Help your customers by finding them a suitable replacement when you are already booked…

It is always frustrating when a prospect wishes to book and you already have an existing booking. You may already have ways to deal with these situations, like giving them the details of one of your competitors…

…but how would you feel if that prospect turned out to be a high value customer, who came back and bought over and over again, and you just passed them over to your competitor on a silver platter !!!

The smart option is to keep control of the prospect yourself, either by acting as an agent, or by making sure that you send the client to someone you trust to pay you commission, or who will send back customers to you in return. You will also want to know who is available for the event as quickly as possible.

OBA allows you to add as many colleagues as you require – including their email addresses, and a personal note to remind you who they are and what they do. When you find you are unavailable for a particular date or a colleague would be more suitable for a particular event, you can very easily click on the names of the people you would like to know availability for, and OBA will send out emails to them all asking them if they are available and willing to accept the engagement. All they have to do is click on the “yes” or “no” links to reply.

When you have enough responses you can choose which colleague you consider the most suitable for your client. OBA will send them an email to confirm all the details of the job, and will reply to all the others telling them that the job is now filled. You have full control over the content of all the emails, allowing you to give as much or as little information about the engagement to your colleagues as you like. You can even send full confirmation via email to the chosen colleague with all the details they will need.

So next time this client comes back to book, you may well be available yourself and just think how pleased you will be that you kept this person as a customer of yours and not your competitors.

This feature is also perfect for agencies that manage multiple diaries and need to check availability quickly. The people or companies you are checking with can even reply to your availability requests from their internet enabled mobile phone.