If you’ve been following the WaveRez blog you’ll recall that we’ve gone over how important online reservation systems are and why WaveRez is a great solution for the watersport niche. We’ve also covered why a robust website and a strong Google My Business presence are critical for the success of your business in this new digital era. Getting bookings online is wonderful and can reduce much of the stress and workload that your employees have to deal with from consistent phone calls. However, getting bookings is just one component of your business. Fulfilling those bookings, managing your fleet so your equipment is optimized, and providing an incredible experience for your customers are equally, if not more important. If your bookings are coming in through multiple channels and you’re using pen and paper, an online calendar, and a white board to manage a bunch of channels; chances are you’re overbooking, angering your customers, your employees are frustrated, and you’re missing sales. If this sounds like your business, keep reading.
WaveRez was designed and built by people who were doing the above, every day of the season, and getting fed up with it. Bookings were coming in but the operations side of things was wreaking havoc on staff and hurting the business. Using WaveRez as not only a booking system but also an operations/business tool alleviated much of those issues. Our platform is designed to keep all your booking channels organized and synced so all of your orders, schedules, equipment, and manifests are in one place. Online, phone, walk up, and TripShock orders are all entered/added into the same place, use the same schedules, involve the same inventory, and show up on the same manifest. Speaking of manifests, WaveRez has a Daily and an Hourly manifest view out of the box. The Daily view shows all the trips/rentals going out that day broken down by Trip (i.e. 24’ Pontoon Rental) and the Hourly view shows all the trips/rentals going out that day broken down by departure time (i.e. 11AM). We’ve been told that these 2 views alone make a world of difference in how staff organizes and deals with their day to day.
Syncing bookings and equipment are huge parts of our system but they are only the tip of the operational iceberg. Management of both orders and schedules/inventory are a consistent issue with watersport operation staff. Being able to quickly turn off or on a piece of equipment, trip/rental, or a specific schedule time seems like a no brainer but WaveRez is the only platform that does this easily out of the box. Weather happens, equipment failure happens, staff issues happen, etc. We are acutely aware of these things from decades of experience and have built our system around them. Additionally, changing prices in the system can be done easily and across the board as well as dynamically via our WaveLogic pricing system.
We’ve discussed booking, equipment, pricing, schedule, trip/rental, and inventory management so far which leaves us the last critical component of your business: customer communication. WaveRez has built in templates that can be customized to your heart’s content for Confirmation, Cancellation, Reminder, and Review emails. Additionally we have SMS capability that can be automated as well, this is a huge feature as most travelers check texts in real time but not emails. Not only do we have automated email/SMS messaging when actions are completed, but we have easy to access, on-demand email/SMS messaging. Our partners love this feature as the changing nature of weather and other challenges make up-to-the minute communication critical in running a successful watersports business.
The smooth operation of a business is so important for profitability but it also has a huge impact on staff morale and the customer experience. Using WaveRez as your businesses booking system and operations backend you can level up your operations and provide a better experience for your employees and customers. Above are only a few of the key operational benefits of the WaveRez platform, depending on your business model and size there are literally hundreds of other helpful features that can improve your business workflow. Learn more about how WaveRez features could benefit your operations by scheduling a risk-free demo.
About the Author
Greg Fisher
