NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–September 4, 2014–
Booker, a cloud-based software provider that helps businesses automate marketing strategies and streamline back-office operations, today announced its continued expansion into a broader array of appointment and class-based verticals.
The company, which began in the spa industry and expanded to the salon market in Q4 of 2012, will now make its platform available to yoga, Pilates, fitness, and dance studios, as well as hospitality, golf, pet services, and child care/after-school programs.
“Our years of experience, coupled with the all-in-one nature of our platform have provided us with invaluable expertise and insights into service businesses,” said Josh McCarter, Booker CEO. “This understanding of common service business challenges, embodied in the attributes of the Booker Platform, has enabled us to seamlessly and effectively address the similar needs of a variety of new sectors.”
“Booker also has implemented a series of strategic partnerships and product enhancements during Q1 and Q2 that bolster our ability to serve an ever-growing list of new class- and appointment-based vertical markets,” McCarter added.
Service business owners are getting savvier and more sophisticated with the role that technology plays in running and growing their business. They’re shifting away from spending money on single-point solutions for business management and marketing. According to a recent BIA/Kelsey survey, 68 percent of SMBs are looking for cloud-based service bundles.
Beyond their move to SaaS-based solutions, business owners have made it clear they don’t want the hassle of reconciling multiple systems to manage their operations or monitor and measure the health and growth of their business. Booker market research confirmed that, hands-down, Service business owners are looking for an all-in-one solution to help them do everything on one platform for a flat rate.
The Booker Platform, built by service business experts to meet the unique business demands of those markets, gives SMB owners everything they need to:
- Attract new customers.
- Book appointments and classes anytime, anywhere.
- Sell services and products in person and online.
- Manage customer and employee data, inventory, and reporting.
- Retain clients and boosting customer loyalty.
Booker serves its new and existing customers better with additional functionality, including:
- The Booker Marketing Network: Local businesses can now effortlessly book appointments directly from new clients through their listings on partner sites like Yelp and MapQuest.
- Self-serve onboarding: Small businesses can get up and running effortlessly with a self-serve account setup wizard and begin selling services online.
- Customer-facing mobile app: Business owners can provide their customers with a dedicated mobile app that allows customers to book appointments, get directions, click to call, and stay connected through a dedicated app on iOS, Android, and Amazon devices.
- Classes functionality: Class-based businesses can now manage class enrollments, roster, check-in, payment and waitlists from their location and online.
- Memberships and series management: Enhanced membership and series features makes it easy for business owners to create programs, sign up customers, and redeem prepayments at checkout.
- Real-time calendar updates: Clients never have to worry about double-booking appointments or classes with real-time syncing between online bookings and schedules.
- Document manager: Service professionals can upload waivers and other documents to customer or student records and append them to their in-system customer records.
Booker has also built new pricing options for businesses to leverage the tools and support that are most relevant for their needs. The restructured flat-rate pricing tiers are affordable for sole proprietors and other small businesses but also scale for larger businesses without punishing them for growth. So, service businesses will no longer have to worry about fluctuations in their bill when they add or remove employees, or whether they earned more or less revenue in that month.
All of these features have enabled Booker to make its services available to a much broader audience-giving merchants the ability to be bookable anytime and anywhere.
About Booker
Booker helps businesses run and grow successfully by streamlining their operations and helping to increase their revenues. Booker enables service businesses to sell their services online, via mobile device or in person, creating a seamless online booking experience for their customers. With Booker’s platform, business owners can manager their social media presence and email marketing as well as automate their customer retention. Booker processes over three million appointments each month across 73 countries in 11 languages. Headquartered in New York City, Booker’s customers include thousands of local service businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies. For more information, visit www.booker.com.
Media:
Booker
Deborah Szajngarten, 646-380-4041
Director of Brand & Reputation
debs@booker.com
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