You Asked, So We Did… How to fill a cancellation at short notice, EASY…
In response to requests from both existing users and potential users I’ve video’d the actual process, live, in our carpet cleaning business. So, what’s happened is a commercial client we clean for on a regular basis was booked in for Monday and we had two technicians booked to be there all day. This morning they have rung, they have just found out they have an inspection that day so have cancelled Monday and we’re going Friday instead. I’ve talked about this before but here is the live video of me actually doing it. With your database you really are sat on Acres of Diamonds…
I sent the email out at 10:30 ish, you’ll see on the video, it’s now 11:13 as I’m typing this post and ALREADY we have had a reply from a previous client booking for her suite and carpet to be cleaned and protected on Monday. EASY! This technique is so easy and never fails to fill the gaps.
You can target your clients however you like but we use a “Short Notice Offer” List. What’s that? I’ve talked about this before in a previous blog, but basically we ask every client a simple question on the questionnaire…
“If you’d like to know about amazing last minute short notice offers please pop your email here __________”
This does a few things, it collects emails from people who you might not have an email address for, so you can add them to you newsletter etc AND it means these people are MASSIVELY interested in EXACTLY the type of offer you are making with this email. It’s WIN/WIN.
Now I can hear you saying I don’t have many emails so this wouldn’t work for me. WRONG! Start now and you’ll start collecting emails straight away, PLUS it does work with just a few email addrsses. No matter how many emails you have this is so easy to do that in a few minutes you have the chance to fill gaps and cancellations. I guarantee we will fill two vans next Monday with this offer, as I said, it’s only 11:15 on Thursday and we’ve had one call to book, within 45 minutes of the email going out. And so can you as your list grows.
You could also do this by text message for same day cancellation gaps you need to fill. We’ve found email works best for a couple of days away, text wrks best for same day or early next morning cancellations. I think that’s because people always have their phone with them so respond to text messages immediately, btu might not open emails until they get home from work or shopping. Just my thoughts.
Anyway, that’s it, as requested, a live demo of how we use Easy Email Marketing to fill cancellations.
This tool is available in the Professional+, Business Builder and Turbo-Charged Editions. The specific, very targeted list I used is only in the Business Builder and Turbo-Charged Editions, BUT you can do a very similar targeted email in the Professional+ Edition too.
Your feedback would be appreciated, watch the video now…
Allan Jnr.
PS We have many clients who have told us they only ever use us when we do an offer like this. Now you might think that that’s a problem, they only ever have work done at a discount! AH AH! THAT’S FANTASTIC, they are on a separate list (recorded as a Group on GetBookedUp) and these are the people we target FIRST with same day deals! WHY? Because these are the easy low hanging fruit to pick off no effort to fill slots. THEY LOVE IT & WE LOVE IT! It’s all about per van daily average. If we can fill a slot this afternoon at 3:00pm then we can do another £x of work today, that’s time that has gone, never to be available again to sell some cleaning in, so why not take it and keep clients, and you, happy? To me it’s a ‘no brainer’. So, if you need any help setting up templates to do this, or any help whatsoever just email or call.
You Asked, So We Did, AGAIN! Text Marketing…
It’s here and those who have done Beta testing have said it was worth the wait.
You see, we’ve been looking at adding this for some time, but we didn’t want to rush into adding texting to GetBookedUp and only do half a job. We wanted to be sure of several things. Firstly, that we complied with all the legislation and weren’t just flying by the seat of our pants. Secondly, we wanted to make it more than a simple “you can send a text, type what you want here then send it” system. So what we’ve developed covers both of those. We’ve partnered with the Industry leaders, TextLocal, to provide a fully integrated solution. Not only that, we now have our own webportal for using the other TextLocal tools too, so those of you with a real flair for the clever stuff can export data files and let your minds go wild. We’ve also decided to pass on some saving we make buying text messages in bulk. Because we buy in bulk you can buy text message credits from us at just 4.5p each if you buy 1000. Direct from TextLocal they would cost you 4.9p each, not a massive difference I know, but every little helps. Having our own webportal also means we have much more flexibility, so you get easier to use tools in GetBookedUp. The biggest benefit is by composing text messages in GetBookedUp we can allow you to merge many more fields that if you were using the other text messaging websites direct. Most have a limit of five, and by the time you’ve added Mr Simmons you’ve used two already. You can add as many as you like and the merge is done before it’s uploaded to the portal, so there’s no problem, a clever tool suggested by our developer.
So what’s it do? Take a look at the video…
Text Templates.
These allow you to have ‘ready to go’ text messages at various points within the system, ie the Client Record screen, The Diary when booking a Quote or Job, and the new East Texting bulk text marketing facility. The system downloads with several for you to use straight away. You can use as is or edit them to suit, you can even add as many others as you like, let your mind go wild with ideas for how you can use this. The great thing about these templates is that we’ve made it dead easy to add mergedata into them, suach as the clients name, job or quote date, appointment time AND MUCH MORE. This means you don’t have to type that data into the text, the system DOES IT FOR YOU when you use the template, good eh? You can even edit the merged text before you send it if you like, WOW!
Single text messages.
You can send a single text directly from a clients record. You can do this from a button next to the mobile number field, then choose a template or just type your own message. This is recorded on the Clients contact log too making tracking responses easy.
Confirm Quote and Job appointments from directly in the Diary system. Just choose the appointment and click ‘Text’, compose your text or choose a template, edit if you wish, click send and a fully mailmerged date and appointment time confirmation goes out.
‘Bulk’ Text messaging
Want to send job reminders by Text, or better yet send a text to everyone in a particular area with an offer to fill a gap in your diary tomorrow? EASY with Easy Texting. Select who you want to text to using the filter tool, even the easy filter tools or the target marketing filter tools, you choose. Choose which Template text you want to send, or create a new one, or even just modify a previous one, EASY! Click ‘Send’ and it’s sent and recorded on the clients contact log, again allowing accurate measuring of response rates.
It is in the:
There are so many ways you can use Text Messaging. I look forward to sharing some of the success stories of our users with you in future posts.
That’s all for now, regards,
Allan.
You Asked, So We Did – Extra Quantity Field Flexibility…
Several users have asked if there was a way we could adapt the quoting system to handle Circular, Oval and Semicircular items easier.
The system has always been very flexible handling unusual shaped rooms such as L shaped or commercial areas with several section that need adding together to get the total area, but until now Circular, Oval and Semicircular rugs have had to use a formula to calculate the ACTUAL size. Well, you asked so we’ve done it. Oh, I almost forgot, this change is also including our Professional+ Edition too. Existing users can just run an update and get the latest version free of charge.
Rather than try to explain what the update is and how it works I’ve done a quick video…
Quick What’s New Video
Or there’s an overview of the Automatic Price Calculating tools if you want to see more on this video…
Watch an Overview Video
Watch this space! We’re working on many more “You asked, so we did!” tweaks and features right now. If you have any suggestions for features just tell us. It may be that it’s there already and you’re just not aware, or
Allan.
Sorry it’s been quiet!
I can only apologise for the lack of posts on the website over the last three months or so. We’ve been head down working with all the new users and also working on a major update to all Editions of the software. We’ve spent a lot of time working with existing users, as individuals and as groups of users, listening to the features and tweaks they wanted to see in the software as we continue to update it. That’s been at every level, including the Forever Free Edition users (thanks to all involved), so there’s more stuff about to be released in all Editions. We’ve been busy beavering away in the background getting those changes done, and we’re nearly there. It’s a little over 12 months ago that the last major release was put out and that went down well with both new and existing users. Although there have been many smaller updates throughout the year we’re hoping this release gives more users more of the features they wanted. Early signs from beta testing are encouraging with many positive comments on some of the subtle changes we’ve implemented.
That’s all for now, but if you have any suggestions please just let us know. We’ll add them to the development list and maybe at the next update they’ll make the cut.
Regards
Allan Jnr.
Extra feature in Professional+ Editions…
When Angelo of Cleaning Time got frustrated with another another carpet cleaning software package he was using he decided to try our Forever Free Edition. Apparently he’d deleted an item on his pick list and because he had ‘used’ that on a record his deleting it had corrupted his database. That doesn’t happen in our software, you can delete ‘redundant’ items even if you’ve used them, without causing a problem with your data. If you couldn’t delete used items you’d have a huge list of ‘old’ sources, for example, which would just clutter up the selection box. We’ve taken care of attention to detail like that so you don’t have to worry.
Angelo loved the Free Edition so much he almost immediately upgraded to our Professional+ Edition and we imported the limited existing client detail we could recover from his old system. Angelo said he was so excited at what this new software would do for him and couldn’t wait to start mailing his clients. When he used the Easy Mailing facility he commented on how easy it was to find the right people. While we were logged in doing some training with him he said in his old system he used to manually copy and paste each individual address from the list into an excel spreadsheet to be able to send that to Docmail (or any other online fulfilment house). In our Business Builder and Turbo Charged Editions it’s possible to create the excel spreadsheet automatically, but not quite so easy in the Professional+ Edition. Whilst you didn’t have to select each client individually and copy them, you had to right click in the grid of clients and select the right option to get the excel spreadsheet he wanted. Angelo casually said “It would be great if that was just one button to click.” What a BRILLIANT idea, SO WE DID IT!
Angelo asked “It would be great if that was just one button to click.”
SO WE DID IT!
Now in the Professional+ Edition, when you use the Easy Mailing facility to create your mailings you can, with one click of a button, turn that list into an excel spreadsheet to upload to Docmail (or any other online fulfilment house).
It’s yet another great reason to change the software you’re using and start using our Professional+ Edition. Just a one off fee of £289.00 + VAT, NO monthly fee and a 60 Day No Quibble Money Back Guarantee. PLUS, the system can grow with your business WITHOUT losing ANY data when you upgrade further and no new system to learn.
Thanks Angelo for the suggestion. You can visit Angelo’s website at Northampton Carpet Cleaners Cleaning Time.
Existing Users can get this new function by simply updating.
Go to the Data Interchange Menu, Choose the Load Latest Version Files option, accept the default ‘Medium’ of “GetBookedUp Support’s Internet Folder” and click Load Files. The system will do an automatic backup before downloading. When the download is complete just close GBU and restart it. You’ll see the new button in the Easy mailing screen, bottom left hand side.
You asked for it, we’re providing it…
More and more GetBookedUp users who are part of Robert Saunders Alltec SuccessCoach team have asked us to improve the way we present prices for maintenance plans have been asking us to exactly replicate the pricing model used in the system previously supplied by Robert. At the same time you also want to keep the additional functionality offered by the grid layout we use. Hmmm, didn’t want much did you? Well, you kept asking so we’ve decided we need to provide this for you guys.
What does this mean?
It means that after consultation with users we’re now coding things to give you even more flexibility. You can choose to use, or not use, the maintenance plan pricing, or use a combination of both. Not only that, you will still be able to choose items for a job from MULTIPLE quotes, ie one you did last year and the one you’ve just done now, AND you’ll still be able to manually edit the price from the old quote. You won’t have to create a new quote for exactly the items you want on the job you’re going to do. Phew!
We’re also adding in the additional feature of Area Volume discounts, and you’ll be able to specify that for each Item Category you want, so hard floors, carpets, rugs, upholstery etc can all be custom set. You will still be able to use the invisible ‘Fudge Factor’ feature (and one user said this feature was worth the price of the software in extra sales made using it!). PLUS, all the existing variable Discount tables and the One click use option will still be there. Sounds complicated? It might sound it but it actually makes handling discounts, however you deal with them a breeze, just try it. And before you ask, you know who you are, YES you will still be able to call the discount, ‘January 2012 offer’, and the correct variable discounts be applied across the services, so you don’t have to remember what those discounts are, genius!
All in all you will have ALL the same flexibility you’ve always enjoyed, but NOW you’ll be able to layout maintenance plan proposals clearer. That and combine items from various Item categories to provide a total Job proposal and total price for the client. If it all sounds Dutch don’t worry. Those using GetBookedUp who use the existing maintenance plan pricing will instantly ‘get it’ Those who don’t currently, but want to, will be able to watch the How To videos. And by the way, you’ll still be able to manually change any prices on the fly, including system calculated ones.
So, that’s the best of both worlds. Your feedback has been listed to and implimented, watch this space. If you’d like to be involved in the Beta testing just let me know.
Thank You Sharon at Absolute Cleaning Service
Last week Sharon at Absolute Cleaning Services based in Harpenden downloaded our Forever Free Edition and reported that she thought she’d found a bug, oops.
Sharon emailed to say that as she changed from one tab to another there appeared to be a ‘flickering’. This was the first time this had been reported so we investigated further. What we found was that it appears some graphics accelerators didn’t like our tabs within tabs layout. Now we know about it we’re fixing it, so will email everyone as soon as the fix is done with details of how to update your system, just in case it’s also affecting you.
We have also had another suggested improvement, so watch this space. You asked for it Peter, so we’ll add it as it’s another great idea that’s easy for us to implement.
Allan.
Improved Import Data Facility
Hi,
Following a suggestion made by a visitor to the stand at The Carpet Cleaners Carnival we decided to add their suggestion as it’s GENIUS!
Basically it allows you to edit the incoming data withing GetBookedUp, rather than having to edit you spreadsheet and reimport it. The system will highlight exactly what needs be changed in each record to make it import ‘cleanly’, then you can edit it right there, SIMPLE but genius.
Take a look at the new facility here
If you need any help using this please just call or email.
Regards
Allan Jnr.