Getting double booked is a pain. The last thing you want is to lose out on a booking and to disappoint a potential customer. But let’s face it, when you’re busy running multiple trips a day, keeping track of everything can get tricky. This is where the custom availability option on the FishingBooker calendar comes in.
What is the custom availability option?
The custom option on your calendar lets you edit your availability by choosing the individual trips you want to run on a given day. Use it to block off your morning trips when you’re only available in the afternoon, or vice versa. Even better, you can customize your availability by choosing any individual trip, regardless of when it starts.
What’s the benefit of using the custom availability option?
More Availability – More Peace of Mind
Let’s say a customer walks up to your boat and books a 6 hour trip from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. You’re now booked for the morning, but also for any other trip that starts before 2 o’clock. How should you block your calendar to avoid a double booking?
Blocking the entire day could work, but what if you’re running trips later in the day, too? Why should you lose the opportunity to get customers for those? Blocking only the morning won’t do, because you’re risking an afternoon trip coming in and overlapping with the 6 hour trip.
To solve that, custom availability lets you close off the actual trips you know you won’t be able to run. This takes away the guesswork and leaves you open for bookings only when you’re available.
But custom availability is about a lot more than just trip timing.
Only Run the Types of Trips You Want To
The forecast says that there’ll be winds offshore for the next few days. But you can still run inshore trips, so why miss the chance to offer them? Simply block off your offshore outings and customers will see that you’re available for all other trips for the day(s) selected.
How to Use Custom Availability Correctly
To block the entire morning on your calendar for example, you’ll need to block all the trips that take place during the morning of that day. So, if you have a couple of morning trips plus a full day trip, you’ll need to block all three if you only want to offer your afternoon trips on that day.
The same logic applies if you want to block p.m. trips. Block all trips that can happen in the afternoon, including ones that start in the morning, like your full day trip.
Custom availability works for each day individually. This means that you’ll need to edit each day you want to set custom availability for. If you’re editing your availability for multiple days at once, you can do so for full days only, not individual trips.
We know that this may be a hassle for you at the moment. That’s why we’re working hard on further improving the calendar to make it easier to use and more applicable to what you do on a daily basis. Stay tuned for future updates on this!
What’s the downside of NOT using custom availability?
Custom availability lets you be flexible with how you want to run your trips. It can also save you a lot of headaches, especially when things get busy. Not using the feature can leave you open to double bookings, which leads to a lower realization rate and unsatisfied customers.
On top of that, blocking full days whenever you could still run a half day trip needlessly lowers the odds of you getting additional bookings. You’ll be less visible when customers search your location, which will reduce the chances of you hooking ‘em.
Your Feedback Is Crucial
We’re determined to develop features that help you run your business as smoothly as possible. But we can only do so with your help.
Let us know about your experience with the custom availability option. What do you find useful about it? How can it be better? Anything you’re unsure about? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or shoot us an email. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
