Hand-selected articles, guides, and tools from the makers of Check Cherry — crafted to help your business grow, book more clients, and flourish.
Recently, we passed a milestone: $25 million in bookings on Check Cherry. In late 2017, we crossed the 1 million in bookings milestone.
Check Cherry's booking and client management system has come a long way, and we've our customers to thank for helping us get here and improve the service.
We're excited about the future and know there is still a lot of room for growth and improvement. We'll keep working hard to help make customers successful and can't wait until the next milestone.
In this article, we're going to give you some tips for happier, healthier, smoother payment processing so you can make it easy for customers and get more bookings.
Clients will love it when it's easy to do business with your company, and one of the more critical aspects of running a smooth operation is making it easy for clients to pay their deposits and balances. At times, payments can feel awkward, painful, and downright discouraging. Thankfully there are a lot of options for collecting payment today, and they'll make both you are your client's life better.
If you make it easy to pay, more people will book you online and accept your proposals. Credits cards are among the most convenient ways to pay and allow customers to finance a purchase, earn rewards, and even offer buyer protection.
PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App all offer business and personal accounts. Business accounts charge processing fees and may be required for advanced functionality like integrating Check Cherry's with PayPal and Venmo integration.
Tip: Allow customers the option to pay online by using a quality online booking system like Check Cherry, where you can collect both a signature and a deposit at the same time.
More and more people are buying from their phones. Options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Microsoft Pay are gaining popularity and make the act of entering a credit card number effortless because the card details have already been stored on the customer's phone/browser.
Avoid making your customers jump through hoops so you can save a buck on processing fees. Instead, focus more on making it easy to pay by offering online payment and more payment options. Reducing the friction at the point of sale is a sure-fire way to increase sales.
Check Cherry integrates with Stripe, Square, and PayPal for credit card processing. The credit card processing fees for each provider are comparable and easy to understand. They also include features to help your business achieve PCI Compliance.
Avoid the temptation to explicitly pass the cost to your clients with a surcharge for using a payment method that will incur fees. The fact is most people paying more for using their preferred method of payment, and such practices will cost you precious goodwill, client referrals and make your business appear less professional.
Tip: In the United States, visa makes it difficult for businesses to apply surcharges when paying online. According to Visa's Surcharging Credit Cards Q&A, U.S. merchants cannot surcharge debit card or prepaid card purchases.
Consider payment processing fees a cost of doing business and factor them into the price of your packages. If you have not already factored in such expenses, use this as an excuse to raise your prices by 5-10%.
Often both a signed contract and a deposit are required to secure a booking. Be sure to collect both simultaneously, so you don't end up with one and not the other. If you choose to accept paper checks for deposits and allow customers to sign agreements, be sure to cover when the deposit is due in your contact.
Suggest Video: Better contracts with Check Cherry.
Clients often shop around before making a final commitment, and you're likely not the only company in contention for each job. By making it easy for people to sign and pay, you're more likely to make clients happy and win business.
When you're ready to start accepting bookings for your photo booth rental business, it's essential to collect the right booking details to ensure the job goes smoothly, the client is happy, and your business gets more 5-star reviews.
In this article, we'll cover some best practices for collecting information when booking photo booth rentals. With these tips, you'll be off to a smooth start and avoid common mistakes we see new photo booth entrepreneurs make when taking bookings.
Allow people to indicate the type of event they are hosting and the package they would like to purchase. Only show them the packages which are available for their type of event. For example, a photo booth at a wedding tends to focus more on capture memories and have fun. Meanwhile, a photo booth at a corporate tradeshow may be most valuable for lead collection and conversation starter.
Tip: Show packages and pricing before collecting contact information to reduce the number of low-quality leads who want to know a price, but will never be able to afford your base package.
Collect a name, email address, and phone number when allowing someone to book your photo booth. Your client's contact info will come in handy for sending booking confirmation emails, invoices, and payment reminders.
Tip: Develop systems that will help you deliver a consistent experience. Automate low-value touchpoints like payment reminders.
Be sure to collect information on when and where your company needs to be available to provide the service. If you charge travel fees or collect sales tax, you'll need this information to give an accurate price for the photo booth rental.
Suggested Article: Photo Booth Rentals & Sales Tax
Add-ons give clients a way to customize their experience and help you increase booking totals. Often, add-ons are only available for specific packages. Avoid confusion by only showing the add-ons available for purchase.
Before accepting the booking, have the prospect sign off on your Terms and Conditions. Also, it's a good idea to collect an initial payment to hold the date. Deposits are a great way to ensure the client is committed and will not cancel.
Tip: Set up a photo booth booking system like Check Cherry, which required both a signature and deposit before accepting the booking.
While paper forms will undoubtedly do the job, digital photo booth booking forms will make both you and your client's life easier. For the best results, use a fully integrated photo booth booking system like Check Cherry. It will help you avoid duplicate data entry, prevent double bookings, and keep you're booking process client-friendly.
Suggested Article: Photo Booth Business Checklist
It's best only to collect the data you need each step of the way. Don't present your prospective clients with a long and complicated form because it will make the process of hiring you look like a lot of work. Use a multi-step online booking process, so each step is minimal in appearance.
If you want to increase sales, it's a good idea to make booking your photo booth easy. Offering online booking is a significant step in the right direction. Check Cherry provides all the tools you need to do online booking right.
