How Hotels Can Take Advantage Of Facebook’s New Appointment Booking Tool

Earlier this month, during National Small Business Week in the US, Facebook announced three new features aimed at empowering small businesses. One tool in particular sparked our interest as being potentially useful for hoteliers; Appointment Bookings.

Facebook describe the new tool as allowing “service-based businesses on Facebook and Instagram [to] accept and manage appointments, customer information and send appointment reminders — all from their phone.”

The social media giant appears to be gradually rolling out the tool within the platform and we’ve been exploring it’s value to hoteliers. Although not a great fit to acquire more room bookings, it’s potentially useful for other hotel services that can be booked in time slots. For example spa services, golf bookings and afternoon tea.

Overall, the the main benefits for hoteliers are;

Manage your appointments and schedule them for free directly from your Page
Schedule and share your availability, allowing customers to book with you at any time
Use automated appointment reminders to reduce no-shows
While appointment bookings don’t appear to be enabled on all accounts yet, we would imagine that it’s only a matter of time before all hoteliers can benefit. In the meantime, we’ve prepared a step-by-step guide below on how to set them up when they do become available on your hotel’s Page.

Step 1: Appointments availability (days & times)

Step 2: Adjust your preferences for confirming appointments:

Step 3: List your services: make scheduling simpler by showing people the services that you offer:

Step 4: Adjust your general settings, get appointments from Instagram, test your booking tool, share your booking link, send customers on Facebook an automatic reminder via Messenger the day before their appointment etc.

Perla Gomez
http://www.eighty-days.com
Perla Gómez Di Vuolo is a Content & Social Media Specialist at 80 DAYS.