Removing friction from your customer journey

When it comes to friction in a customer’s buying journey, a lot of people immediately think of the act of booking tickets or entry to your venues. However, friction can run far deeper than that and be something which impacts the whole customer journey throughout your business from pre-arrival, time in the venue and post trip experience. 

Clearly, creating friction risks losing buyers either prior to the first visit or after and subsequently impacting your revisitation rate. We’ve put together this handy guide below to ensure that you’re doing everything in your power to eradicate friction from your customer experience. 

Pre-arrival

Your website is the most important part of avoiding friction of the first stage of the buyers journey, and we think there are three main criteria your website needs to meet.

1. It’s fast. A slow load speed can kill your chances of converting with customers, as 40% will abandon it if it takes longer than 3 seconds.
2. It’s optimised for mobile. Mobile is increasingly becoming the dominant online tool of choice for consumers, with 79% of smartphone users making purchases through their mobile devices. If your website doesn’t look good or provide a good experience on mobile, the chances are you’re losing business.
3. It’s easy to find. Make sure your SEO is all in order and that customers looking for your business, or a business like yours can easily find it through search engines or social media. 

Once on your website, you need to make sure the buying journey is as simple as can be. 

This is by having clear call to action prompts on your website that allow your guests to instantly get to your booking system to make a booking – too often we see too many steps to just simply get to the booking system of FEC operators. 

Once your guests are at the booking system the journey through this process needs to be as streamlined as possible – think minimal steps, and simple, easy to use options when it comes to the product offering and interface.

In-venue

Pretty obvious one to start with, but no-one likes queuing! Think about how you can allow your guests to spend as little time waiting in lines as possible.

Have QR codes sent to your customers as soon as they’ve made a booking, meaning when it comes to checking in they can just let your front of house team scan the QR Code and they’re straight in to enjoy their visit.

Think of other ways you can reduce friction once guests are inside your venue. For example, introduce QR Codes around your venue, or within the cafe & restaurant so that guests can scan and order their food and drink. 

Sounds simple but making sure signposting (think restrooms, changing rooms & food spots) is clear and visible throughout the venue will make a huge difference for guests, and you should also encourage staff to approach your guests to ensure they’re happy with everything and offer any assistance – a little human touch can go a long way!

Finally, when it hits the time for your guests to leave make sure the process is smooth & seamless – just like when they arrived!

Post visit

We always recommend that our BookNow customers follow up with a number of automated emails that reduce friction & leave a positive lasting impression on your guests.

First up is a feedback survey – not only does this give you valuable feedback to assess where you’re going right and wrong, but also helps your guests feel like their thoughts are valued.

Obviously if a guest is unhappy, it goes without saying you should follow up further and try to rectify the situation! It’s also essential that at this stage, your business also has some processes in place that allow you to gauge, measure and track this feedback to ensure the business is moving in the right direction. 

Next up is an automated email geared at boosting revisitation which some of our customers send out in the days following a guest has visited their venue, which offers them a discount code to be used within in a designated time frame – this is great as it keeps your repeat business high. It also is a lovely note on which to finish this experience with the customer on. Click here to find out how some of our customers are using automation to boost profits. 

In conclusion, post visit it’s all about communication and the human touch which will leave a lasting, positive impression on your customer base. 

To find out how BookNow Software can be used to remove friction from your customers whole experience with your business, just fill out our form below.