Tip #17: How to mandate partial payment for your appointments

Tip #17: How to mandate partial payment for your appointments




When you require partial payments during the booking process, customers can only schedule with you after paying a certain amount in advance. This deposit acts as a commitment between both parties. Apart from that, it has many more advantages.

 

Benefits of mandating partial payment

  • Reduced no-shows and cancellations: As the customer has made a deposit, it's less likely that they'll cancel or not show up for the appointment.

  • Only serious inquiries: When people have to invest financially, they will book only when they are sure about proceeding. This filters out customers who book casually with the intention of canceling later.

  • Streamlined processes: Implementing the collection of partial payment through an online scheduler reduces the time and effort needed for follow-up and manual invoicing.

  • Stable revenue: Since only serious customers pop in and book appointments, revenue will be stable for your business.

  • Better time management: As most of the bookings happen without cancellation, you can efficiently manage the time slots for staff members and resources.

Use case

Consider an event management company that has an online scheduler embedded into its website. When clients book event services, such as catering, venue rentals, event decorations, and more, a partial payment requirement ensures commitment and helps cover initial expenses. In certain industries, such as event planning, customers often explore multiple options, which indicates uncertainty about committing to a particular service provider. By mandating partial payment, event planners or service providers can safeguard themselves against last-minute cancellations. Collecting a portion upfront allows event planners to proceed confidently with organizing the events, knowing that the client is invested in the process.

 

Zoho Bookings allows you to set the deposit amount to be paid while booking an appointment. It provides detailed customization by allowing you to configure different partial payment costs for different services (i.e., each services can have its own deposit amount).

 

Steps to set up partial payment

  1. Click Services on the Bookings menu bar, then select the required service on the left pane.

  1. Click Service Information in the middle pane.

  2. In the Type of Payment dropdown, select the option Deposit. A textbox will appear; enter the payment amount that should be paid in advance in the text box and click Save.



Now, when the customer tries to book a service with you, they'll be prompted to pay this deposit amount. But for this to work as intended, you'll need to configure a payment gateway:

  1. Navigate to Integrations > Payments and configure any one of the payment gateways available. Refer to this help page for more details about adding a payment gateway.



  2. After adding a payment gateway, enable the toggle beside Online Payments.



The setup is done; your booking page will allow appointments only when this deposit amount is paid.

 

Although implementing a partial deposit is necessary in many cases, it's also imperative that you stay flexible to show that you understand reasonable requests. This helps maintain good client relations.

 

Thank you for checking out this post. Please leave you questions and feedback in the comments section, or write to us at support@zohobookings.com.

 

Regards,

The Zoho Bookings Team

 


 

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