I run across this quite often. A new small business creates a website and instead of just having potential customers call or submit a contact form, they push them to book and pay for their services directly on the website.

I have seen the book and pay functionality work well for one business. They were a medspa based in Los Angeles. They were an established brand and were already very popular in their community. This is why it works for them.

I rarely see this work well for a new business with an unknown brand for a few reasons:

1. They pick off the shelf booking software that was poorly designed and doesn’t have an optimized booking process.

2. They pick off the shelf booking software that doesn’t allow us to track bookings as a conversion in Google Analytics or Google Ads. This means it’ll be nearly impossible to optimize your PPC campaigns to increase bookings.

3. They ask the prospect to pay 100% for the service at the time of booking. Instead,  you should just have them pay a small deposit that’s refunded if they cancel within X days or hours. The exception here is if you’re a well known brand already.

The truth is most local business is still handled the old fashioned way; phone calls, email and in-person engagements. I also think a lot of consumers are just used to paying after services are rendered.

If you’re just starting up or are struggling to get business, I’d just keep it simple and have prospects reach out via phone or contact form. 

If you do choose to implement a booking system be sure to pick a booking software that has a well designed booking process, allows you to track bookings as a conversion and have customers just pay a deposit at the time of booking instead of the full price of the service. 

Ideally, to simplify sales conversion tracking, you’d just direct prospects that call or email you to book online when they’re ready to book instead of booking them over the phone or via email. This ensures that you’re accurately tracking all sales conversions.

If you’re still booking appointments over the phone and email in addition to the booking system, I’d recommend setting up offline sales conversion tracking so you can track all sales conversions.