How to Improve Your Online Event Bookings Experience

We live in a world where consumers expect to find the information they need online and quickly. For venue and event management, this means prospective event bookers aren't willing to submit an enquiry and wait for a response from their preferred venue or event organization. Instead, they want self-service tools that enable them to make and manage their event bookings on their own time and in as few clicks as possible.    

The great news for venues and event organizations is that efficient online event bookings have the power to transform your business, no matter your industry or type of events you host. But, failing to implement effective booking tools can lead to poor customer experiences and create chaos for your events team. 

Benefits of online event bookings

Online bookings platforms are used by businesses worldwide. From hotel rooms to flights to Apple Genius Bars, any product or service that is bookable can and should be supported by an online bookings tool.  

In the world of venue and events management, online events bookings platforms empower users to check availability, choose their preferred rooms or spaces, define their event details and, in some instances, order catering and inventory/equipment for their event. Typically, event departments relied on manual processes to manage bookings. Moving to a self-service, online platform can offer endless benefits, including:  

• Improved customer experiences: Using a modern online event bookings platform improves and accelerates the booking process for your customers by eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth communication. Instead of calling or submitting an inquiry and waiting for the venue or event organizers to reply, the customer can find the information they need to commit to booking right away. 
• Streamlined event operations: By syncing new event bookings made via the booking portal into your event management platform, your event operations team will get notified instantly when a new booking is created. They can then access all the information they need to start preparing for the upcoming event. 

• Reduced dependence on internal resources: By empowering your customers to make and manage their own bookings, you significantly reduce the workload for your event operations staff. Instead, your team can reinvest that time where it will have the most impact — hosting site inspections, making sales calls, working with existing clients to deliver exceptional event experiences, etc. 
• Boosted profitability: Online event bookings portals help venues and event organizers to increase venue occupancy and upsell additional goods and services like catering orders and equipment hire orders, which drives revenue generation and leads to increased profitability. 

So, what can venues and events teams do to improve their online booking processes? Read on to learn online event bookings best practices and ways to streamline your workflow. 

5 Ways to enhance and accelerate your online event bookings

Here are the top five strategies you can implement in your event department to enhance your online bookings experience for your customers and streamline event planning: 

1. Make your online bookings portal easy to find: Just as you'd promote your events occurring at your venue, it's important to promote your portal. Ensure your online event bookings portal is promoted and easy to locate via your company website or intranet to help prospective event bookers find it when they want to make bookings and coordinate their upcoming event details.  
2. Publish live availability: Publish real-time availability on your online event bookings site so interested parties can check their preferred date/time or find an alternative as required. This will not only save time for the user, but also help you maximize venue occupancy. 
3. Accept payments online: By enabling payments online, you can significantly reduce the workload for your sales and accounts teams as payments will be reconciled instantaneously. This translates into huge time-savings for your team who can focus their attention on delighting customers or revenue-generating activities rather than chasing up outstanding payments — win, win.  
4. Automated booking confirmations and notification emails: While online event bookings tools primarily benefit users, it's important to consider how this will impact your event operations team. Automating confirmation emails to be sent to the event booker and notification emails to be sent to your operations team to make them aware of new bookings ensures all relevant parties have access to the critical information they need when a booking is created.  
5. Sync online bookings to your event management software: Duplicating event booking data across multiple systems is time-consuming and leaves room for error. By syncing your online bookings to your event management software, you allow your events teams to start preparing for upcoming events rather than waste time on unnecessary data entry, improving overall productivity. 

Transform your online booking processes with Momentus

Manual booking processes are becoming a deterrent for your prospective event bookers. Today’s consumers want access to self-service tools and real-time information. Today's consumers want the kind of online event registrations only made possible with event booking software.  

Using venue and event management software with a purpose-built online event bookings portal, users can log in at any time of the day or night, check availability, coordinate the details of their event and make payments. As a result, sales aren’t restricted to business hours and, instead, you can accept bookings from committed buyers 24/7. 

Contact us if you’d like to learn more about how you can transform your online event booking —   and business — using software for your venue.