At Easy Appointment Booking, our commitment to providing an exceptional booking experience for both merchants and their customers drives us to continuously improve the platform. Lately our focus on customer experience has been in focus, since a better workflow and experience means better conversions and sales for our merchants.
One of the most-requested features from merchants has been the ability to offer packages or bundles of bookings with a defined expiration period. Whether you’re selling a bundle of fitness classes, spa treatments, or consulting sessions, it’s now possible to attach expiry dates to these packages.
Bundles are a paid feature that lets merchants sell multiple bookings at once, and the customer can redeem the remainder later using a magic link in their email. In the past few months, we've heard from merchants who use this feature citing challenges in its flexibility. For one, without an expiry date customers could redeem a booking months or even years from today, which doesn't provide predictability in revenue for merchants. Additionally, without any timeframe, customers will hold on to the credits and never use them, which doesn't let them experience the unique event each merchant has to offer. Now, we have a new improvement allowing for an expiry date, this ensures that customers use their bookings within a specified time frame. For example, if you offer a 10-session yoga class package, you might want the sessions to expire within six months of purchase. This creates urgency for the customer to complete their bookings, benefiting both your cash flow and customer retention by encouraging repeat visits.
Use Case Example: Imagine you run a personal training business. You offer your clients a package of 5 training sessions that can be booked at their convenience. Without this feature, customers would book their first visit but the remaining visits would go unused without any consequence. As a result, your customer wouldn't progress on their fitness goals and you would have a risk of having to accommodate bookings that were purchased months or years ago. Now, with this new feature, you can set an expiry date of 90 days from the purchase date. This ensures that clients stay engaged and complete their sessions within a reasonable time. For customers who forget to book their sessions, you can send a reminder before each booking, encouraging them to make use of their purchase.
This helps avoid a common issue where clients may purchase multiple sessions but forget to schedule them, leading to gaps in their training and eventual dissatisfaction. By setting expirations, you create a win-win scenario: customers get the full benefit of their purchases, and your business maintains a steady stream of activity.
Key Benefits:
For more details on how to implement expiry times for packages, visit our changelog post here.
Time is money, and that’s especially true in the world of e-commerce. If customers struggle to find available booking times or experience friction during the booking process, it could lead to abandoned carts and lost revenue. To address this issue, we’ve introduced a calendar list view that makes it easier to select times for single-day bookings.
This new list view is perfect for merchants who only offer single-day events, such as one-off appointments or daily classes. Instead of navigating through multiple days on a traditional calendar view, customers can now quickly scroll through available times for that day, select a time, and head directly to checkout. This streamlined booking flow not only reduces friction but also increases the likelihood that customers will complete their booking.
Use Case Example: Suppose you run a salon that offers same-day appointments for haircuts, and most customers book their services on the day they need them. With the old calendar view, customers had to click through various dates to find availability, even though they only cared about the current day’s schedule. Now, with the new list view, your customers can immediately see all available slots for the day and book their appointment in just a few clicks.
This change eliminates unnecessary steps, making the process more intuitive and reducing the time it takes for customers to book. As a result, you’ll see faster conversions, more bookings, and a better customer experience. Our recent workshop customer who tried this noticed a conversion rate improvement of 6% in 60 days as it requires less clicks for your customer.
Key Benefits:
To learn more about the Faster Time Selection feature, check out our changelog post here.
Your booking form is the first touchpoint with customers, and gathering the right information at the time of booking is critical for delivering personalized service. With our new standardized intake questions, you can now ask for more detailed information upfront. This includes multiple-choice questions, checkboxes, and custom fields, enabling you to collect everything from customer preferences to consent for terms and conditions.
This feature is ideal for businesses that need to collect specific data from customers before the booking, such as dietary restrictions, special requests, or customer preferences for appointments. You can create intake forms that are tailored to your business and ensure that all important information is gathered before the appointment takes place.
Use Case Example: Imagine you run a cooking class where dietary restrictions are a crucial factor. With the new intake questions, you can ask customers if they have any allergies or dietary preferences as part of the booking process. You can offer multiple-choice options for common allergies (nuts, dairy, gluten, etc.) and include a checkbox to confirm that the customer understands your terms and conditions. This ensures that you have all the necessary information before the customer arrives, creating a seamless and safe experience.
This is also beneficial for service-based businesses that require customer consent before proceeding with appointments. You can use the intake questions to have customers agree to your terms and conditions, reducing legal risks and ensuring that both parties are aligned.
Key Benefits:
For more information on the Standardized Intake Questions, visit our changelog post here.
These new features represent significant improvements to the customer-facing experience of your Shopify booking system. With the ability to set expirations on booking packages, speed up time selection for single-day events, and gather more specific customer information through intake questions, you can now provide a seamless, personalized experience that keeps customers coming back. Not only do these features improve the user experience, but they also provide you with more control and flexibility over how you manage your appointments. Whether you’re a wellness studio, a salon, a rental service, or any other appointment-based business, these updates will help you optimize your booking process and increase conversions.
By making it easier for customers to book, you can reduce abandoned carts, increase your booking volume, and ultimately drive more revenue to your Shopify store.
The team at Easy Appointment Booking is always working to improve your booking experience, both for you and your customers. The new features we’ve introduced are designed to enhance the functionality of your booking system, making it more flexible and user-friendly. We believe these updates will provide significant value to your business and help you stay ahead of the competition.
If you haven’t tried these new features yet, log in to your Easy Appointment Booking account today and start exploring how they can make a difference in your business. Stay tuned for more exciting updates coming soon!
