A Q&A With Bookinglayer Founder Tim Has
Below is a Q&A session with Tim Has, Founder of Bookinglayer. Tim has over 15 years of experience in building SaaS tools. He started Bookinglayer in 2013 as an alternative to hotel reservation software solutions.
What makes Bookinglayer the best software for retreat businesses?
Most retreats sell accommodation and a guided activity as a package, and Bookinglayer is the only software solution that can sell activities and accommodation together. Our focus on configurable packages and the real human support our customers get, make me feel confident saying we’re in the game to be the best software solution for retreats.
Founder of Bookinglayer
Why focus on businesses like retreats?
10 years ago, when we started, we first focused on surf camps. Throughout the years we got approached by more and more retreats who were running into the same issue. They couldn’t find a workable booking solution. Retreats also need a flexible booking experience, allowing their bookers to choose a room and select activities like optional workshops or spa services, for example.
Today leading retreats have moved from alternative or custom-built solutions to Bookinglayer. This encourages us to take retreats very seriously in our customer base of adventure and wellness travel businesses.
How does your software address the specific needs and challenges of retreats?
One of our strong points is our high level of customisation. With our flexibility, we can handle retreats that need to approve inquiries first, retreats with fixed dates, and retreats that allow guests to build their own packages. In a nutshell, we provide retreats with all the software they need to handle their bookings, regardless of their booking flow.
If you want to capture inquiries, handle requests, allow direct bookings, automate payments or collect guest details that are required before arrival, you can. These functionalities are available via several components.
First, our Backoffice application offers a full software suite for managing inventory, doing booking management tasks, creating invoices, checking payments, running reports, and more.
Our Booking Engine can be connected to a retreat’s website to take direct bookings. It can also be customized to fit each retreat’s existing branding.
The Payment Form is used to take online payments for bookings. Plus, business owners can choose between either one-off payments or working with partial payments. They can also send payment reminders and allow bookings to expire after a set amount of time without a confirmed payment.
Our innovative Customer Portal is used to capture guest details such as dietary requirements or arrival information after a booking is confirmed. This shortens the sales funnel and makes booking easier for guests. Via the Customer Portal, guests can also access their booking, make payments, sign a digital waiver, and provide the retreat with all the info they need before arrival.
For businesses that work with bespoke retreats or businesses that would like to approve guests, we also offer an Inquiry Form. It can be easily added right to the retreat’s website and can be branded as well.
And these are just a few of the tools we have to help retreats. We offer a broad list of Advanced Features that can help make running a retreat business easier.
How does Bookinglayer’s software integrate with other tools or systems that your customers may already be using?
Our philosophy is to be the end-to-end booking solution for our clients. We know that every client operates differently, so we developed a wide range of integrations. Take payments, for instance, we have built integrations with over 25 payment gateways.
But we also offer many other integrations outside of payment processing. Some examples include Xero and Quickbooks for accounting; email marketing tools like MailChimp and Active Campaign; and customer relation management services like HubSpot and Zoho CRM. It is part of our mission statement to be as open as possible and enable our customers to pull data from Bookinglayer into other applications. Our Zapier integration and upcoming API documentation are good examples of this commitment.
What level of customer support and assistance can users expect?
When you decide to go for Bookinglayer, an onboarding expert will be there to help you set up your account. And this is a real person, not some AI robot that will only give you half the answers you need. For support along the way, users can always reach out to our support team from the Bookinglayer dashboard.
We consciously made a decision to stick with personal onboarding for every client. Because of this, one of the things we are rated most highly for is our customer assistance. It’s important for us to foster these long-term relationships with our clients. And we’re super proud of our client retention rate, which was more than 98% last year.
We also provide a large knowledge base that includes various digital tools like articles, videos, and tours. These resources help clients navigate their accounts and troubleshoot any problems they encounter as quickly as possible.
What is the cost of not using a retreat booking system?
Not having a booking system means that customers cannot book instantly, which can be a large cost for a business. Today, most people are used to the convenience and efficiency of booking directly without sending an email first. So in other words, you are missing out on revenue when alternative retreats provide a direct booking option that offers instant confirmation.
Apart from that, the biggest cost is time. It is incredibly time-consuming to manually confirm bookings, message guests, and process payments. But automating the reservation process makes every booking faster for you and your guests.
Also, without a booking system, it is not always easy to let somebody else take over booking management. With a simple-to-use booking system, new staff members can get up to speed and do booking management within a day.
I often ask customers who are not yet familiar with the benefits of a booking system, “How much is your time worth?” Our clients typically save two to four hours every day using our system. Imagine freeing up hours a day or even a day a week and spending it on your own yoga practice or just having more time with family or guests.
How can clients customize Bookinglayer’s software?
We operate in 35 different adventure travel niches, all with unique needs. So I am proud to say that we excel in customisation, but let me name three examples. First of all, the Booking Engine and Customer Portal can be styled to match the branding of the client’s website. You can also use the Customer Portal to gather all of the custom information you need from your guests, which keeps the booking process short and simple. Many of our clients have seen this shift lead to more conversions.
When it comes to selling, every package can be customized using our Package Builder. You can design set packages and decide which level of freedom the booker has in configuring their retreat. This way, you can sell activities and accommodation together. And you can also let guests pick and choose the activities or services they want.
Last but not least, the Booking Engine and all automated emails can be set up in multiple languages, and rates can be set in different currencies to accommodate a global client base. This ensures guests understand exactly what they are getting and how much it will cost.
What kind of retreat businesses does Bookinglayer serve?
We serve any kind of retreat, be it yoga, fitness, meditation, detox, spiritual, medicinal, or any other niche. We also have booking solutions for businesses of various sizes. And we cater to retreats with locations in multiple countries. Again, our flexibility really opens up the door for a diverse range of businesses. They are empowered to build the booking solutions that work best for them.
Can you share any success stories that highlight the benefits of Bookinglayer?
Recently we sat down with the co-founder of Xanadu Surf and Yoga to talk about their experience using Bookinglayer as their retreat booking system. The video testimonial on our YouTube channel provides great insight into the power of Bookinglayer. It shows how Bookinglayer can really change your business for the better. One of my favorite quotes from the interview is, “Once we decided to go with Bookinglayer, the biggest feeling was a feeling of relief”.
We have also had many retreat businesses, like Hridaya Yoga, move to Bookinglayer from our competitors. They have been happy customers from the start because we fit their business models so well. Hridaya Yoga specifically just started using Bookinglayer for their second location in Mexico.
If you could tell potential clients one thing, what would it be?
Do not underestimate the decision to get a new booking system. Take the time to compare options. Your booking system is at the heart of your operation, so you want to make the right choice. With that, you want to make sure you select a solution that can also grow with your business. Many software solutions charge commission, which can add up to be overly costly when your business really kicks off.
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