How to Create the Perfect Booking Experience

The goal of your rental website is to get people to make a booking. It is essential to get people to this step with a beautiful and informative website, but the work doesn’t stop there. Once you get people into the booking flow, you need to keep them there and ensure they follow through. That’s why you need to spend time creating the perfect booking experience.

For your customers, the booking experience is make or break. If your booking pages are clunky or unintuitive, they will likely have a negative experience. However, if you can get it right with a smooth, professional process, their experience will be more positive. Plus, they are likely to share with others how easy it was to make a booking with you - free promo.

Let’s dive into what you need to do to create the perfect booking experience. You can check out these booking page examples to give you some inspiration and understanding of how this can look.

First, identify your objective

Although every rental business aims to receive bookings, the form this takes can vary depending on the objective. There are three main categories that bookings generally fall into regarding what companies want to achieve. Here are explanations of the categories along with some examples:

• Direct bookings allow customers to pay the total amount during the checkout at booking. This is the most common way customers make bookings for more affordable items, like bikes and scooters.
• Wishlists allow customers to choose the ideal products they wish to rent out. Generally, they are used by event rental businesses as a first touchpoint for customers to reach out and start the proposal process.
• Quote requests allow customers to select the products they want in order to get an estimate of how much they will cost to rent. Companies that rent out higher-value items like cameras will usually ask for these.

Of course, these are slightly broad generalizations, and there will be companies in the examples that will have one of the other objectives. However, the objectives themselves are the three most common actions rental businesses want their customer to take. You will know which one best suits your company’s way.

Second, consider your target audience

The primary purpose of your booking page is to let people take the actions required in the easiest way possible. To do this more effectively, you need to understand what your target audience expects. The best way to do this is to look at other booking experiences that meet the same goals and determine what makes them great and what you can improve on.

By understanding your target audience, you’ll be in the position to create the perfect booking experience. For example, some audiences may want to have a minimal experience where they can book as quickly as possible. At the same time, other audiences will want to know more information about the products they are renting to make an informed decision.

Third, choose booking elements

Now that you know your objective and what your target audience expects from a landing page, you can choose the elements you need to include. You need to consider what you decided in the first two steps to know what is necessary for your booking experience. Generally, you can choose between the following elements:

• Date picker - This allows customers to choose their rental period.
• Live availability - This shows customers if products are available on their selected dates.
• Product cards or product pages - You need to choose if you want simple product cards or in-depth product pages.
• Floating or static shopping cart - Do you want a cart that pops up when people add products, or do you want to button that leads to a cart page?
• Services - These can be things like delivery, insurance, and setup costs.
• Add-ons - You may want to upsell other products to your customers.
• Custom checkout fields - In some cases, you may require extra information from your customers.
• Payments - Do you want to allow customers to request a quote or make full or partial payments?

This isn’t a definitive list, but it does explain the essential elements. Of course, not all of them are necessary, and you should only use the features that suit your needs. Remember, the goal is to make the experience as smooth as possible and allow customers to achieve the actions they need to take to complete their booking.

Finally, engage customers with visual elements

To complete your booking experience, you need to engage customers with your chosen visual elements. Great design, beautiful images, and outstanding typography will influence your customers’ decisions. Not only will they guide them to take action, but they will also increase your brand awareness and shape how they feel about your brand.

Combined with the booking elements you use, visuals will tie the whole experience together. It is essential to keep things simple, legible, and easy to understand to encourage people to make a booking. So you need to think carefully about your visual choices and ensure they match your brand’s visual identity as a whole for a unified customer experience.