Here at Appointedd, we most often see businesses within the tours and attractions industry use our software to take bookings for group sessions such as walking tours, for rentals such as kiddy cars, and even 4x4 rides. Appointedd offers a simple and efficient solution no matter the use case.

Resources

Here at Appointedd, we call bookable calendars resources. Resources are either the person, space, or utility which facilitates your services. If you are looking, for example, to make a jet ski bookable as an activity, we would recommend that you make each jet skis your resources. If you are offering ghost tours, we would then recommend making your guides the resources. And if you are offering escape rooms experiences, then we would suggest making the individuals rooms your resources. You can manage your resources here, and learn all about them here.

Services

You can set up the services you wish to offer customers by going to Setup and clicking on Manage services. In most cases, you will require a standard service, however if you wish to offer a service as two or more parts or offer different prices depending on what option the customer selects then multi-part or multi-tier may be useful. You may also find it beneficial to use our request online booking feature. This means that, when a customer selects a time and books, it will then be processed as a booking request. If you then add your resource's email address in their profile, for example a ghost tour guide, and switch on the "Send resource request emails" setting, the guide can then either accept or decline the booking depending on their availability.

Additionally, if you provide dog training, for example, and you would like your customers to book a block of sessions at one time, you can do so by using our recurring bookings feature.

Emails

You can set up email notifications for every booking made by your customers. The design of those communications can be edited and branded to your business through HTML headers and footers. You can find out more about editing emails here. Sending an email to customers when they book provides them with a confirmation of the booking and summarise its details so that there is no confusion. It also gives you the ability to communicate with the customer in case they should bring any specific items.

SMS

If you would like to send text messages to your customers in addition to emails, you can set up a text for booking notifications. If you usually communicate through SMS, this may seem like the more natural choice. Learn all about SMS here.

Reminders and follow ups

We highly recommend that you make use of our reminders and follow-ups functionality for your business. By sending a reminder before the booking and a follow-up after, you'll be able to reduce no-shows and drive repeat custom. You can send the customer an email and/or a SMS a few hours prior to the booking to remind them it is coming up soon, and a follow-up afterwards to thank them for attending and inviting them to book again. You can set up reminders and follow ups here, and learn all about them here.

Booking page or widgets in URL

If you don't have a website for your business, you can use your Booking Page instead, which is created when you start an account with Appointedd. If you click on Booking tools and select go to the business booking page, you can view your Booking Page and copy the URL to share with your customers to book with you.

Alternatively, you can use widgets in URL mode, which allow further customization.

Booking widgets

If you have your own website and would like customers to book your services from there, then you can create a booking widget either in embed or popover modes. Click here to learn more.

Customize your booking flow

You can customize your booking flow to create a streamlined process for you and your customers. You may wish to set how much notice you require for a booking and how far in advance customers can book with you. This will limit how last minute a customer can book your services and how far in advance they can book, which can be helpful if you need to prepare anything prior to the booking taking place. Additionally, you may want to ask questions on the booking flow to gather all the information necessary at the time of the booking.

Calendar sync

You can sync your resource's external calendar to their account in Appointedd. This way, any events in their external calendar will be copied into Appointedd and vice versa. This ensures that you don't become double booked. You can sync calendars or send invites to sync here as well as alter any settings that may be applicable to your business. Learn all about calendar sync here.

Zoom and MS Teams meetings

If you offer, for example, gin tastings, you may like to make use of our Zoom or MS Teams integrations so that you can offer your services virtually.

Learn more about our Zoom integration here.

Learn more about our MS Teams integration here.

Payment gateway

Whether you are offering your service virtually or in person, you may want to take the payment for the service, either in full or as a deposit, at the time of booking. This will also help to reduce no shows. Appointedd integrates with three payment providers: Stripe and Square. Here is a guide on starting to take payments through Appointedd.

Day to day use

Once you have set up your account to fit your needs and started to take bookings, the calendar page in Appointedd will start displaying all those bookings. When an instructor has a session, they can login to Appointedd and click on the booking in their calendar, where they will be able to see the customers' details. They'll also be able to use our status feature to keep a record of who has arrived or who is a no-show.

User logins and permissions

You can give access to your resources by creating a user login for them from this page. You will also be able to set which permission they can have within the account. Find out more about the differences in permissions here.

However, if you sync your resource's external calendar with Appointedd then there will be no need for them to login to Appointedd as any new booking will automatically populate their calendar.

Reporting suite

Appointedd allows you to gain insight into how your business is doing via the reporting suite. You may wish to understand which instructors are getting the most bookings, which services are most popular, how much money is being generated through online bookings and which of your booking widgets is performing best. You can find the suite in your account here and learn all about reports here.

If you aren't satisfied with what you are getting out of Appointedd you would like to reach the success you set out to achieve, please get in touch with our customer success team as we would be more than happy to suggest innovative ways you can use your account. You can get in touch via our 24/7 messenger.

Click here to see a Booking Page.

Click here to see a booking widget.

“Our whisky experiences were configured to be bookable up to 5 weeks in advance so it became a very seamless process for our visitors and staff. We were able to streamline 19 bookable experiences in one day. We loved that visitors were notified and reminded of their booking, which was great for attendance and having payments taken in advance helped from a revenue point of view.”

Paul Graham – Visitor Centre Operations Manager, Ardnahoe Distillery

If you like what you've seen and think Appointedd could help power your business, please feel free to explore our functionality by signing up to a free trial.