You’re going to be excited for what’s happening on September 1st! Why? Because you’re about to see more bookings in your appointment calendar.
The Online Booking website is being rebuilt from the ground up to make it easier to use on all devices, faster and deliver you more bookings. The release date for you to customise and preview your Online Booking website is set for September 1st. It’ll be going live to your clients on September 8th.
Why it’s changing:
- From our data, mobile users make up 40% of total visitors to Online Bookings.
- Almost half of our customers actively use Online Booking, and we want it to be the best it can be!
- It’s one of our most requested features and now’s the perfect time to make a change. We thought it’s a great idea too!
It’s going to look great on all screen sizes (a.k.a mobile responsive)
Take a look at what it looks like on iPad:
Simple, one click Facebook login:
Your clients will be able to login to Online Booking using Facebook. Simple, one click!
Plus, lot’s of other awesome changes:
- Your clients can now choose their services before they have to login or register – this should result in more clients completing their bookings. The login screen will be available at any stage of the booking process
- Your clients will now have the ability to cancel (if you allow it) and move their appointments (up to 24 hours before their appointment)
- We’ve streamlined the Online Booking process, so that when your client makes a Online Booking they’ll get an email saying they’re booked in. Imagine a client books on a Friday for the following week but they don’t receive confirmation until Monday, by then it might be too late and they may have booked elsewhere! The new Online Booking is set up so they’ll no longer have to wait around for you to accept their booking (at least 90% of bookings go unchanged!). If you do decide to change or cancel their appointment then they’ll be notified of the change.
Before and after (home screen on desktop):
Before
After
What do you need to know / do ?
The new Online Booking page is easier than ever to make it look the way you want. You’ll be able to add a banner image, a background image/style, change your colour scheme, and a add a blurb about your salon in the Settings section (from the 1st) in Kitomba 1.
Options / sneak preview
We’ve allocated some time so you can take your Online Booking page for a spin and get it set up perfectly for your business before it goes live to your clients. Use this time to add a blurb about your business, a beautiful banner image and get your colour scheme looking great.
When is it going to change?
The release date is on September 1st. You’ll have one week to check it out and then we’ll hit the switch to make it live. As always, we’re more than happy to help with this transition in any way we can. So get in touch with the team and we’ll talk you through it.
At Kitomba, we always love your feedback on how we can make your life easier. If there’s something you’d like to see in Online Booking, go to our feature requests page in Community and let us know about it.
This sounds great, very handy for the clients and should result in more online bookings. However will it be possible to turn off the client’s ability to cancel and move appointments? We don’t actually want them to be able to do this. If they can move their appointments around or cancel easily online it might encourage them to do it more often which is exactly what we don’t want.
Hi Fiona, thanks for your comment. I’m happy to say we’re on the same page – it will be possible for you to turn off the client’s ability to cancel appointments. Appointments will be able to be rescheduled up to 24 hours before the start time. Thanks, Paul
Looks much clearer and easier to use. Will it also be easier to do multiple bookings?
Thanks Olwyn, we think so to! By multiple bookings, do you mean recurring appointments? If so, this is not something that will be included in this release but please feel free to add this our feature requests. It’s going to be a whole lot easier for your clients to book multiple services, rebook the same services as a previous appointment and move/cancel appointments. And overall just more awesome 😉 Thanks, Paul
Cant wait!!!!
Neither can we! Not long now 🙂
Will there be a way to take a credit card payment/deposit when booking appointments over an hour for example?
Hi Domenica, thanks for getting in touch. In the latest update there won’t be a way to take credit card payments/deposits. There’s been a feature request (see it here) posted, so feel free to add a vote and/or comment to this. Thanks, Paul
Hi Paul, would it be possible to include in the blurb about our salon, a link to our latest promotions or somewhere else in the online booking homepage – ‘View Latest Promotions’ ?
Hi Naomi, it will not be possible to put links in the blurb about your salon. But please feel free to add this to our feature requests – we’re always on the lookout for improvements 🙂
That’s fab! So will we get a reminder once you’ve finished testing to take it for a spin?
Hi Josie, yes we’ll be sure to let you know when you can check it out. Thanks!