How Online Booking Can Help Contractors Grow Their Businesses

Unlike a hard day’s work, using software to help grow your business doesn’t have to be a laborious and grueling affair!

Most contractors market themselves on a local level by establishing and maintaining trusted partnerships with their clients. While this method remains tried-and-true, skipping out on online marketing efforts could mean missing out on many lucrative contracting opportunities.

As the internet becomes more accessible, many contractors are turning to online booking to help them stay organized and efficient. Not only does online booking simplify the business end of their operation – it also enables them to attract more contracting work and build better relationships with their existing clients!

Whether you’re a carpenter, painter, or electrician – here are a few ways an online booking system can help you do your job better.

Online Booking Handles Your Business For You

One of the biggest challenges contractors face is balancing the job-at-hand with prospective business management.

It can be tough to give a project your full attention when you’re also accountable for communication with other clients, creating appointments, and managing your own busy schedule.

Even though you likely appreciate any business that comes your way, constant interruptions in the form of phone calls and emails from potential clients while you’re on the clock can be frustrating and distracting.

Thankfully, there’s an easier way.

By offering online booking, your clients can schedule at their convenience – and at yours! Once their preferred time and date is selected, you’ll be notified gently via text or email.

Then, using your phone, you can confirm, decline, or suggest an alternative arrangement. Within seconds of picking up the phone and engaging with your client, you can be back on the job.

Equip Yourself With Powerful Built-In Marketing Tools

In the contracting world, competition can be fierce. As potential customers browse for local contracting services in their area, one google search alone might list your business along with dozens of similar competitors.

However, as research shows, giving yourself the upper hand is as easy as making your business more accessible.

The solution? Giving your clients a way to book right from their web browser via a call to action button.

Despite the marketing lingo, you’ve probably seen one before – it’s merely a button that says “book now” or “create an appointment.”

For your clients, knowing that they can book in seconds without having to pick up the phone gives you a decisive edge. Other clients might be looking specifically to book a contractor online.

The best contractor online booking software integrates seamlessly with your Facebook or website page, allowing you to do just this. Some software even goes one step beyond and will enable your clients to book right from Google with a feature called Google Reserve.

Imagine the advantage of your customers being able to book within seconds of searching for services like yours, even without visiting your website or Facebook page at all. Powerful, indeed!

The benefits don’t stop there, either. Booking software can also provide other insights into your business, such as detailed reports on the number of appointments booked, clients and other useful statistics.

Your Schedule, Optimized Automatically

Because contractors are constantly on-the-move from site to site, sometimes planning can go awry.

Occasionally, you might forget to consult your agenda and accidentally create a double-booking. Or maybe you often find yourself with annoyingly awkward time gaps between meeting times.

Even the most diligent contractors make mistakes – we’re all only human, after all!

However, these seemingly minor mishaps can add up, costing you valuable time that can eat away at your bottom line.

Thankfully, by managing your schedule via software, you can cut down on planning mistakes like double-booking and gapped scheduling.

Online booking software doesn’t just take bookings for you – it can help you arrange and plan them in an efficient manner. With your appointments neatly stacked back-to-back, you can avoid time conflicts and make the most out of your working day.

All the time you’ll save will allow you to pursue the growth of your business further! Your time is valuable – let it be spent accordingly.

Keep Tabs On Your Clients

Another aspect of your business that can be negatively impacted by poor planning is perhaps the most important – your client relationships.

It can be difficult to negotiate and work well with clients when you’re stressed out and pressured to get to the next job site.

This can create awkward scenarios where you might forget the name of a client, the details of a project, or their personal preferences. And even if you do manage to stay on top of all these little details, a disheveled and frantic appearance due to disorganization can make clients question your service.

Fortunately, in this situation, all it takes is tightening up a few screws!

Contractor booking software can also provide you with an easy way to manage your clients, right from your phone.

Whenever a client books an appointment, a corresponding profile can be automatically created for them. From here, you can then view their profile at any time, just like you would on Facebook.

All of their important information can be neatly organized and stored in their profile, including past appointments, payments, notes, and even files and images.

This eliminates the need for lugging around unwieldy stacks of physical paperwork, binders, or folders everywhere you go. Simply check-in via your computer or mobile device, and everything will be there, right at your fingertips!

With all the info you need readily available, you can pull up to the job site confidently organized, and ready to do your best.

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We hope this post has been helpful! We wish you the best of luck with your contracting efforts, and we hope you can rest easier knowing that a more organized, streamlined, and productive business is only a few clicks away!

To learn more about setting up an online scheduler for your contracting business, click here

For more business strategy – online and off – keep up with us here at the Yocale blog, five days a week.