5 Tips to Help you Sell Services Online – Booking rate optimization

If you’re in the service sector and sell appointments on an e-commerce website, you’re going to want to continue reading this post.

As you’ve probably experienced, driving qualified traffic to your website is quite challenging. You need to have a strong social media presence, run some paid ads on social media or Google, create engaging content, send out email blasts – the list goes on and on.

Once you’ve succeeded in generating interest for your services in the form of online traffic, how do you make sure that everything is in place for users to have a delightful experience and ultimately sign up for your service?

In this article we’ll detail 5 ways to improve the user experience of your online store that will help you sell more services online:

1. Be front and center

It should be clear from the first 10 seconds of landing on your website that services are an important part of your offering.

A lot of websites offer both products and services and in many cases focus primarily on their  products. If your objective is to boost appointment bookings and consultations, it is imperative to rethink your website design and architecture to put an emphasis on your services on the homepage, above the fold.

This doesn’t have to be complicated.  Large retailers like Sephora dedicate a top-level menu item to in store events:

Mac Cosmetics does the same but on a second level menu item under “stores”:

Warby Parker:

You can also feature your services on youre landing page above the fold with a simple banner clearly stating that you offer xyz services if you don’t have any room in your template to add a menu item.

If you want to grow your service business, never bury your services at the bottom of a menu list where no one can see them!

2. Be Visual

Shopping for a service online should be a fun, engaging experience not unlike buying products.

Presenting your services with rich, large photography can enhance your website experience and potentially boost appointment bookings.

The booking process can sometimes be uninspiring and almost like filling out a survey. In the example below, booking a massage online consists of choosing from a drop down list rather than an enticing photo of services.

Uninspiring Spa booking online experience:

Enticing Service Menu:

3. Dazzle them with details

If you’re a business owner who built a website, installed Sesami for as your Shopify appointment booking app  and is seeking out content to help grow your business you are clearly driven and passionate about what you do. Let that passion shine through in how you describe and detail your service offering. What will make this experience valuable? How will the person feel after the appointment? What services can he expect throughout the booking?

Whether you offer Jiu Jitsu classes or custom jewelry design, it’s important to describe in detail what the customer can look forward to when booking your service.

An example from SARAH & SEBASTIAN online website on one of their experiential events:

Or this example from Nordstrom’s Stylist service illustrates the point perfectly:

4. Create a dedicated page for your services

If you plan on running any kinds of campaigns – Google Ads, Instagram, Email or other – to promote your service, its necessary to develop a dedicated landing page to your service offering.

Having a dedicated landing page is a great way to show that you are a pro at the service you offer and it’s not just an added detail in a long list of  your products/services.

The great thing is that if you’re already using Sesami, we have this concept of “Product As A Service” which let you convert your product landing page to a service page with booking capability. So having such a page won’t require too much work. It’s always better to go for streamlined, simple design with a few introductory sentences and images of your services.

Nordstrom and Sephora nail this aspect:

5. Use Live Chat to connect with your audience

Live Chat, providing you are available to answer message, is an easy low cost way to provide the necessary info in real time to potential customers. With so many great chat plug-ins available it’s become a no-brainer.

Live Chat reinforces trust and credibility and gives you the opportunity to set the tone for the relationship with clients and create a 1 to 1 experience.

Apps like Crisp and Zendek will be good ones if you’re looking for our recommendations.

Often times the simplest things can generate great results. Placing your service offering front and center on your website, providing rich service imagery and descriptions, designing streamlined service landing pages and enabling live chat are key to enhance your image as a serious service provider, encourage more bookings and ultimately grow your business.