduce the number of choices that customers have to make, but it also provides a more accurate picture of what’s available to them.  

As you can see in this next screen, customers that choose the Level 3 Yoga class only see available days and times for that particular class:

If they were to choose one instructor, the calendar would adjust even more to the specific request. 

So, if you feel as though your customers, users, or attendees are getting bogged down in the sheer number of choices they have to make, filters and search features will ease their decision-making process and help you get more bookings — and quickly, too. 

3. Offer appointment packages and increase the value of your booking system

For some websites, one-off events or appointments are all the customers will need — like for sporting events or consultations. 

However, for businesses that sell the same type of service to customers (like salons and personal trainers), discounted packages or value-add bundles would be really attractive options to offer. 

Take these 10-pack yoga classes: 

The first thing these packages enable customers to do is pay for 10 classes all at once and at a discounted rate. The way these packages are configured, the customer also has to book their first class when they make the purchase. 

So, not only are you making their lives easier with a pre-packaged offering, but you’re likely to get more bookings in the end, too. 

4. Include a modern-looking form to speed up signups

While it’s definitely important to make the decision-making process fast and pain-free, the final step where they book the appointment or reserve a spot at the event needs to be just as user-friendly. 

That means including a form that they recognize and will be easy to get through: 

Notice how well this form is designed. 

Each label sits on top of the fields, so visitors never lose track of what they’re filling in. All fields are vertically in line with one another, so there’s very little chance of a field getting missed. And color is used in all the right places. 

The faster and easier you make it for them to input their details, the quicker you’ll get them into the system and on the books. 

5. Integrate with other apps and impress customers with how every detail has been accounted for

You can make customers’ and employees’ lives even easier by adding extra features to your booking system. 

Of course, this depends on what types of appointments or events you’re inviting them to schedule.

Here are some ways in which Amelia users can integrate their booking systems with external apps and increase their bookings in return: 

Payment collection

There are three options for collecting payment through your booking form: 

• WooCommerce
• PayPal
• Stripe

You get to choose which of these options to display. If it makes more sense for customers to pay on site, you can enable that option as well. 

Calendar event creation

While some customers or attendees will remember to add upcoming events to their personal calendars, some might not. Regardless, why not give them a hand and offer to put it there for them? 

With this feature, customers can select which calendar they use and then this app will redirect them to it so they can finish setting up the event. 

Alternatively, you can add a .ics attachment to the event confirmation email. When the customer opens the file, the event gets added to their calendar. 

Zoom links

For virtual Zoom appointments, there’s no need to bombard your customers or attendees with multiple emails. Just use the Amelia template to add a space for your Zoom meeting room link. 

Once Zoom is connected and you’ve enabled it to generate new rooms for your meetings, this information will get sent along with the event confirmation email. 

As a bonus, if customers change their appointments, the Zoom details change as well. New employees will receive a new Zoom host link and it will change on the customer’s side as well. 

Make everyone’s lives easier with Amelia

While it’s definitely important to have a WordPress booking system that’s easy for you to use on the backend, it’s just as important to have one that makes your customers’ lives easier. 
With Amelia, you’ll find that your website visitors are able to get through the booking process quickly. As a result, your client will get more bookings and be extremely happy with the results you’ve gotten for them!