This guide describes how to set up the WebReserv Booking System for Boat rentals.
http://www.webreserv.com/download/how-to-set-up-your-boat-rental-booking-system.pdf
Handle pet fees (and other fees) in your booking system
The custom fields in the WebReserv booking system makes it really easy to add additional options, such as a pet fees. This example shows you how to create a custom field for pet fees, how to assign it to your room(s) and finally how it will show up on the booking calendar.
Step 1. Create the custom field.
Go to Setup – Custom Fields and click add new custom field. Select List as the custom field type and click Continue. You are now on the main custom field definition page.
- In the name enter “Pets” or a similar name for the custom field.
- We allow for a maximum of 2 pets. Since many customers won’t have any pets at all, we’ll enter 3 options in the options field: No Pets, 1 Pet and 2 Pets. The options field also allow us to enter a price (if selected). In this case we charge 10 € per pet per day, so we enter [10.00] on the line for one Pet and [20.00] on the line for two pets.
- We also have to specify that the rate is per day. By default, the booking system assumes that the price is for the entire stay, regardless of length. To change the charge to be per day, change the Price is for to be 1 day(s) – per unit. This instructs the system to charge 10 (or 20) per day per room.
Your custom field should now look like this:
Step 2. Assign the custom field to your products/rooms
After saving the custom field, we have to assign it to one or more products/rooms. This tells the system to include the Pet custom field on the booking calendar. To go Setup – Products & Reservation rules and select the first product/room where you want the Pets custom field to be included. In the left-hand menu, select Customer Information and scroll down to the bottom. Here you’ll find the custom fields. Set the Pets field to optional.
Click save and continue.
Step 3 – Validate the custom field.
To validate that your custom field is working, go to your booking calendar and select the product/room you just modified. Check that the Pets field is included.
You are done. That was easy right?
Tip: By default, custom fields will show on a separate page called “Additional Requests”. You can group custom fields on the date/time page (as shown in the example above) or you can group custom fields on the customer information page. To modify the custom field groups, go to Setup – Custom Fields and click the link to customize the display order.
Tax on custom options
The WebReserv system now uses the tax field for custom options to determine if the custom option is taxable. To set or update the tax rates for your custom fields, go to Setup – Custom Fields.
The tax rate can be set independently from your products (rooms, condos, tours etc).
Staggered booking payments
The WebReserv booking system now supports staggered payments. This allows you to require a deposit at the time of reservation and an additional amount prior to arrival. In order to use this feature, you need to be set up for automatic payment processing using one of the recommend merchant account providers.
To configure your product(s) for staggered payments, go to Setup – Products & Reservation Rules – Product – Tax/Deposit. Select Custom/Staggered as the deposit type and enter the payment amounts or percentages.
Once you have activated staggered payments, the system will automatically charge the customer card the specified number of days in advance if the reservation is confirmed. The system will not charge automatically if the reservation is pending or cancelled.
Booking System PayPal Additions
The WebReserv booking system now receives IPN (Payment Notifications) from PayPal. This makes it easier to keep track of reservations that have been paid and reservations that have not been paid.
When a PayPal reservation is made, it will be marked with the status Awaiting Payment.
This status indicates that the system has not yet received a payment notification from PayPal. As soon as the payment notification is received, the status will automatically changed to Pending or Confirmed, depending on the setup.
No payments
It can happen that a customer does not complete the payment process with PayPal. The WebReserv booking system will automatically cancel the reservation after the expiration time. The default expiration time is 15 minutes after the reservation as made. You can adjust the expiration time or turn off the automatic expiration under Setup – Business Information – Payments.
Note that PayPal may send a Pending payment notification. A pending payment notification indicates that the payment is pending, but not yet completed. The WebReserv booking system will treat a pending payment notification as if a payment was received, i.e. the reservation status will change to Pending or Confirmed.
10 tips to get more online bookings
Follow these simple steps and we guarantee you will receive more online bookings!
There’s a plenty of competition on the Internet and it is important to stand out from the crowd. Now that you have your own online booking software including the Reservation System and Availability Calendar, you should improve your information and business processes.
The goals of this 10 tips document are to help you increase your income and rentals, and secondly to help you make the process of booking on your website as simple as possible.
1. Get on the Internet
More and more customers turn to the Internet as the primary source for any type of service. Customers will be using sites like WebReserv.com, Google.com, Yahoo.com, Bing and similar search sites to search for products and services. If your business is not on the Internet it will not be found.
How to do it?
- To find places you can register free – search on Google for “free business listings”
- Google have their own free business listing system – Click Here
- Yahoo has the same – Click Here
2. Add information regarding your new online booking system to any printed advertising you have.
You want to promote your online booking system as much as possible, also, you want to minimize your work handling bookings – an online booking should cost you nearly no processing time, while calls and emails do.
Also, if you advertise on some business listing websites, make sure you link from those to your online booking pages on your website.
3. Have multiple reservation outlets
The more outlets you have for your reservations, the more sales opportunities you have. As a minimum, your customers should be able to make reservations from your own website from Webreserv.eu and at least one other reservation websites.
Note: Now you can embedded your Webreserv’s booking calendar on your WordPress site: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/webreserveu-booking-widget/
4. Release some news regarding your new booking system on at least 5 free news websites
News is a great way of getting other websites to refer to your website.
They require relevant news – but your new online booking system is real news. To find websites where you can register free news – try searching on Google for “free news websites”
Example:
Header for news :
Your_business_name now has online bookings.
Body for news:
Your_business_name is proud to announce that we can provide online bookings 24/7….
5. Optimize keywords
All search engines utilizes special tags (called metatags) to categorize websites. If your website doesn’t provide the expected tags and search keywords, the search engines will not be able to pick up and categorize your website correctly, resulting in few, if any, customers from the Internet. Many hosting companies provide tools to help you optimize your keywords. Some websites automatically makes your search keywords visible to the major search engines on the Internet, making it easier for your customers to find you. Remember to include your products or services as well as your business location in the search keywords.
A couple of examples:
- For Bed & Breakfast: Hotel, Travel, B&B, Bed Breakfast, Bed And Breakfast, Denver, Colorado, CO, Reserve, Book
- For Vacation Home: Vacation home, Vacation, Vacation Rental, Vacation Rental Reservation, Beach, Destin, FL, Florida
- For Wedding Photographers: Wedding, Wedding photographer, Weddings, Atlanta, GA, Georgia
- For Tee Times: Golf, Tee Time, Golf Reservation, San Diego, California, CA
- For Horse Riding Lessons: Horse Riding, Horse Riding Lessons, Horseback Riding, Dallas, TX, Texas.
6. Try to use the WebReserv booking system back-office for all bookings
Reason 1:
The WebReserv system allows you to extract all previous client emails.
If you have all your previous customers in the system, it becomes easier to send out promo/info emails 2 or three times a year.
Reason 2:
If you do a manual phone, email or walk-in booking through the back-office, the person gets the automatic confirmation email – meaning you don’t have to manually write a confirmation email.
Reason 3:
Many people keep booking emails for a long time, even years.
If the person then hears of a friend wanting to book something you provide, they will have the email so they can send it to their friends.
Reason 4:
The automated email has a link to “reviews” they can create on your website on WebReserv.
We know that reviews are important to people making a choice over who to book with, so they are important to your WebReserv account.
7. Change you telephone answering machine and mobile message
To ensure people are informed they can book online when you can’t answer the phone(s).
Example:
“Thank you for calling us, we are unable to answer your call at the moment.
If you are looking to make a reservation, please go to our website where you can book directly online.
8. Email all your previous customers that they can now book online
Any reason to contact them and remind them you exist is a worthwhile campaign.
Make sure you keep informational emails to previous customers short and informative.
Example:
Hi,
We just wanted to inform you we have now created an online booking system on our website to help both you and us.
You can book through our online booking system here.
We also have some great offer for this year – click here to read them.
Regards
Your_company_name
Your_web_address
9. Link with complementary businesses partners
The more links you have to your website, the higher ranking you will get on the major search engines. Identify other sites that you can trade links with – you link to them and in return they will link to you. The best partners are businesses that offer complimentary services.
10. Utilize free Internet listings
All of the major search engines are free and you can get listed on all of them with just a few hours worth of work. Use the following links to get registered on the major search engines and reservation systems:
Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx
WebReserv: http://www.webreserv.com/signup.do
Yahoo: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
Webreserv’s New Booking Plugins For WordPress Are A Hit
WebReserv released 4 new WordPress plugins to handle online bookings and reservations in December 2009.
Seven weeks later, these plugins have been downloaded thousands of times!
“It’s great to see that so many small businesses and developers are using the system.” says Martin Israelsen, founder of WebReserv. He continues, “It was a challenge to create this module for WordPress as we had to change the way the system works in some regards to support the WordPress users.”
WebReserv was established to create a new method for small business owners to receive online bookings through their own website.
“Our key goal was to empower small businesses to receive and handle their own bookings directly, rather than simply receive bookings via forms, emails or from expensive booking portals.” He continues, “We therefore created a booking widget that could be used on any website, and in December released our first plugins to the popular WordPress platform.”
The new plugins work in exactly the same manner as the original booking widget, but makes it easier to install the component on WordPress websites.
The WebReserv booking and reservation system consists of three main elements:
The Professional Back office lets business owners handle all aspects of reservations and bookings, both online and manual. The back-office also includes all the features for automated email notifications, reports, business management, etc
The booking widget is the second element. It is highly customisable, and can be added to as many websites and web pages as the business owner wishes. The booking calendar can be configured for searches, to list products for rental/hire, or in a single product view.
The last element is the WebReserv portal where the business owners business is listed, including information about the business, the businesses offerings, pictures, rates, features and attractions, reviews and more. The business listing also provides direct booking via the portal – and all bookings via the portal are commission free.
What makes WebReserv unique is that the system can not only handle reservations and bookings for accommodations industry, such as Hotels, B&B’s and Property Management companies, but can also handle bookings for industries such as car rentals, RV rentals, Yacht and Boat rentals and charters, and even Events, Equipment rental or anything else.
“Our aim was to not only to make these features available to the accommodation industry, but also to all the small and mid-sized business owners who rent out or hire products on their own website.” Martin Israelsen concludes, “With so many businesses within unique and differing industries signing up for the system, it’s great to see an idea slowly come to fruition”.
About WebReserv
WebReserv was founded in 2004 with their head office in Atlanta USA, and released their European site in 2009 with the European office in Spain.
They currently have businesses using their system in over 30 countries and process thousands of bookings weekly.
Links
WebReserv for WordPress – http://blog.webreserv.eu/webreserv-booking-plugins-for-wordpress
WebReserv Europe – http://www.webreserv.eu
WebReserv USA – http://www.webreserv.com
