While you are an expert when it comes to getting vehicles sparkling clean and your clients love you for it, there is more to running a successful mobile detailing business than simply being good at making cars look like new. You also need to think about all of the behind-the-scenes aspects of owning a business. Everything from payment processing, setting your detailing prices, contracts , and even what mobile detailing scheduling software to use.
No matter if you are just starting out with auto detailing or have a team of detailers working for you, you need a booking software solution that’s as mobile and customizable as your business. If you are truly mobile, your booking software will need a place for clients to give you their address upon booking.
Also in today’s work environment, the best booking software for mobile detailers will come in an app. Most mobile detailers will want to be able to manage their business easily on their phone between appointments because they are on-the-go most of the day. Detailers are certainly not a desk job so being able to manage your appointments from your smartphone is industry best practice.
Setting Appointments as a Mobile Detailer
Setting appointments can seem simple, but at the same time also be a huge stress for business owners. As a mobile detailer, you are booking people for a wide array of services and will need to make sure you are staying well organized with your booking system.
Many people start out using things like a simple Google calendar, paper planner, or even one of the many free softwares out there. The problem is, all of these can actually cause more chaos and confusion. When you are doing it all on your own, it can be hard to manage everything you need to do when it comes to your appointments. It’s important for your booking system to integrate with everything else you use including payments and even automated text reminders.
Here’s an example. Say you are using a paper planner or manual Google calendar. Your client calls you to schedule a full detail at their place of employment. You get them penciled in, then you take their deposit with whatever payment processor you are using. This may be the end of it, but sometimes it isn’t. Say that same client calls back to reschedule or even change the location where they will be. Now you have to go back to your planner, look at your available time, scratch out their name, try to move it somewhere else.
If you are busy, you may not even have time to answer all of your calls. This client wants to book with you or reschedule, but you are busy with another appointment. What happens now? You either call them back and hope they answer, starting a game of phone tag, or you completely miss it all together and now you have lost out on that potential income.
Getting your appointment setting to where it is an automatic process is KEY to success within the mobile detailing industry. It makes it easy on you, easy on your clients, and everyone wins. So when you are ready to go into your new business, it really is important to have good systems in place.
What Should a Good Mobile Detailing Booking Software Do?
So what should a great mobile detailing booking software look like? We are going to walk you through some of the most important things you need to have when choosing the best booking platform for your detailing business.
Allow Your Clients to Easily Book You Online
First and foremost, you need to be able to have your clients easily book you online. A good software will allow you to make a beautiful custom booking page that you can share with your clients. This will allow them to see when you are available, pick the service and time they want you to come to them, input their address for the service, and book their appointment right there without ever having to play phone tag with you.
They should also be able to go back in and reschedule themselves with your other available times if they need to.
This takes a lot of stress off of you as a business owner and gives you the freedom to really focus on your services.
Accept Credit Cards for Deposits and Automatic Payments
Another important thing that your booking software should do is accept credit cards for automatic deposits and payments.
When clients book with you, you should be able to automatically prompt them to enter their payment information so that you get your deposit upfront. That way, if they happen to cancel last minute or no-call-no-show, you still have something to show for the time you should have been booked for.
Once services are rendered, your booking app should be able to send that full payment invoice to the client and automatically charge their card on file. This is great for you since you will never have those awkward moments of handing your client a bill and asking for payment in person. It makes it easy for you, easy for the client, and again, everyone wins.
Send Confirmations and Notifications Automatically
One of the most, if not the most, important things your mobile detailing booking software should do is to send out confirmations and notifications to your clients automatically.
Appointment reminders will help make sure that your client always remembers the exact time and location of their appointment. We have seen that simply by making sure you send automatic appointment reminders, your late clients and no-call-no-shows end up decreasing significantly!
Just think about it, some people are making appointments a month or so in advance. It is highly likely that some of these people will forget to write down their appointments and will then simply forget what day and time they are supposed to meet you for their appointment. Reminders will not only help you make sure your time is not wasted on clients that don’t show up, it will also help your clients remember their own appointments.
While it is possible for you to manually send out these reminder texts and emails, that will start to really dig into your time that would be better spent performing services. That’s why we recommend automatic reminders that you simply set up and let run on their own. You just pick the frequency that the reminders will be sent, and you are good to go!
What Mobile Detailing Booking Software Should I Use?
Now that you know what a great mobile detailing software should look like, now is the time to decide which one you should use.
If you want everything we mentioned above, and so much more, then PocketSuite may be right for your mobile detailing business.
PocketSuite has everything you need to run your mobile detailing business right from your phone. Not only do we offer a mobile detailing specific version of the app, we also have an amazing customer service team who are ready and willing to help walk you through everything you need to get the most out of your booking software. If you are moving from one platform to PocketSuite, the team will help you transfer everything over so you don’t ever have to worry about missing out on appointments you already had scheduled.
We know how important your time is, and we want to help you save time and make more money. We believe in our app so much that we offer a 30-day risk free trial ( you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get ALL of the benefits). During these 30 days, you can have welcome calls with our customer care team and get all of your questions answered, everything transferred over, and have everything set up just the way you want for your unique business.
So what are you waiting for? Give PocketSuite a try for your mobile detailing business today and see how we can help you grow your business into an empire!
