Q. The manual system we have works fine, is there a reason to spend money on something that does the same thing?
A. Beyond peoples’ expectation today to perform bookings online, manual processing always introduce spelling mistakes in names, illegible credit card numbers which usually means needing to make extra calls. Costing more in labour/ phone calls/ emails and a frustrating user experience than using a professional system in the first place. Valuable employees will be freed up to spend more time on successfully coordinating the whole event and building stronger customer relationships thereby generating better attendance and higher repeat returns.
Q. Isn’t the online payment system more expensive than us processing the credit card here?
A. The cost is actually comparable. The internet payment system can replace your current EFTPOS machine and replace the need to process the payments manually and avoid all transaction errors because the customer does it themselves. You will also avoid having sensitive credit card details on your premises
Q. Can I just pay an upfront installation fee and be done with it?
A. My Booking Manager is a cloud based platform, allowing all upgrades we make to become available immediately to all customers. MBM is continuously enhanced based on customer suggestions. Your once off admin fee covers upgrades and customer onboarding.
Q. We usually don’t process the payments until after the event and do them all in one go as we don’t want to offend members/customers that don’t show up by charging them for something they did not attend.
A. The internet payment systems are immediate, giving you the ability to access through your merchant account to process payments and refunds as necessary. This leaves you the option to define in your invitation what your cancellation policy is (eg no refunds if cancellation within 48hrs, etc) enabling you to save on unwanted catering costs due to no shows.
Q. How do I know which payments go directly into our account is from which customer?
A. Each transaction has its own ID. An example the integration with one of our third party payment gateway services Stripe (www.stripe.com) has an excellent online user dashboard to make tracking quick and efficient.
We send to Stripe additional information such as event ID and event name, reducing the effort of reconciling multiple events attended by the same person.
Q. What if our customers don’t feel comfortable using their credit cards online?
A. Today, that problem occurs less and less as online transactions become a common part of our lives. However, when your credit card details are entered into My Booking Manager’s secure payment page (you should always check on any web site payment page for the little padlock symbol), your credit card details are communicated between you and the bank using industry compliant data encryption that restricts any fraudulent third party access. Any remaining access to credit card numbers (eg for bank reconciliation reports) are x’d out, making the card details worthless, typically like you see on credit card payment receipts.
Q. Do we still have access to the customer’s credit card details in case we need to refund them?
A. For privacy and security reasons, no. However you have the ability to access your merchant account to process refunds as necessary. Usually a simple process, followed up by updating the customer’s booking record in MBM to ensure the refund is recovered in your event.
Q. We have an external Event Organiser that takes care of all our registrations and payments for us, why should I consider MBM?
A. If your Event Organisers don’t offer a professional online bookings and payment system, your Event Organisers would be able to use My Booking Manager to present a professional edge to your clients.
The time savings should also mean that your Event Organisers should not have to charge you as much.
It also means that you have greater control and transparency of the event details should the need arise and should you wish to change to a different Event Organiser or move that service in house then all the information is readily available to make that transition smoothly and less expensive.
As processing registrations and payments is a large administrative part of any event, The do-it-yourself feature of My Booking Manager may mean you can save expensive consulting costs by managing the event yourself.
Q. We have a student / temp (cheap, cheap) employee that takes care of all our bookings for us.
A. With unskilled people manually doing such a vital job as managing registrations and payments, there is an even larger margin for error (e.g. spelling mistakes in names, wrong amounts being processed on credit cards, more supervision of their work meaning that your valuable time is also going into this process, etc).
In the long run doing this process manually and with cheap labour is costing you more in labour/ phone calls/ faxes than putting My Booking Manager in place. Your young/ cheap employee will be freed up to learn more productive skills and can become a more valued employee in your company. Here’s a real example: one of our clients had a student taking care of all the bookings etc. However she became sick 2 days prior to event. The supervisor had no idea of how many registrations, payments were received, or worse how much catering to confirm, etc. Result: Chaos and Expensive!
Q. We only have a few events every year and don’t need a full time system to take care of these registrations.
A. Once My Booking Manager is set-up (once off setup fee) you only pay for what you use (by registered guest) so the system does not cost you anything during the time you are not using it. We also offer you a satisfaction guarantee or we will refund your money.
Q. Why don’t we get our own IT department to implement own in house online booking system.
A. That’s certainly possible if you have good savvy IT specialists. However our experience over many years in IT development often means the simplest concepts don’t always turn out to be as simple. Ever heard of an IT project not coming in on budget or time? The whole idea of My Booking Manager is to make it look very simple to use. That may be from the outside, but it has taken us several years of ongoing development and refinement. In fact when you are next flying with Australia’s biggest airlines, chances are your flight attendant was recruited using the original version of My Booking Manager from over six years ago.
With My Booking Manager, all upgrades are created based on customer requests so we continually improve and modernize the system. Upgrades are not an extra cost. Once you have paid for your initial setup you are a member of our customer base and you only pay per registration.
Q. I am a non-for-profit organisation and it wouldn’t fit into their budget.
A. Some of our clients use the system for events that only cater for 10 people. Importantly though, the system gives you a professional leading image. The costs of the system are so low that you can easily recover them through attendance fees or membership fees.
Q. I only have a small amount of attendees (eg 10-30), and can’t see the value as that amount is easily maintained using my current manual RSVP system.
A. The initial start up fee is from just $0. The registration fees can be recovered by increasing their attendance fee by $3 to $5 per person which means you not only recover costs but can also contribute to other administrative costs. The time freed up by implementing My Booking Manager can be used to actively grow your membership and attendance base.
Q. I am concerned about our internal compliance issues
A. Let us know your specific concerns and we’ll see if we can come up with a solution. The system is always evolving and can be modified for specific company needs.
Q. I like what I see about My Booking Manager but I currently use another event organiser and am under contract.
A. Please talk to us, as we may be able to help your event organiser improve the service they provide you.
Q. We’re happy with own current system.
A. I guess if you have read this far you must have some doubts about your current system! Contact us. At least we may be able to put your mind at ease!
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