What an online booking system needs
There are many online booking systems, and nearly all promise the same. This checklist helps you compare what matters day to day in a business that takes bookings: barbershops, salons, clinics and studios.
For your customers
A simple booking page. Services with their price and duration, a choice of professional and only the times that are really free. If customers have to call to confirm, the system isn't doing its job.
Booking without an account. Every extra step makes someone give up. A name and an email are enough.
A confirmation, a reminder and a link to move or cancel. It is what reduces no-shows most, and it shouldn't depend on sending messages by hand.
No ads and no cookies on the booking page. The page is your shop window: it shouldn't show other people's ads or track your customers.
For your team
Each professional's hours. Days off, different hours on different days and, if you have more than one location, per location.
Bookings made by hand in the same agenda. Walk-ins and phone bookings go into the same agenda and the time stops showing as free. The same for breaks and blocked time.
An account for each person. Owners, reception and professionals sign in with their own account and see what their role allows.
Resources, if you use them. Rooms, cabins, tables or chairs that limit how many services can happen at once.
For your business
Your customers' data is yours. Check who stores it, where, and how you answer when a customer asks for a copy or for it to be deleted. In Europe that is what the GDPR requires.
Who stopped coming back. A list of the customers who haven't been back for longer than usual is worth more than many campaigns.
Booking on your website and social media. A link for Instagram and WhatsApp, and a code snippet for your website.
A price that doesn't grow with you. Be wary of per-professional or per-booking prices that rise as your business grows, and of trials that end halfway through getting set up.
How Agendator answers this checklist
Agendator does everything above and is free for every business, with no card and no trial period: a booking page, your team's agenda, email reminders, customers with notes and the list of who stopped coming back, with up to 20 locations.
It doesn't take online payments or send text messages yet: customers pay at your business, and text reminders will come later, with prepaid credits.