Help customers choose the right product through a booking dialogue

What is a booking dialogue?

I can hear you thinking – a booking dialogue? A booking dialogue refers to the screens your customers navigate through in order to search for and reserve your activities or objects within the online reservation system. When it comes to creating a positive customer experience, choosing the right booking dialogue is enormously important. It ensures that your customers can quickly and easily find and book exactly what they want. An activity could be something like a guided tour, training session, or course. Objects can be anything from meeting rooms to boats. Choosing the right booking dialogue is the key to a user-friendly customer experience.

Object-based vs event-based booking dialogues

Before we begin, let us first briefly provide some additional information about the distinction between event-based booking dialogues and object-based booking dialogues.

Object-based booking dialogues
By object-based booking dialogues, we mean booking dialogues that are centred around one main product, to which sub-products or individual products can be linked. A good example of this is the hire of tennis courts. The tennis court is the main product, and you can link the various courts beneath it for rental purposes. A single meeting room or boat is also regarded as an object within the reservation system.

Via object-based booking dialogues, an object can be booked once within a given time slot. Once the object has been reserved, it cannot be booked again for the same time slot – unless, of course, you have multiple identical products. The price is linked to the product. Naturally, there are exceptions to this rule where it is possible to use a per-person pricing calculation. This depends on your business and the products you offer.

Event-based booking dialogues
By event-based booking dialogues, we mean booking dialogues that are centred around one activity type, under which various activities can be linked. A good example of this is offering painting lessons. Painting lessons are the activity, under which you can link the various classes, such as painting lessons for children, for seniors, and so on.

Via event-based booking dialogues, multiple people can register for a single activity. The price is per person rather than per object.

Which booking dialogues are available within i-Reserve?

i-Reserve is a modular reservation system, so whether you hire out meeting rooms or boats, or are looking for an appointment calendar for sports activities, guided tours, or courses, i-Reserve offers you a suitable booking dialogue. Below you will find an overview of our booking dialogues.

The calendar dialogue

With i-Reserve's calendar page, your customers can easily see whether there are still available spaces or products on a given day. Available time blocks are displayed in a chosen colour on the calendar, whilst other information such as 'unavailable', 'booking on request', and 'holiday periods' is also made clearly visible. This allows customers to see at a glance whether a particular day is available in the calendar. The use of a calendar can vary per organisation. For instance, it can be handy for booking products for one or more days (day mode), as well as for booking time blocks within a day – for example, per half-day, per hour, or even per quarter of an hour.

Search and book dialogue

The search-and-book booking dialogue from i-Reserve gives visitors to your website the ability to quickly and easily browse the products or activities on offer. The search page is designed to help visitors find the specific product or service they are looking for, and gives them the option to view availability and pricing in real time. This creates a seamless user experience for your customers and enables them to make reservations easily and swiftly.

The timetable

It is also possible to make use of the timetable dialogue. The timetable is centred around a product or activity that can be booked. We make a distinction between the event-based timetable and the object-based timetable.

Event-based timetable

Does your business revolve around activities? Then you can make use of the 'Activity timetable'. The activity timetable is suited to businesses that offer activities taking place on specific dates, such as courses and training sessions. The configured events and activities are displayed in this timetable. An activity can be scheduled multiple times at set moments, and different people can register for it. The price is per person.

Object-based timetable

If you offer products for hire, you can make use of an object timetable.
The difference between these two timetables lies in their structure. As with the activity timetable, the timetable is based on a configured object or product that your customers can reserve. However, unlike the activity timetable, an object cannot be hired out multiple times at the same time slot. One customer can reserve the object for a particular day and time slot, after which it is no longer available at the chosen time. The price is generally per object.

Combi dialogue

Would you like your customers to be able to book multiple objects or activities in a single booking? That is also possible with i-Reserve. Through our combi dialogue, you can combine one or more products – for example, the hire of a meeting room combined with a lunch or dinner (see https://vergaderzalen.i-reserve.net/vergaderzaal-arrangementen). In the Fun & Leisure sector, multiple activities are often combined into an attractive combi deal for your customers. For example, combinations of GlowGolf, HyperBowling, Prison Island, Escape Mission, and X-Cube. Take a look at the possibilities:

• Podium19
• Glowgolf Enschede
• Glowgolf Eindhoven
• Glowgolf Amsterdam

Which booking dialogue should you use for what?

You now know the basics of which booking dialogues are available in our online reservation system. To give you an even clearer picture, we would like to invite you to take a look at some of our customers. Below you will find a reference for each section, showing how our customer has implemented the reservation system.

Objects

Boat hire
One of our customers is Mokumboot. This customer has chosen to implement the system via an i-Reserve subdomain. The domain is fully styled in the Mokumboot branding, meaning that customers generally do not notice the transition from Mokumboot to mokumboot.i-reserve.nl. On the page, they have implemented the search page for objects. Customers can select a type of boat, a date, a start time, and a sailing duration. They can then make their choice and complete a reservation.

Meeting rooms
Do you hire out meeting rooms? Then take a look at the implementation of our reservation system at Crown Business Centre. On this page, the customer selects their desired location and is then directed to the booking dialogue for the chosen location. Here the customer receives an overview of the available rooms, followed by the calendar dialogue.

Glowgolf
Does your business offer glowgolf, crazy golf, or a similar activity? Then take a look at an implementation of our reservation system at our customer Glowgolf.nl. This customer also uses an i-Reserve subdomain for their implementation, linking to it from their own site. You are then presented with a calendar where customers can see which date they wish to book and check availability. The customer can select a date and specify their group size, after which they can choose from the available start times. Glowgolf and crazy golf are somewhat different compared to other objects – a calendar dialogue is used in which only the tee-off time is reserved. If you would like to know more about this, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Activities

Guided tours
Does your business offer guided tours? Then take a look at the implementation of the i-Reserve reservation system at the Grolsch Brewery. On the Grolsch website, customers immediately have an overview of the various types of guided tours on offer. After making your choice, you are taken to the tour page within the Grolsch website itself, where you can view availability, adjust your group size, and make a reservation directly. Grolsch has therefore not opted for implementation on a subdomain, but via an API.

Courses and training programmes
The i-Reserve reservation system can also be implemented for businesses that offer courses and training programmes. For example, take a look at the implementation at our customer KAP opleidingen. KAP opleidingen also uses an i-Reserve subdomain for their implementation, linking to it from their own site. On the subdomain, you will find an overview of all available exams, which can then be filtered by various criteria such as language, province, or time of day.

Holidays
And did you know that you can also allow customers to book holidays through the i-Reserve reservation system? You can find an example of this at our customer o'Neill Summercamps. This customer makes use of an alias. More information about this form of implementation can be found in our blog on implementation options. They feature an overview of all camps with a 'book now' button. Once you have selected a camp, you receive an overview of available dates and can make a reservation straight away.

Would you like to know more about the booking options within i-Reserve? Get in touch with us

As you have seen above, the i-Reserve reservation system is versatile and suitable for the hire of both objects and activities. With the wide range of booking dialogues available, i-Reserve's online reservation system gives you all the tools you need to start hiring out today. Would you like to know more about how you can use the i-Reserve reservation system and its various booking dialogues for your business? Contact us today or try our reservation system free for 30 days.