Automation: The engine of your business

One feature we tend to see make one of, if not the biggest, impacts across all business units using BookNow Software is automation which we deliver via Salesforce flows. 

With BookNow Software & Salesforce, departments across your business can automate tasks that normally rip into valuable time, allowing them to be more efficient and redirect their time to more revenue generating initiatives within the business.

Below are just some successful uses of flows and automation we see day in, day out, from BookNow Software customers.

Marketing Automation

Without a shadow of a doubt, the most common automation usage we see from BookNow users is in marketing – particularly around loyalty programs. Here are just a few examples that we see customers use day in day out.

• After 5 free visits, get your 6th one free
• 10 Days before a customer’s birthday, they get a happy birthday email and 10% off discount code
• Exclusive offers to members that are automatically sent at the beginning of each month 

You can also set up automated campaigns that determine the next action – for example let’s say that you have a sequence where all customers get a 10% off promo code, for those who use it within a week, the automation ends there.

For customers who don’t use it, then they receive a second offer for 15%.

If that isn’t used then the customer receives a final email with 15% off and a free drink just as an example – the point is, you can build an automated email flow that covers your email marketing for a three week period quite quickly.

The final example of marketing automation we want to talk about in a little bit more detail is an automated email to boost revisitation rate, whereby a marketing message is sent out to your customer in the immediate time vicinity in which they leave your venue, thanking them for their visit and inviting them to visit again within a set period of time with an exclusive promotional discount. 

We offer this automation as a preset to all customers when they roll out BookNow Software – so how successful has it been? 

Looking at our customers using an automation for revisitation over the past 12 months, we’re able to see that the average amount of customer spend directly attributable to this campaign is just over £36,000 demonstrating the campaign is absolutely worth doing for all businesses.

Monitor potential churning members

Another great automation we suggest to customers who operate a membership scheme is “Risk Automation” which is used by businesses offering a membership scheme. Effectively, using a scoring system and business intelligence, system admins can be alerted when customers are deemed to be at risk of cancelling their membership and then enter a marketing automation. 

Let’s look at this in a realtime business scenario: Jess is a member of a local gym, however due to a return to the office she’s struggling to book as many classes as she used to, where she attended three times a week regularly. 

After three weeks of 1-2 bookings, and a week of no bookings the automation puts her at risk of cancelling her membership, so the system alerts a member of staff and also enters the member into a marketing automation aimed at boosting her visitation rate through a sequence of promotional emails, depending on what action Jess takes, some of the topics and offers you could consider: 

• “We miss you” – gentle reminder to give you a visit 
• Run a six week challenge to boost visitation over a longer period 
• Refer a friend and receive two free PT classes for you both 
• Offer free meal plans to members visiting three times a week

Jess is prompted to return, bringing a friend back with her who also signs up as a member and the two of them regularly attend three classes per week. Hopefully the above example gives you how automation can help keep people as members of your business, without you having to do much manual work outside of the odd phone call! 

Operational usage

It isn’t just marketing and customer usage that automation can be used for – it can also streamline the operational side of your business. 

For example it can handle internal communications – when you use BookNow Software for your stock management, once you get low on supplies, let’s say packs of M&Ms and Coca Cola, an automated email can be sent to your supplier to alert them and request an order for more. 

Additionally, you can have automations that alert the relevant member of staff when a first aid form has been completed, saving manual admin for staff.

Another usage of automation being used to handle the operational and transactional emails to your customers, for example booking confirmation, payment links, waiver reminders – and whatever else you can think of.

Finally, it can bulk change your data in seconds – for example you could change tax from 5% to 7% in one click. 

Making life easier for IT

Using flows to automate tasks will save you having to use a developer to carry out tasks for which you can simply build yourself via a flow. 

For example, we had a customer who wanted to allow their guests the ability to cancel their own bookings – they simply created a flow that would allow customers to enter their email and booking number and cancel their booking, saving front of house from taking calls or emails to cancel bookings. 

Another usage could be an outdoor activity centre with high climbing frames that may only be able to operate dependent on weather conditions – rather than having to manually cancel bookings if they cannot go ahead because of the weather, you could simply build a flow which would allow these to be all cancelled at the click of a button and all emails automatically sent to customers. 

These are the sort of features that would either require a lot of time and effort from your IT department, or the usage of a developer to custom build the feature – which will easily cost thousands.

However, because of the ability to build flows and automations in BookNow Software your business can build these flows out in a matter of hours and have the features you need up and running. 

Finally on this point, your IT team can also build walkthrough guides within the platform that show your staff how to use the features – saving time on training. 

So now you should be able to see the true power of utilising automation and flows on the BookNow Software platform and the impact across the business – here is a summary of just how this would benefit you:

Increase revenue
Save Time
Solve problems
Improve customer satisfaction
Increase loyalty and revisitation
Improve staff efficiency

To find out more about how automation and flows can revolutionise your business then get in touch with us via the form below