Stratus Online Bookings: A Deeper Dive
Last week I introduced Stratus Online and promised a deeper dive into each of the new tools. Let’s start with Bookings, because it’s the one I’m most excited about.
When we set out to rebuild online booking, we gave ourselves a simple goal: build the best online booking service in the world. Why not? So we started with a list. Every feature from every leading booking service, all in one place. That list became our minimum—the bar the new system had to clear before we’d even call it done.
Then we asked the more interesting question: what could we add that nobody else has?
Here’s what we built.
A New Look
This new booking portal is a major visual upgrade. We’ve given it a much more modern look, with even more color and text customization options. Plus, we’ve added conveniences like return-to-website links, a booking progress status bar, and customizable headings and text.
For easy access, you can either embed the portal directly into your website or use our new Link Builder tool to generate custom links and QR codes for anywhere you want people to access your calendar.
Customizable Flows
This is by far one of the coolest new features we’re introducing: you can now fully customize your booking process from start to finish with our Booking Flow Editor. With 13 different page types, you can drag and drop the page order to create your perfect online booking process.
We’ve created so many new options to enhance your booking process, including:
- A customizable sign-in page with Magic Link capabilities to drastically reduce duplicate client records.
- Terms & Conditions that can be signed and saved to a record.
- A page for your own customized content.
- A payment page where you can take a deposit, collect a payment, or simply store a card on file.
- Promo codes that can affect today’s payment total.
- Age verification to require a specific age before their session date.
- And much more!
The new flows are also intelligent enough to allow more than one booking. Want your clients to schedule their follow-up sales appointment one week after their photo shoot? Consider it done. Need to book two sessions at once? No problem.
We didn’t stop there, either. You can introduce as many booking flows as you want. Create a different, specialized flow for every session type or special promotion if you’d like!
The possibilities really are endless.
Automated Availability
We’ve also enhanced how time slots and availability are handled. The new booking portal uses a rule-based system to show customers when they can book.
You can assign availability to staff and resources, set your business’s booking rules, and customize special exclusions, events, or blockouts.
The booking calendar looks at all the information you have in place and automatically generates the matching time slots your customers need to see. You only need to step in if something changes.
Advanced Rules & Configurations
We’ve heard that one of the reasons business owners love Stratus is because it can do just about anything you need for your business. If you have a new system in mind, odds are there’s already a way to do it with Stratus!
We wanted to bring that same flexibility to the new booking portal. There are so many more rules and customizations you can activate, such as:
- Rescheduling caps
- Min/max advance notice
- Same-day cutoffs down to the hour
- Time zone display
- Buffer time between bookings
- So much more!
This is one of the many reasons we’re excited about Asta. As your new personal Stratus assistant, Asta can help you with these processes rather than requiring you to dig through all the settings yourself. Simply explain to Asta what you want to do—he’ll either tell you where to find it or offer to hook it up for you.
Event Online Booking
When we were looking at how to improve our existing online booking portal, we also had to ask, “What about Organization Online Booking?”—the ability to have custom booking rules for a specific organization.
It’s pretty clear that much of this functionality exists within the new Flow Editor, but how should we handle these specific events? That’s when we came up with the new Event booking tool.
You can now create special “events” for online booking where you customize the exact flow, availability, staff, and timing. This goes far beyond a single school picture day. You can use it for special Pumpkin Patch mini-sessions, corporate convention center events, or any time you’re stepping outside your normal booking process.
Rich Dashboard Data
This is the part I’m most proud of! A new booking dashboard shows you exactly where you’re succeeding and where you may need some help. Here’s some of what you’ll be able to see:
- Conversion rate and step-by-step drop-off. See a funnel showing exactly where people leave your flows.
- Time-per-step friction. Find the page that’s slowing everyone down.
- Side-by-side flow comparison. Test two versions and see which one wins, with an honestly labeled estimate of revenue at risk.
- Demand and capacity heat maps. See when people book, when they want to be seen, and the demand your schedule doesn’t serve.
- A follow-up queue. See customers who abandoned twice, ranked by value and ready for a phone call.
Asta’s ready to help as well. Whenever you see Asta’s icon, it means he’s ready to help break down the numbers and offer suggestions on how to shake things up.
Asta Alerts
Speaking of Asta, Stratus Online also has a tool called “Asta Alerts,” where you can have Asta keep an eye on things for you. Set up exactly what you need to know and when. Catch a problem before it slips away.
- Email me at 3 p.m. if bookings are below 5 that day.
- Let me know if someone books and no payment comes through.
- Alert me if a session is created and there’s no user assigned to it.
Just ask Asta.
The Power of Stratus
At the end of the day, one of the things that makes this new booking tool so incredible is the power of Stratus backing it up. Everything is connected.
Just like before, your bookings come straight into your database. No syncing or moving data over—just your live data!
Join the Preview
We hope that you are just as excited for these new features as we are! Book a one-on-one meeting with a Stratus Coach below to start using the preview today. It takes just minutes to get up and running, and everything you’ve already set up in legacy online booking carries right over.