Tips for using online training booking system for online lessons, tutorials and webinars

By 2024 it is predicted that the market for online lessons will reach more than $200 billion. That’s an annual growth rate of approximately 5%. That growing market will create fantastic opportunities for online learning websites that can attract paying students. Having a user friendly and efficient online training booking system is a key means to differentiate from the competition.

While the market for online lessons and tutorials will continue to grow, there will also be an increasing number of new entrants to serve those students. In the booming Chinese market, there are now 460 colleges and universities offering 3,200 online courses with more than 55 million students. With so many courses on offer, prospective students are becoming increasingly discerning before making an online webinar booking.

There are relatively low barriers to entry to setup a website that offers online lessons and tutorials. Providing a superior customer service provides a sustainable competitive advantage for those online learning platforms that can deliver.

That begins with the tutorial booking system. Students want an online training booking system which is easy to use and can be accessed from whichever device they choose. Bookly is an intuitive yet sophisticated online training booking software. As shown below Bookly provides a tutorial booking system which delivers on needs of students, while also simplifying managing the logistics of instructors and online class schedules.

Providing mobile friendly-learning

In a recent survey, approximately half of all businesses said that providing their employees with mobile-friendly training content was important. People want to learn on their mobile devices and most online learning websites have responded to the need for mobile optimised content.

But that process begins with the time a student makes a tutorial or online webinar booking. Not only the platform offering the online lesson should be mobile optimised, so too should the online training booking system. Many online class booking software forms are still poorly designed for smaller mobile screens. This can make scheduling an online class harder than it needs to be.

Bookly forms are completely mobile responsive. When Bookly detects that the website is being accessed using a mobile device, the relevant form is displayed. Considering that more than half of all users will be accessing those forms through a mobile device, having a properly optimised form, can have a significant impact on the number of booking form completions.

Provide specific forms for each class

Most online learning website don’t just offer a single set of lessons. There will be multiple different courses on a range of subjects. Each of these different courses may have varying questions that need to be completed before booking into the course. Some classes may be free, while others are paid.

With Bookly you are able to add as many different tutorial or online webinar booking forms to your website as you like. These can be designed to be precisely fit the needs of that online course. Steps in the booking process can be added or removed as needed.

Bookings for classes, tutorials or webinars can be set to be approved either automatically or manually. In general, most online classes will likely have an automatic approval. Manual approval can be a good idea if you want to first assess whether a student has the right background for a particular class or if you are unsure of an instructor’s availability. No matter whether an appointment is set to manual or to automatic approval, it will be added to the Bookly appointments list.

Take payment for your lessons and tutorials

Many online lessons and tutorial platforms don’t have integrated payment so that you can charge students for attending. This means that you either need to change to a platform that does offer payment functionality or add complex gated payments on top. With Bookly the process of charging for your lessons and tutorials is extremely straightforward. Bookly Pro comes with PayPal Express checkout included. In addition, it integrates with dozens of other payment gateways.

Using Bookly students can pay for their lessons as they are making their payments. In order for their booking to be confirmed they will first need to make payment. Once their payment is completed, they can be provided with the access details for their online tutorial or lessons. From an administrator’s perspective it is extremely easy to filter to see which students have made payments.

In addition, Bookly has an automated tax calculation tool. Tax rates for particular countries can be entered in the administration dashboard. The correct tax information will be applied through the payment reports and sent to the payment gateway.

If you prefer you can also choose to invoice students after their booking. Bookly offers automated invoicing delivered by either SMS or email. This invoicing can be customised to reflect the branding of your website.

Allow for recurring online classes

Most students will not want to have a one-off lesson. Instead they will want to attend a series of online classes to reach their learning objectives. With Bookly students are able to book a lesson on a recurring basis. These can be booked for weeks or months advance. This can be done all during the initial booking. As with a one-off booking student will only be able to book when an instructor is available. They can also be charged for the lessons all at the same time.

Provide students with reminders about their online classes

Students who feel they are making progress are more likely to rebook. One of the best ways of ensuring that they reach their objectives is to encourage them to attend their classes. Most people are living busy schedules where it is easy to forget they have an online class to attend.

That’s why it is a good idea to use notifications to remind students about their classes. These can include the time, date and key information for that lesson. With Bookly you can setup automated notifications delivered by either SMS or email.

These can be further customised to reflect the branding of your website. Emails can be sent as in either HTML or plain text format. You can also use fields to customise the sender name and email address. This means you could have the notification be delivered on behalf of the instructor who will actually take that students lessons.

Provide unique account details

Answering emails is one of the biggest uses of employee time for many online learning companies. To reduce the number of emails that need to be answered, it is a good idea to make it easy for students to locate their own lesson details and to make modifications as they require.

Bookly allows you to provide each student with their own unique online account. With this account students can find all of the information about their upcoming online lessons. They can also choose to change the time or cancel their appointment.

Multiple language support

One of the greatest opportunities for online learning platforms is the ability to scale on a global level. Online lessons can reach students from all over the world, so it’s important to support multiple languages. WordPress Multilingual Plugin (WPML) is the most popular Multi-language plugin, quickly translating pages into the language of the visitor. Bookly integrates fully with WPML making it easy to translate your booking forms. Bookly comes with 12 languages built in and can accept .po and .mo files to translate as needed.

Use coupons to promote online lessons

Coupons can be an effective way of promoting online classes. With Bookly you can quickly generate coupon codes through the admin panel. These coupons can be for specific lessons, tutorials or webinars. You can also select to offer a fixed price discount or a percentage of the total fee. Bookly provides in-built analytics so you can track the effectiveness and usage of your coupon offers.

Upsell additional services and products during booking

It’s estimated that the probability of being able to sell to an existing customer is between 60-70%. The fact is that it is much easier to sell additional services and products to customers who are already booking an online lesson, compared to selling to someone who is still only a prospect. Bookly allows you to leverage this by selling additional items during the booking phase. For example, this might be one-to-one coaching, a mastermind group or an eBook which supports the students learning. Different items can be added to different classes so you can match to the exact needs of your students. What’s more customers can choose how much of the additional item that they want to buy.

Match online booking with instructor availability

As an online learning company grows managing instructors’ schedules can be challenging. With Bookly this process is simplified. You can create a unique profile for each of your online instructors with their availability. Students will only be able to book a lesson when there is an instructor available. That instructors’ calendar will then be updated to reflect the student that has been enrolled in the class.

Improve your online classes with reviews

Feedback and reviews are an essential part of improving your online classes. Understanding which instructors and lessons students are getting the most benefit from helps to improve student retention. When a student completes a class, they can be sent an automated notification with a link to a review page. Bookly then provides an aggregated rating of the instructor and their classes. This rating information is available through the Bookly backend. If you want to you can include the ratings on the booking form. This lets students evaluate which instructor they might want to select for their next class.

Offer package deals to increase sales

Offering different pricing if client’s book more than one online class or tutorial can help to increase overall sales. For example, you may want to offer a group of classes as a package deal. With Bookly you can offer multiple different classes as a package with a different pricing structure compared to a single class. All of the classes can be scheduled by the student at a personal user account on your website.

Create scarcity through waiting lists

One benefit of online classes are that they can be delivered to virtually an unlimited number of students. But there may be situations where you actually want to put a cap on the number of students that can attend the webinar or online tutorial. This can increase the perceived value of the lesson and allow you to charge a higher price.

Bookly allows you to create waiting lists. If a class is full, then a student can be placed on a waiting list. When a space becomes available that students will be moved into the slot. Having a waiting list can help to enhance the value of the class being offered.

Use onboarding information to improve your lessons

One means to improve outcomes for the students is to provide them with an onboarding form. This can be used to assess the skills and knowledge level of that student. Bookly allows clients to add documents to their form when booking in for a class. This can also be used to process in other forms of documentation you require before students are able to take up a class.

Manage instructors’ schedules with Google Calendar

Managing the logistics for your instructor’s schedule is made easier via the Google calendar integration. Bookly syncs with Google calendar. This means that if an instructor has marked that they are unavailable on their Google calendar during a particular time slot, then students will not be able to book an online class at this time. Likewise, when a student does book in a time slot, that will be added to the instructor’s Google calendar.

Conclusion

Bookly simplifies the entire tutorial booking system process, from taking the initial booking, to facilitating payments to managing the schedules of your instructors. All of this is handled through the single Bookly admin panel making it easy to manage even the most complex online lesson website.