Web Drives New Business For Small Enterprises

Nov. 10, 2009 - PRLog -- London, UK: Small businesses with service offerings can now maximise the benefits of the web to deliver real-time availability information to potential clients using BookingBug (www.bookingbug.com). By enabling new and existing customers to instantly see what services are available at any time and book directly online, service providers can maximise the amount of potential business they capture.

With over 13 million people in the UK stating they would like to ‘sell their hours’ around other life commitments at some point every year , the need for effective time management and real-time information sharing with potential customers is vital.

Entrepreneurial businesses need to use their time focusing on developing and enhancing their service offerings. Administration can be the biggest consumer of time for SMEs and simple mistakes made in bookings can mean a direct loss of business as well as damaging business reputation.

BookingBug is an online booking and reservation system designed to help service businesses distribute real-time availability and reach new clients across the Internet.

Web 2.0 allows small businesses to engage in real-time with their target audience, giving potential customers an easy way of checking whether the service they want is available and quickly be able to make a booking. BookingBug is changing the landscape by not only showing availability on a single website, but by allowing businesses to distribute this live information through social media and on to dozens of other websites. This effectively creates multiple touch points where the customer can meaningfully engage with the business, allowing the service provider to focus on delivering the best possible service for their clients or managing multiple service offerings.

Over the last year there has been an increasing trend towards flexible working practices. A contributing factor has been the economic climate as companies look to offer flexible working to reduce staff costs. This approach can be extremely beneficial for people wishing to spend more time with young families or to engage in a different type of career. Many also take a step towards a ‘portfolio career’ style, where they can offer different services, such as specialist classes, around their personal commitments.

BookingBug benefits:
•   BookingBug lets a business manage their time, be it, hourly, daily, weekly, or alternatively classes, courses or events.
•   BookingBug enables a business to sell their time efficiently to customers.
•   BookingBug works for any size of business.
•   BookingBug’s platform provides businesses with booking and enquiry widgets that easily embed into their own or many other websites.
•   Businesses using BookingBug’s system are able to efficiently and effectively get valuable time/ availability information in front of their potential customers.

By building an affiliate programme that mirrors how ‘goods’ business use eCommerce to drive sales, BookingBug is helping to create a real time bridge between the businesses that offer services and the destination websites that many potential customers use. With this, BookingBug is building a new market which will change the way service based small businesses of every kind manage their presence online.

Comments:
Glenn Shoosmith, Founder of BookingBug. “As a growing business ourselves, we know how important it is to communicate effectively with your target audience, but finding the time to manage the administration side of your business as well as develop your offering can be a challenge. BookingBug aims to help SMEs maximise the potential of the Internet to gain competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.”

Katie Ledger, author of a new book on Portfolio Careers. “Self-employment in the UK has more than doubled over the last twenty years and increasingly people are looking at portfolio careers – offering a number of specialist services that interest them, but managing them around their personal commitments to make the most of their private and working lives. This requires effective time and resource management.”

Notes to editors:
Booking Bug is an online booking and reservation platform designed to help businesses and organizations offer their time online. Suitable for almost any service based business, BookingBug aims to change the way they manage and publish services, classes, courses and events. BookingBug is an open platform that allows a business to push dynamic availability information across the internet to allow easy discovery by consumers wherever they look. By building key strategic partnerships BookingBug aims to help bridge the gap between service providers and consumers. More details can be found at www.bookingbug.com

Katie Ledger Katie Ledger is co-author of  a new book “And what do you do? 10 steps to creating a portfolio career”.  Katie’s portfolio career includes being a communications consultant, conference host and producer, presentation & media coach and author.

BookingBug has launch partnerships with the following destination websites with many others to follow:

BrownBook: BookingBug will enable businesses to embed live booking widgets on their business directory. (www.brownbook.net)

TrustedPlaces: is a review and recommendation directory site with an active community that helps people find the best business. With BookingBug businesses can easily get their live availability in front of the trusted places community and users easily. (www.trustedplaces.com)

BView: is the UK's largest voucher, sale and discount search engine. Using BookingBug BView customers can create vouchers and coupons for their real-time services and assist in expanding their businesses reach. (www.brivew.co.uk)

SchoolOfEverything: is the site that helps people learn whatever, whenever and wherever they want by matching teachers to learners. Teachers using BookingBug can show their availability, classes and courses in their School Of Everything profile to reach new students. (www.schoolofeverything.com)

SocialGo: lets users quickly and easily build a website with great social networking features in minutes. With BookingBug, users can integrate booking or enquiries. (www.socialgo.com)

QuickTV: enables users to create dynamic videos in order to increase client engagement. BookingBug displays real-time information about upcoming events, courses or classes as a ticker over the top of any video. A viewer then has the ability to click on the video and book the upcoming events or courses quickly. (www.quick.tv)

FoodLoversBritain: runs a searchable database of nearly 4000 places to buy, eat, visit, stay and learn - all approved to stringent standards. Working with BookingBug.com FoodLoversBritain is launching a searchable online booking facility for their unique and comprehensive database of food and cookery courses, tours and cookery holidays. (www.foodloversbritain.com)

For further information, please contact: Glenn Shoosmith (glenn@bookingbug.com, +44 7748182841), or Jenifer Davis / Abigail Harrison at thebluedoor jdavis@thebluedoor.com, aharrison@thebluedoor.com +44 1252 899969
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