Online booking is supposed to make life easier on both sides of the appointment. Patients or clients can schedule themselves into your calendar without the back-and-forth of phone tag or email, and you get that admin time back in your day. But if your process is clunky, complicated, or hard to navigate, it might be creating barriers that prevent people from booking in the first place. Here’s how Jane Online Booking can help you get more patients completing the process.

Keep your booking process short and easy to follow

The ultimate goal of online booking is to have confirmed appointments pushed to your calendar with no extra chasing on your end. As Jeanine Harrison, a nurse practitioner and owner of three medical aesthetics clinics in Ontario, puts it: “Rather than the patient having to call, leave a message, then get a call back from the secretary, it’s just so much easier for them to go in, find a convenient time, and book themselves.”

However, when a booking process has too many steps or too many fields to enter information, people may lose focus, experience frustration, and even abandon the process entirely. One helpful tip is to think about what information you actually need to secure a booking, and consider saving the rest for later. There’s no need to capture everything right away. You can always send intake forms and consent documents after the appointment is confirmed.

Here are a few other ways you can keep things simple and easy to navigate with Jane Online Booking:

• Add a booking button to your website for a quick and easy “get started” entry point.
• Consider sharing a direct link to a specific appointment type so clients don’t have to browse through multiple options that aren’t relevant to them.
• Keep required fields in the booking process to a minimum.
• Set up intake forms to be sent in a Thanks for Booking confirmation email so patients can fill them out in their own time.

Write service descriptions that give patients the full picture

Uncertainty can slow people down, and if someone lands on your booking page and can’t tell what a service involves, how long it takes, or what it costs, they may decide it’s not worth the guess. Clear service descriptions remove any hesitation upfront.

Jeanine also recommends thinking carefully about the language you’re using from the patient’s perspective. “From the medical aesthetics side, I consider their verbiage versus our verbiage. Meaning I’ll put in ‘botox treatment’ instead of ‘botulinum toxin.’”

For each service, consider including:

• What the treatment involves
• How long the appointment runs
• The cost, or a clear starting price
• Any relevant prep or aftercare information

In Jane, you can also add staff bios and pictures to help your clients feel connected to the practitioner they’ll be seeing in the treatment room.

Make sure your booking works well on mobile

A significant number of your patients will want to book your services from their phones. If your booking platform is hard to navigate on a small screen, those people may be more likely to give up rather than switch to a laptop to finish up.

Jane Online Booking is optimized for mobile view, and we always recommend previewing your setup on your phone to make sure you’re happy with the way things are looking. Once you’ve logged into your Jane account on your phone, just go to Online Booking from the drop-down menu under your name at the top right-hand corner. This will give you a preview of how your Online Booking page is looking.

💡Tip: We recommend going through the entire booking flow as if you are a client or patient to ensure that every step makes sense from their perspective. The booking flow is an important part of their journey, and walking through with them in mind will help you understand if anything isn’t quite right. Even better, ask a friend to have a look for you with a fresh set of eyes.

Offer the features your patients are looking for

Patients who are used to booking online will have expectations when they arrive on your page. Meeting those expectations can make it more likely that they’ll follow through with the process you’ve set up.

Here are a few features that tend to matter, with some links to resources that will help get you started with them in Jane:

• Waitlist notifications: clients who can’t get their preferred time can add themselves to a list and get notified when a spot opens up.
• Pre-payment options: clients can pay in advance, which reduces no-shows and keeps billing simple for you.
• Appointment reminders: automated notifications by text or email help clients show up on time and limit gaps in your schedule.

🩵 If you’re looking for more on Online Booking and prefer to watch a guided step-by-step video, you can check out this getting started resource from our team. Or, if you’re ready to see Jane’s Online Booking in action, schedule a demo and we’d be happy to show you around.

FAQ

What is online booking and how does it work for health and wellness practitioners?

Online booking lets patients or clients schedule appointments directly through your website or a booking link, without needing to call or email. You set your availability, and clients choose a time that works for them. Confirmation and reminders go out automatically from there to keep clients up to speed on next steps, including filling out intake forms.

How do I reduce appointment no-shows with online booking?

Automated reminders by email and text are the most reliable tool here. Pre-payment options also help, since clients who have already paid are less likely to miss an appointment without notice.

What information should I collect during the booking process?

Just enough to confirm the appointment. Name, contact information, and the service being booked are usually enough at this stage. Intake forms and consent documents can follow after the booking is confirmed. This allows clients to fill them out in their own time.

Does my online booking need to be mobile-friendly?

Yes. A large share of clients will try to book from a phone. If the experience doesn’t work on mobile, many of them won’t complete the booking.

What features should I look for in online booking software?

At a minimum: a clean, easy-to-navigate interface, mobile compatibility, automated reminders, and intake form functionality. Waitlist management and pre-payment options are worth having as your practice grows.