Many people have fantastic ideas for how they can make money working for themselves, but they struggle with the actual implementation. All too often, it’s a technology gap that stops people from building a service business that they are passionate about and that could potentially add a lot of value to others.
It’s no surprise, as many of the tech solutions out there are confusing and overly complex. With companies such as Amazon and Shopify having democratized the ability to sell your own physical products, the service industry certainly has a long way to go.
Whether your specialty is freelance web design, fitness coaching, home improvement projects or wellness treatments, you shouldn’t need a degree in computer science to monetize your services on your site. Luckily, you also don’t need to spend weeks learning how to build the functionality into your site – or your clients’ sites – if you use vcita’s WordPress plugin.
The plugin allows you to automate appointment scheduling, and integrate those bookings into your entire customer lifecycle, so you can organize your business as well as handle all of the monetary sides in a seamless flow.
Below, we’ll go over how it all works then dive into some key features.
How to set up monetization capacities?
The process of adding monetization capacities to your website is very simple and you can be up and running in under 10 minutes. Following the initial setup, there are many options that you can check out to customize your experience to make it do exactly what you want it to.
Let’s look at how to get your first appointment booking widget up.
Start by going to the vcita.com website and taking advantage of their 14-day free trial. The beginner paid plan is only $19, so the investment needed is low even after your trial expires. When you consider the extent to which this little app can help you drive transactions through your site, it’s a bargain price.
Setting up your account with vcita, you’ll need to answer a few of the usual questions associated with registering for business software, such as your name and what your business does. This takes no more than a few minutes, and then you have an account.
Once you’re through with the setup, you’ll be greeted by the dashboard above. As you can see, there are many powerful options available to you. What’s useful about the vcita app is how it consolidates different functionality, so you don’t need to use and integrate many platforms to run your business. Pretty much everything you might need relating to scheduling, payments, email marketing, lead nurture and customer communications is all here.
The next stage is to download the free “Online Booking & Scheduling Calendar for WordPress by vcita” plugin. You can find this within WordPress in the normal “Add Plugins” screen.
Once you’ve found it, simply press the “Install Now” button.
After the plugin is installed, you need to activate it and connect it to the vcita trial account you just set up. You don’t need to worry about putting in your details – if you’re still logged into your vcita account as the app will detect this automatically. Your vcita account is now linked to your website’s WordPress install.
The procedure to create a new schedule for potential clients to book your time is made easy through a wizard. On the vcita plugin page, you just press “Start Wizard.”
You’ll see a popup inviting you to get started setting up your availability and booking options. You can select from three default types of events or create your own type. It handles both in-person and remote events.
Another helpful feature is the ability to send reminders to customers. If you’re trying to win a loyal customer, you’ll want to make sure they don’t miss their appointment by accident and feel embarrassed.
Whether you require people to pay you for appointments upon booking or after the fact, reminders help to minimize “no-show” appointments, and people appreciate the hand-holding. With vcita, you can set these reminders to go out either as emails or text messages.
That’s it, your booking link is already set up. You could use this as a standalone page if you wanted to, rather than embedding it to your website. If you want to embed it onto your website, you just need to click the “Add booking widget” button on the final screen of the wizard.
By default, the assistant will appear on every page on your website. This is what users will see if they click on it. It looks professional and clean and took you almost no time to set up.
From here, you can set up a variety of other settings which are all made easy to understand and find. For instance, you can add prices and restrict the hours you are available to be booked.
Beyond simply booking appointments, there is much more to explore on vcita.
Feature highlights
The vcita WordPress plugin has a huge number of great features that should cover almost every small business’s needs. Here are three, in particular, you should keep an eye out for which could have a large impact on the success of your business.
Dashboard
The central vcita dashboard takes out much of the stress from managing your services. You can see what events are coming up and how busy your next few days will be. This allows you to plan your time effectively. From here, you also have quick access to all the major features, such as adding a new appointment or adding a client.
Check appointments on the go
Another feature that suits those who are always on the go is the perfectly synchronized mobile app. You can check your appointments at the touch of a button, and you’ll be able to see if someone is running late for instance without worrying about where they are.
The reminder feature can drastically reduce the number of no-shows, and if someone can’t make it for an unavoidable reason, they can simply reschedule within the app. This saves you from personally needing to deal with these requests.
Access to a full CRM
Although we are focusing on the appointment and scheduling feature today, vcita itself offers a complete CRM. This means that with your account, you can track customers and their appointments, send automated monthly invoices and reward loyal customers with coupon codes, personalized offers and discounted service bundles.
You can communicate with customers and analyze different spending patterns. With vcita, you won’t have to rely on a spreadsheet to manage your services ever again.
You can even create marketing campaigns from the app, too, and target those who’ve expressed interest through your booking widget.
Start today
Sign up for the vcita free trial today, and you will be able to have every set up by the end of the day. It’s perfect for painlessly monetizing your services, and you’ll have all the options available you could want.
