WordPress booking plugin for home repair services website

From time to time people require home maintenance services to ensure that their appliances and fittings are in good working condition. The truth is, home repair services are in high demand all over the world. Hence there’s competition among companies that offer similar services. If you own a business that offers services like renovation, plumbing, air conditioning solar, and heating services you will need to find a way to make your company popular and accessible to clients. Creating a home repair services website is the first step to boosting your popularity and reaching more people. The second thing you should do is install a WordPress booking plugin. With it, you can compete favorably with other home repair service providers and expand your business in no time. Consider how a WordPress booking plugin helps you.

1. Saves Time

If you want to succeed in your business you must learn to manage your time. While answering calls and replying emails have become a crucial part of most business owner’s daily routine, these activities are time-consuming. They can hinder you from accomplishing other tasks for the day. Since you cannot tell when clients will call, you will have to be in the office to pick up their calls. Even if you use a mobile phone, you will have to stop whatever you are doing to answer calls from your clients.

The online booking system reduces the amount of time spent on the phone talking to clients, allowing you to engage in other productive activities in the office. You need to know that these days most people are in a hurry. Customers want service providers to make their booking process quick and straightforward. Clearly, booking over the phone does not meet this need.

2. Allows Clients To Check Your Availability

With a booking plugin, clients can quickly check when you will be available to do a job for them. Instead of calling you countless times, your clients can go straight to your website and schedule a date that is convenient for you and them. The easiest way to know if the date is convenient for both you and them is checking your availability on your home repair services website. They can choose a date from any of those that have not been booked on your calendar. Once a client books a particular date and time, no other client can take that time except the client decides to cancel or postpone the appointment.

3. Saves Cost

Sometimes, your phone line can be very busy as many clients are calling to make inquiries and to book your services. If you do not have a front desk person, busy days like this will make you wish you had one. You may find yourself tied to the phone for a considerable part of the day and this can prevent you from doing other important things. If this continues, you will likely want to get a front desk officer to handle the task of picking calls and responding to emails. Employing new staff will only increase your expenses. You can, however, save money by using a booking plugin. Your clients don’t have to call anymore. They can schedule the appointment themselves without interacting with you or your employees. For most clients, this is actually more convenient.

4. Reduces the Workload of Staff

Employees who have too many daily tasks to accomplish are likely to deliver a poor job. They almost always do not give their best when they are overworked. The WordPress booking plugin can help to reduce the work that your staff does daily. While it is true that answering a few phone calls is not much work, understanding what the client needs and talking them through their scheduling options is not so easy. If you are not careful, you may misunderstand the client and vice versa. With emails, employees need to read the messages of clients, think of a suitable response and then write a reply. All of these take time and require attention. If you add taking calls and replying to emails to the daily task of an already busy employee, productivity will decrease. Work overload leads to stress and stress decreases employee performance.

5. Allows Your Clients to Make Payment When Booking an Appointment

With the manual method of booking, your clients often have to pay for your services after you have completed the job. Whether they pay before or after you have rendered your services, you will still need to take details of the payment and enter it in your system. Having an employee take payments manually and record it in the system may again take some time and can interfere with other core tasks.

With an online booking system, however, your clients can comfortably make payments when booking an appointment on your website as most booking plugins integrate with popular payment gateways. While some home repair service providers ask clients to pay for their service in full, others ask for an initial deposit. When clients make payments in advance, they take their appointment seriously. They will make an effort to ensure that they are available on the day of the appointment. And if they won’t be there, they will cancel the appointment early enough, so that you can attend to other clients.

6. Reduces Distractions in the Workplace

To get the best out of your employees, not only will you need to assign tasks that you are sure they can accomplish within a reasonable time, you also need to ensure that there is no disruption to workflow. Phone calls can be a big distraction especially when it is frequent. If you and your staff always have to abandon your work to pick phone calls or respond to emails, you will eventually realize that you do not really accomplish much at the end of each day. This is often not because you were not up and doing rather it is because you are constantly distracted by phone calls. Research has revealed that it is difficult to return to a task after being interrupted. With a booking plugin
however you can eliminate distractions from phone calls. Your clients don’t need to call your office to book an appointment and truthfully phone calls aren’t trendy anymore. Allow them to schedule appointments by themselves.

7. Automate Your Employees Schedule

A booking plugin can be of great help when organizing your employee’s schedule. Depending on how many employees you have, you may need an extra hand to help with scheduling and organizing home repair work order forms. You can, however, save yourself the stress of manual scheduling by installing an online booking system on your company website. With it, you can display the availability of your employees or a specific contractor on your calendar.

This will allow clients to choose whom they want to do the work for them. However, they can only book an employee that is available on the calendar. When clients book an employee, the person will be automatically notified that an appointment has been added to their schedule. With a shared calendar, employees will be able to see the date that they have been scheduled to deliver a service as well as who they are going to work for.

8. Allows Clients Manage Their Own Appointment

Every client will appreciate an opportunity to be in control of their appointment. This is what the booking plugin does. It allows clients to manage their appointment without needing to contact you or your employees directly. They can go to your website to view your list of home repair services as well as details of their appointment with you if they have already scheduled one. These details may include the date of the appointment, the cost and the employee or contractor handling the job. Additionally, clients can easily cancel their appointment when their circumstances change and they can’t meet up. They can also move their appointment to another date if the first date they chose is no longer convenient for them. If you require clients to make an initial deposit or pay in full, those who fail to cancel their appointment early may lose the money they had paid.

9. Eliminate the Need for Manual Notifications

Another major benefit of using a booking plugin is that it allows you to send notifications to clients who have scheduled an appointment. They want to know that you have seen their appointment request and that you will be there on time to render the service. Delivering booking notifications manually is time-consuming. With a booking plugin, however, you can automate notifications so that your clients will know the status of their appointment. You can send notifications to your clients, confirming that their booking was successful.

You can also send reminder messages in the form of SMS and emails to your clients so that they will remember that they have an appointment with you. Reminder messages ensure that your clients prepare for the appointment. For example, if you are renovating a client’s house, a reminder notification will help the client to remember to make arrangements for pets and children in the house.

10. Allows You to Obtain Client Information With Ease

There is certain information about your client that you need to get before you provide your services. Unfortunately, obtaining this information over the phone can be really challenging, especially when the client is in a hurry or does not understand the common language well. Additionally, with over-the-phone booking, documents like the home repair work order forms will be sent manually. There’s also the possibility of human error when taking client details over the phone. Filling the wrong information in the booking note can result in chaos when it is time for you to render your services to the client.
But with a booking plugin, your clients get to do all the work. This will ensure that there are no mistakes as the clients will read and fill the forms themselves.

11. 24/7 Availability

The fact that clients can book appointments on their own on any day of their choice and at any time is enough reason to want to install a booking plugin on your website. You don’t need to worry that clients will go elsewhere when there’s no one in the office to attend to them or take their booking requests. Since they don’t need to speak to anyone when booking your service, you and your employees can freely go about other important activities outside your office. Plus with a booking plugin, your clients will be able to view your list of home repair services and make bookings from wherever they are.

12. Multi-Language Support

Your clients may sometimes not speak the language that you understand fluently. This can be a real challenge when taking their booking requests and personal details. With a booking plugin, however, home repair service providers and their clients can understand each other even when they do not speak the same language. Some booking plugins support over 10 languages. So your clients can book your service in their preferred language.

13. Helps You To Retain Clients

A happy customer is a loyal customer. You make your clients happy when you make it easy to book an appointment with you and when you deliver an excellent service. The booking plugin makes appointment scheduling simple and quick. Bear in mind that the modern-day client desires convenience. Many of them will first visit your website to read your home repair services reviews before they book your service. If they think that you can satisfy their need, they will contact you. Online booking software is a technological innovation that is designed to meet the needs of the modern-day client. Your clients will be happy and will keep coming back to you when you meet their expectations.

14. Creates a Good First Impression

The first impression always matters. It will be a mistake to think that your visitors do not take note of your website’s functionality as well as how easy it is to reach you via this medium. When you install a booking plugin on your website, you make it easy for your clients to do business with you. They can quickly find information about the services you offer, view your availability, book your services and make payments on your website. Clients want nothing more than efficient service starting from the booking process. Your clients form a good first impression of your brand when they can reach you and request your service without difficulty.

Conclusion

Appointment booking is important for every service business. If you make the booking process easier for clients, your business will thrive. But if the process is long and stressful, they will look for other home repair service providers that have their interest at heart. Make yourself that reliable and thoughtful service provider with a WordPress booking plugin.