Streamlining Your Business with Online Booking Software

An online booking software is an application where a customer goes, gives the schedule details, books for a meeting and gets an appointment. Online booking software development is done keeping in view the nature of the business. Whether it is a movie ticket booking, flight and train booking, hotel reservation, restaurant reservation or salon service booking app, an online booking application is a must-have to have a hassle-free, speedy and accurate appointment with the client.

Gone are the days when the customer had to wait in the queue for his turn to get an appointment made. Whether it was the dentist’s appointment or a movie ticket.

Nowadays, people who use mobile apps can get the bookings done to anything and everything on a booking mobile app.

For a speedy, accurate booking, the online booking app comes handy. The payment system in the online booking software ensures an easy and a quick payment. It is a 24/7 working portal on which bookings can be made ahead of time. It is an efficient way to make bookings without having to stand outside a store or a hotel or a restaurant.

57% of the bookings are made online and out of which 60% of the bookings are done on via mobile apps. An online booking app saves time, energy and money. It is a simpler and more convenient way to make appointments for various things.

The online booking software works for both small or medium scale businesses and the large-scale enterprises.

Small Scale Businesses

Appointments at the doctor’s clinic, medical labs, coaching centres, professor’s classes, catering business etc. can be done using the online booking application. It takes a limited staff to manage the booking system. The small or medium scale businesses deal with a limited number of customers’ bookings, whether weekly or monthly.

Large Scale Enterprises

The large-scale bookings will include hotel reservations, flight or train bookings, transportation bookings. The volume of these bookings and reservations are high and these apps need a large scale of staff to manage the app operations, deal with the customer complaints, queries, payment systems etc.

The main requisites of Online Scheduling Software Development are the customers’ contact and other regular details, time and schedule at which the bookings can be done, calendar and payment system.

There are online booking platforms which can manage the bookings for all kinds of businesses and there are booking software for a particular business type. Online booking software is a solution to getting faster and automated appointments with secure payment methods.

Online booking software is not hard to embed in a website. One can use a Facebook page or on the website and shift it to a business profile. In that process, it asked how they want to be contacted. There, out of the options, they can inculcate a booking system with a form attached which can customised as per the requited information. For example: A form for booking a hotel room will be different from filling out an online form for booking a table for two at a restaurant.

The concrete functionality of the online booking software depends on the payment system that the software embeds in itself. The booking software will take the customer to a payment gateway for payment via PayPal, PayUMoney, or credit card. These apps will ask to save the card information for further payments to ensure quicker payments. For this purpose, these apps will ask for the account login details and the passwords which will be securely saved in the content management system of the software.

With the customer’s details stored and recorded in the content management system, the repeated bookings will be easier, faster and more convenient.

These apps, after getting the bookings confirmed, will notify the customer with the booking details containing the time and date of the appointment, the name of the other party, the payment made or payment due. These notifications of confirmation will be sent via an email and/or an SMS.

User Panel Features

1. Registration and Login

Like in every mobile app, the online booking software also has a feature where it asks the new user to register themselves and sign in with their email address and contact number. One can register with the Facebook or Google credentials. After the registration and login, the user is asked other details like the name, address, calendar availability etc.

2. Service in the Online Booking Software

After registration, the user is navigated to the service selection. At this place, one can choose the service for which he/she wants to get a booking done. After choosing the service, he will be directed to the ‘select the time’ for the appointment and after that the user will directed to the payment system.

3. Payment Process

Once the user chooses the service and schedules the appointment, he is directed to the payment system. Just like any other online mobile app, the online booking software offers easy modes of payment to the users where they can pay via PayPal or PayUMoney or their credit card or debit card.

4. Calendar

For an online booking software, calendar is the most important feature to be embedded in the software. Without a calendar, scheduling an appointment is impossible. This feature observes the appointments or any changes. This feature enables the user to postpone or cancel any booking. With this feature, a user can pre-pone an appointment too.

5. Integration with Other Apps

An online booking software must be enabled to synchronise with the social media pages, payment modes, other mobile apps for which the booking app is used. For example: while booking a movie ticket, the payment can be done via PayTM. So the user will be directed to the PayTM app page for paying the amount.

Admin Panel Features 

These are the features which an Online Booking App Development will have for the admin control or to facilitate the app managers to operate easily.

1. Data Management

The admin panel’s feature of data management is to ensure that the data collected by the app is securely stored in the content management system and analysed to be of further help to the customers. This may include the booking history, the payment mode saved, the addresses saved. This data can be accessed and changed with the account login details filled in by the user.

2. Customer Support System

Customer Support system is a feature in the admin panel which caters to the customer’s queries, complaints and feedbacks. This feature allows the admin to understand the customers’ needs.

3. Updates

The admin panel on the online booking software will provide the customers with updates on the prices, reminders, booking informations etc. This feature allows the customer to receive notifications of confirmations, cancellations or any changes made in the bookings on the app.

4. Earnings Management

The admin panel will have to manage the earnings made by the subscription packages and the bookings made online. The patron users will subscribe to the various packages on the online booking software and the earnings made per booking rate. The management of the earnings is with the admin panel. The transfer of the payments, refunds on cancellations etc. will be all managed by the admin.

Types of Mobile Ticket Booking Applications

There are various types of Ticket Booking Applications/booking softwares compatible to mobile devices. These include the following list for which the bookings can be needed:

1. Hotel reservation
2. Flight and train booking
3. Cabs booking
4. Restaurant reservation
5. Rentals for bicycles, bikes, boats
6. Local clinics
7. Medical Labs
8. Training and Coaching Centres
9. Movies, plays, events, shows, matches bookings
10. Salon Services bookings
11. Recreational activities bookings for GoCarting, Paragliding, Scuba Diving, Sky-Diving etc.

Cost Of Development Of Online Booking Software

The cost of developing an online booking service depends upon the nature and size and complexity of the business. For large scale enterprises, the features in the online booking software will be more and the staff to operate the functionality of the booking software. The cost will rise in the case of large volumes of bookings monthly.

Cost of Online Booking Software Development Services:

1. The design and the user interface.
2. Features of the booking software
3. Developers, project manager, engineers’ team
4. Compatibility on the mobile devices
5. Availability on the AppStore and PlayStore
6. Payment feature: Inclusion of the mobile wallets with which the payments can be made

The development of an online booking software may take up to 500-600 hours depending upon the complexity of the features to be included in it and the size of the business it would cater to.

Conclusion

Online booking software development provides the mobile app users with services of making an appointment online for any purpose. The users can make bookings or reservations for a restaurant, accommodation, Travel, transportation, rentals for bikes or bicycles, salon services etc.