Businesses naturally want to welcome every kind of customer, of every age group, type, or demographic. Not only is it good practice to be open to all – it makes good business sense too. One way you can advertise that your business is open to everyone is through tiered pricing and good pricing strategy.
It pays for your business to be fair on price. Especially when it comes to groups like students or the elderly, who may not be able continue their relationship with you if they can’t take advantage of the special rates you offer.
Everyone loves a good discount and psychological pricing, and the customers who book with you online are no different. You want to be able to offer every customer the same treatment, no matter which channel they come to you from.
Customer groups who typically enjoy speciality rates include:
- Members: Customers who have demonstrated their loyalty to your business and expect a certain level of service in return
- Concessions: Customers like the elderly, who have spent their lives paying full price and have earned a break from it
- Early bird: Customers who book well in advance at a reduced rate
Whether your business offers special rates to these customer groups, or has a tiered pricing strategy all of its own, offering customers special rates can be a powerful tactic for driving revenue.
When it comes to online booking, however, problems can arise. Especially when your customers want to book as a group.
The problem with group bookings and tiered pricing
Let’s say you work in the tourism industry and operate tours of a medieval castle (congrats, if you do). And let’s say you have a family looking to book tickets for that tour as a group.
In this scenario, Mum and Dad know where they stand – two full price adult tickets. But wait, Dad has a membership card for your fine organisation, and thus is entitled to a discount.
Then there’s Grandpa, who qualifies for a concession as someone over the age of 65. And what about the kids? They’re both 13 and under, which means they’re entitled to a different concession for the same service – a tour they’ve been talking about all week.
Suddenly you’ve got a group of five customers, on four different pricing tiers, looking to book the same service, at the same time. How will you handle their booking?
Do they each have to book separately to get the discount pricing they’re entitled to? Should they input five sets of customer details? And enter the same card details over and over again?
More importantly, are you confident they’re going to stick around long enough to reach the end of the online booking flow and experience that magnificent medieval tour for themselves?
If it all sounds a little confusing, that’s because it is. Luckily, Appointedd has introduced a new feature to remove exactly this kind of uncertainty. We give you… multi-tier bookings that can handle tiered pricing. And to make it even better, with our new appointment scheduling mobile app you can have overview of your bookings at your fingertips.
What are multi-tier bookings?
Multi-tier bookings are exactly what they sound like – a feature that enables you to offer your customers multiple price points for the same booking, even when they book in groups.
Let’s run with the example of the family on the medieval castle tour. In that scenario, Mum, Dad, Grandpa, and the kids can rest assured your business is set up to cater to the needs of families just like them.
Multi-tier allows them to select the service they are interested in (the medieval castle tour), choose from a range of price points (1x adult, 1x member, 1x concession, 2x child), and pay for their entire party, all during a single, seamless online transaction.
How do multi-tier bookings work?
Group bookings can become messy if your business has tiered pricing strategy. Especially if you force customers to treat every tier as an individual transaction. Our multi-tier feature simplifies things.
Instead of charging your customers for the service (i.e. the medieval castle tour), multi-tier charges by the customer tier (i.e. adult, member, concession, child).
Rather than Mum selecting and booking an adult castle tour, then repeating the process for a member, a concession, and two children (not a great user experience), multi-tier allows her to select the service first and deal with customer tiers later.
Once the castle tour has been selected, she can browse the different rates on offer, and simply assign each member of the family to the relevant rate – adult x1, member x1, concession x1, child x2.
This ensures she only has to go through the booking flow once, everyone in the family pays the best possible rate, and that fee can be settled in a single transaction, whether she’s booking for a family of five, or a party of twenty five.
What are the benefits of multi-tier bookings?
There are many benefits of multi-tier booking, for both you and your customers. Most come back to one thing: simplicity.
How will multi-tier bookings help my customers?
- No need to waste time booking a service multiple times, inputting multiple sets of customer and payment details
- Ability to book for large groups, at different prices, in a single transaction
- Can benefit from the full range of speciality prices your business offers, including memberships, family deals, and concessions, even when they book online
How will multi-tier bookings help me to stick to my tiered pricing model?
- Offer a stellar user experience with simple, easy-to-follow multi-tier bookings
- Attract a wider range of customers to your business, like families, students, and concessions, while reassuring them that they’ve come to the right place
- Avoid a situation where customers grow tired of your complicated online booking process and look elsewhere for deals
From your customer’s perspective, multi-tier bookings keeps things simple, saves them time, and allows them to take advantage of discount pricing and concessions.
From your perspective, your customers are happy, meaning you can drive revenue to your business, take group bookings in large numbers, and fully support every kind of customer, online and off.
Excited by multi-tier bookings?
To learn more about our new feature, have a look at the release notes we’ve put together on multi-tier bookings.
Published on 24 January 2020