What Is an Online Reservation System? And Why You Need It

Whether you’re in the service and consultation business, hospitality, or restaurant management, automated reservation systems are now an integral part of any successful operation and a business’s bottom line.

Want to pay less for manpower? Reduce scheduling errors? Measure and analyze your business better? All this and much more can be done with the online reservation system. But what is this, in particular?

Let’s give it a simple and clear definition.

What is an Online Reservation System? 

An online reservation system is a piece of software that enables automated service/time/team scheduling via an internet website, your own or third-party platform.

Such online booking systems are today used across various industries, ranging from cafes and hotels to pet services, event venues, schools, and medical institutions. Very broadly defined, such systems help people book spaces, services, and events.

Based on the business type, e.g. a bike rental company or table booking, such software comes with various capabilities and options to meet the needs of a specific business. For example, bike rental companies don’t require an option to select a table near the window when making a reservation, whereas restaurants are unlikely to need the “type of vehicle” option popular with bike rentals.

There is also a difference between direct bookings and platform bookings, both can offer booking systems. So, a booking system can either be hosted on the business’s website (direct bookings) or part of a platform (platform bookings). Some businesses might offer both, allowing customers to choose how they want to book.

Direct bookings

This is when a business allows for reservations made directly through its brand website. The customer typically visits the business’s site, selects a service/table/room, and books directly with the business. Direct bookings usually mean more control to the business in terms of pricing, customer data, and the booking process. No need to pay any commissions to third-party sites.

Platform bookings

These are big third-party platforms, such as online booking engines, marketplaces, or apps like OpenTable, Airbnb Experiences, or even booking platforms like Booksy or Yelp. Examples also include Vagaro for service bookings. These platforms are like online marketplaces where customers can find and book services. Customers know and use these platforms so it’s often great for businesses to use them to widen their audience.

Direct booking systems are offered by various proprietary and open-source providers, each with different pricing models:

• Proprietary: usually the fees are based on the number of software users (your staff), bookings made, or services/rentals operated. Examples include Setmore for service bookings and Booqable for rental businesses.
• Open source: website builders like WordPress (the most widely used CMS in the world) rely on plugin extensions for these needs, which are far more affordable, charging fixed fees for software usage. View examples.

As a rule, an online booking system can accept payments directly through the website online from a client; however, very often software providers also provide a piece of hardware, such as POS systems, to facilitate in-person payments for walk-in clients and integrate these transactions with the booking software.

Why Use an Online Reservation System on Your Site

Have you embraced all the benefits of an online reservation system? If you are still in doubt, we definitely recommend checking out the reasons to use an online booking system below.

Take complete control over your appointments
As a service provider or any other business that deals with time or space bookings, you want complete control over your appointments and client experience. With an independent booking system on your website, this is your territory of control. You can do whatever you need with pricing rates, set up availability and resources for bookings, contact clients, etc. 

100% Improve your workflow with automation
An online reservation system helps you forget about scheduling errors and fully automate such important interactions as reminder sending, payment processing, staff notifications, etc. If you do some of these things manually today, that will be a breeze tomorrow with the scheduling and booking software of your choice. This will surely make your entire team more productive. Needless to say, manual scheduling stays when necessary.

Manage pricing with flexibility
No rigid pricing rules. Set your own pricing rates, without commissions, and adjust them as needed. Want to promote unpopular times with discounts? Want a special price to be applied at specific conditions? The choice is yours to make your sales as profitable as possible with the software alone.

Measure booking sales and understand clients better
An online booking system gathers a lot of data for you, from the most popular services and products to the most loved staff, turnaround times, areas to improve marketing, etc.

Convenient ways to communicate with clients

The online booking system sends notifications to your clients automatically, very often via popular messengers and emails. So you won’t just automate all the communication processes but also make them convenient for clients.

Online Reservation System Example

Let’s use the BookingPress WordPress plugin to illustrate some examples of how services can be booked in various ways and what brings true value to your customers:

Example 1. 

Enable to choose the appointment duration for more tailored personalization.

Example 2.

Create a booking form with various categories, images, and descriptions to speed up bookings.

Example 3.

Enable various online payment methods.

Example 4.

Set capacity for an appointment to enable people to choose the number of people for a group appointment.

Example 5.

Make it easy for clients to add bookings to their calendars.

Example 6.

Make it easy to book extra services.

Example 7.

Customize the availability of every schedule.

Example 8.

Enable clients to add many services at once and book them in a single transaction.

And you get even more on the management side!

Want to learn more about the software? Read a detailed BookingPress review.

Let’s Conclude – Why Have an Online Booking System on Board?

What do you get in a result when using the online booking system for your operations? Hard to count all the possibilities! But some of the most important ones include:

• A more productive team without the hassle of phone calls and emails.
• Fewer to no scheduling errors.
• Fewer no-shows with online payment processing and instant messages.
• More convenience for your customers.
• Better manage and fill gaps between appointments.
• Increase booking volumes with great software marketing tools.
• Centralized and comprehensive data for business management.
• Powerful staff and availability management.

Related articles: 

• How to Create a Barber Booking Website with WordPress
• How to Start Appointment Consulting Business
• How to Create a Lawyer Appointment Website with WordPress