Ever had a no-show? When you’ve fuelled up your boat, purchased bait, and blocked out a day of bookings, only for your customer not to turn up? This is a big problem in the charter industry. And it’s one that we hope you won’t have to deal with, ever again.
FishingBooker has a new, exclusive feature that makes payment easier and more reliable. It’s called Online Payments. Enable it on your profile and your customers will be able to pay the full price of their trip directly through FishingBooker. Easy for them, and easy for you.
NOTE: Online Payments are currently only available for captains in the United States. We’re currently working on making it available for other countries and will notify you when your charter becomes eligible.
What Online Payments do for you
Increase your chances of getting booked
On average, captains who offer both payment options got 10-15% more bookings this year. Why? Because they’ve become more attractive to new customers who prefer cashless payments.
People are getting more reliant on – and more used to – paying for their vacations online. Online Payments let you get ahead of the crowd and respond to this growing trend without a hassle.
Sometimes, customers leave the checkout page when they see that the captain doesn’t accept the payment type they prefer to use. When you enable Online Payments, this becomes much less likely. Your customers get the option to pay in full or to pay with our traditional method – paying the deposit immediately and giving you the remaining balance directly.
This way, no matter what payment method your customers prefer, you will be able to cater to their needs. When you’ve put so much into building up your charter, don’t risk losing customers just because of your payment methods!
Drastically reduce the risk of cancellations
When a customer chooses to pay online, they need to pay for the whole trip if they cancel outside of your free cancellation policy. What does this mean for you? Instead of just sending you the trip deposit, we’ll forward you everything, minus our standard commission. You get paid just as you would have done if they’d gone fishing with you!
In practice, this reduces the number of cancellations dramatically. Once a customer has committed to the trip by paying the full amount, they are far less likely to forfeit this by not showing up. And if they do? You get a free day or can take someone else fishing, without losing money.
And it’s not just short notice cancellations that go down when you enable Online Payments – more trips go through as a whole. Since we launched the feature, we’ve seen over 10% more bookings getting completed when they’ve been paid for online.
Take away the hassle so you can focus on the experience
When the trip payment has already been settled, you have one less thing to think about when you get back to the dock. This lets you focus on wrapping up the trip, prepping your customer’s catch, and giving them that unforgettable last impression that will keep them coming back.
Not only is the payment more secure, you know you’ll receive the full amount and there will be no surprises. You can then use the post-trip period to foster your relationship and leave a good last impression. Which is just what you need when you’re bolstering your online reputation through collecting reviews.
Let you expand the types of trips you run
What better way to surprise someone than by gifting them a fishing charter? Now, your FishingBooker customers can do just that – as long as you accept Online Payments. After all, a fully paid fishing trip is a much better present than a deposit!
We’ve noticed a spike in special trips since we introduced Online Payments. From honeymoon gifts to post-graduation celebrations, customers are already showing a preference for booking trips for other people when they can pay the full amount online. Give your customers the chance to do this, too!
Give you individual, dedicated support from our reps
When you decide to turn on Online Payments, our payment experts will help you set it up, step by step. And, once everything’s set up, you’ll have access to 7 day per week help from our captain support team.
How It Works
Signing up
When you sign up for Online Payments, a member of our team will get in touch and guide you through the whole process. Once this is done, you’ll be ready to open this new booking channel for your clients.
And don’t worry – you can opt out at any time and go back to your traditional payment methods.
Getting bookings
When a customer books a trip with you on FishingBooker, they’ll get the option to choose between paying in full and paying the deposit only.
So, signing up means you have an additional way of getting paid – but it doesn’t mean that customers are restricted to only paying in full.
Once they book, we’ll inform you about how they chose to pay. We’ll also send you a reminder before the trip so you know how to prepare once they get to the dock.
Getting paid
Once the trip goes ahead, we release the funds we held from the customer when they booked. After a short processing period, the trip price minus the commission will be transferred securely to your bank account.
If the customer cancels at short notice and breaches your cancellation policy, we’ll process the money exactly as we would have done if the trip had gone ahead. You’ll get the full amount of the trip price minus the commission, as well as complete protection from no shows and last minute cancellations.
If there’s bad weather or your boat has mechanical issues, we’ll return the entire cost of the trip to the customer, just as before.
Getting help
When you enable Online Payments, you immediately qualify for supplementary support from our reps. This means that if you have any questions about your payments (or anything else!) they’ll be on hand to help you. As Online Payments is a premium service that is only available to certain captains, we find it important that they get the support they deserve.
With trends showing that more people are paying for their vacation experiences online, don’t miss out. FishingBooker’s new payment solution helps you cater to this growing need, easily and securely.
Interested? Contact our reps to find out more and sign up!
