How To Create An Online Booking System For Your Business

Customers now expect to book, pay and reschedule without calling. Online booking covers buying tickets, seeing a doctor, ordering food and travelling, so many businesses need an online booking website or app. Booking data can also feed advertising technology (AdTech) that targets offers to customers' interests.

This guide covers the types of booking software, their benefits, the features to include and the steps to create an online booking system.

Why Businesses Need Booking Software

Online booking software lets users pick a time, book a meeting, ticket or service, and then receive it: hotel rooms, restaurant tables, air and train tickets, events, doctor's appointments.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Statista projected that the online travel market would grow from $756 billion in 2019 to $817 billion in 2020.

For any business type, a booking system takes phone admin off your staff and lets customers book at any hour.

For a consultation on your project, contact us.

Types Of Online Booking Apps

There are two main types of booking software: on-demand and in-advance.

On-Demand Booking Software

On-demand booking means ordering a service and getting it right away. Taxi apps such as Uber are a typical example. Delivery of food or household items is on-demand too, as are home services: a housekeeper, lawn mowing or a handyman for odd jobs around the house or office.

In-Advance Booking Software

This type of software lets users schedule activities in advance. Common categories:

Food & beverage delivery

This looks like on-demand booking, with one difference: services such as Uber Eats let customers order groceries or restaurant food online and schedule the delivery for later.

Hotel booking

Hotel booking systems are one of the most common examples of booking software. Travellers use them to reserve a room for specific dates. We have written an article about hotel booking system development if you want to know more.

Flight booking

Air travel depends on online booking, whether for business trips or holidays, and flight booking makes up a large part of the travel booking sector.

Beauty services

Clients can book an appointment with a hairdresser, barber or make-up artist in advance.

Healthcare

Patients book appointments with doctors online instead of calling the clinic, which saves time for both sides.

Restaurant reservation

Restaurant reservation systems let guests reserve a table for a specific time without calling.

If you need a restaurant booking app, our business development team can help you plan it: contact us.

Advantages Of Booking Apps For Businesses And Customers

Online booking systems benefit both companies and their customers.

Benefits for businesses

Custom calendar

A custom calendar works for both customer bookings and internal planning: employees can track holidays and sick leave, and managers can track customer requests.

Notifications

Notifications remind employees about appointments and other events, so nobody has to keep them all in their head.

Convenience for customers

Customers can book at any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including outside your business hours.

Analytics

Booking systems usually include analytics on the number of bookings, customers and visits.

Payment options

Booking systems usually have an integrated payment gateway so users can pay online for booking services.

Custom features

Ready-made booking solutions often have limited functionality, or functions that don't suit your business. A custom booking system includes the features your business needs, whether you are a small business or a large enterprise.

Integrations

Third-party services such as the Google Maps API or the Travelport API add maps, travel content and other data to your booking system.

Benefits for customers

Booking

Customers can book in a few clicks, without phoning.

Reminder

Reminders make customers less likely to miss appointments or flights.

Rating system

Customers can rate the service once it is finished, which helps other customers choose.

Editing option

Customers can reschedule or cancel a booking in a few taps or clicks, without calling or queuing.

Accessibility

An online booking system works outside business hours and on days off.

Features Your Booking System May Include

Features vary by type of booking system. These are the common ones.

Customer panel features

Sign-up

Users need an account. To save them time, let them sign in with Facebook, LinkedIn or Google.

Select time/date

Once users choose a service, they pick the date and time.

Payment gateway

Use an established payment provider such as Braintree, Stripe or PayPal to handle payments securely.

Calendar

Every booking system needs a calendar that is simple to use.

Integration with relevant services

Sync the service with third-party tools such as social media pages, calendars and CRMs.

Ratings and reviews

Let users rate your services and leave feedback, so other users can see what to expect.

Customer support

If something goes wrong, customers need a way to reach someone who can fix it, such as a chat with your support team.

Reminders

Notifications remind users about upcoming bookings and appointments.

Management panel features

Data management

Your employees use a content management system (CMS) to manage, edit and delete data in the booking system.

Customer-support chat

Managers can see how the support team communicates with users. An online booking system needs a support team, so plan for hiring one.

Updates

When you update information in the system, users get notified.

Revenue management

Built-in statistics and reports track income and refunds, and filter profit by date or time.

Contact us to discuss your booking system.

How To Create A Booking System

We recommend five steps.

Market Research

If you are launching a new business rather than adding booking to an existing product, start with research: analyse your competitors and check that the idea has potential.

At Go Wombat, our business analysts also run research and analysis before development starts.

Find Contractors For Your Project

Next, find a company to build the system. Review platforms such as Clutch.co and GoodFirms list software development companies with client reviews, and let you filter them by region, rate and other criteria.

Outsourcing gives you access to a large pool of skilled specialists and is usually cheaper and more flexible than hiring. Read more in our article about the benefits and risks of outsourcing.

UX Strategy

Next comes UX strategy research. Our UI/UX specialists work out how to make the booking flow easy to use and navigate.

Minimum Viable Product Development

We recommend building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) first. It lets you validate the concept with a group of beta users before you build the full product.

An MVP also reduces cost and risk. You can start with a proof of concept, cut features or use low-code platforms; our article about reducing MVP development costs has more ways to save budget.

Final Product Development And Release

If beta users accept the prototype, we build the full product, release it and maintain it, because it will need updates. At Go Wombat, we build on Python and Django, which handle complex software well.