Your guests expect to be able to reserve a bowling lane online as easily as they book a table in a restaurant or a hotel room. If they cannot, many book wherever they can. Online booking secures these bookings for you, takes pressure off the phone and gives your team more time for the guests in the centre.
Guests expect convenience
Your guests shop online and book their holidays on their mobile phones. They expect the same when they reserve a lane. With online booking they can reserve at any time, including in the evening after work, without waiting for your opening hours or being stuck on hold.
What is also often underestimated is that an awkward booking process can harm your reputation. Annoyance about an engaged line or a lost reservation quickly ends up in an online review. A simple online booking, on the other hand, improves the first impression guests get of your centre.
What you miss out on without online booking
Picture this: a family decides on the spur of the moment on a Friday evening to go bowling, but cannot find a way to reserve a lane online. Instead of calling and perhaps ending up on hold, they book with the next centre that takes online bookings. It is not only this booking that is lost. The family may not come to you next time either.
Then there is the effort: every call about a reservation ties up someone at the counter who could be handing out shoes or selling drinks instead. And every reservation copied by hand into a diary or spreadsheet is a possible source of mistakes. You can read more about this in the article 7 common mistakes when managing bowling lanes without a booking system.
Better planning with booking data
Online booking also gives you figures that you can hardly capture with phone and paper. You can see on which days and at which times people book, how large the groups are and which packages are popular. That helps you plan staff and maintenance better and fill quiet periods in a targeted way.
What an online booking system for bowling centres should do
A good system brings bookings, changes and customer details together in one place. Pay particular attention to these points:
- Guests only see lanes and times that are actually free.
- Booking works just as well on a mobile phone as on a computer.
- Guests can add packages, food and drinks to their booking.
- Online payment or a deposit is possible.
- Confirmations and reminders are sent automatically.
- Guests can change or cancel bookings themselves, according to your rules.
How to let guests pay in advance is explained in the article Online payment when booking. You can read how to avoid no-shows with reminders and deposits in How to reduce no-shows in your bowling centre.
More time for the guests in the centre
When your guests have already reserved and paid for their lane before they arrive, things move faster at reception. Your team can focus more on the guests and has more time to sell food, drinks and extras. That can increase revenue per visit. You can read how to do this in the article Food and drink with bowling bookings.
Online booking is no longer an extra
Online booking has long stopped being an extra and is now part of a good guest experience: book, pay, arrive and play – without a detour via the phone. Not only your guests benefit, but your revenue too.
Which features a booking system should offer overall is covered in the guide Booking system for bowling centres. One example of an online booking system for bowling centres is Flexybox.
