Do you keep a waitlist during your busy times?
If not, you may be missing out on valuable revenue. Here’s how to get the most out of customer waitlists.
Earn More Revenue
If your business has high enough demand that you are often at or close to capacity during your busy season, use a waitlist to fill your maximum possible number of spots after the inevitable changes and cancellations that occur during the course of business. Minimize lost revenue while demonstrating goodwill to potential customers by doing your best to accommodate them.
Better Insight and Forecasting
Even if you are unable to accommodate people on your waitlist and can do nothing about the over-demand for a particular time or day in the short-term, you have gained valuable information about demand for your tour or activity. With automated booking software, once your tour is 100% full you get no further information. Could you have doubled your capacity? Could you have raised your prices for those dates? Should you have scheduled extra staff to handle the bump in demand? Was it a special occasion like a public holiday, festival or a spell of really good weather that drove increased demand? Use waitlists to gain valuable insight into what your revenue could have been if you knew total demand for your product on a particular day. Use this information to help forecast and plan your capacity, staffing and other resources to accommodate the higher volumes your data predicts.
How to Implement
First of all, ensure you have a clear cancellation policy and that this is made available to guests at the time of booking as well as on their confirmation and itinerary.
Ensure you have a waitlist policy. Give a reasonable amount of notice to wait listed customers – they need to plan their vacation after all. Inform guests on the waitlist of the latest possible time they will be contacted if a spot frees up for them. Obviously the lead time required will depend on the nature of the tour or activity.
Advertise that you keep a waitlist. Make it clear on your website and booking engine that just because a tour or activity is currently ‘Sold Out’ does not necessarily mean the end of the line. Provide information on how customers can contact you to inquire about activities that are fully booked.
Build waitlist management into your daily operations. Keep track of all your wait listed people with reservation software such as Zaui Software and have your reservations team reach out to them at the appropriate time whether they can be accommodated or not. This is a valuable touch point opportunity where you can build goodwill with potential customers, who in turn may be inclined to spread the word on social media if they have a great experience dealing with your company. Propose alternative times or days to guests that can’t be accommodated. Consider offering a discount in the form of a promotional code to select another date or time, or to encourage them to return at a later time.
Integrated customer waitlists are one of the many features of Zaui Software. To learn more check out www.zaui.com.
Related Posts
How Bus Travel and Ticketing Services Are Going Digital: A Look at the Modern Passenger Journey
Discover how Bus Travel and Ticketing Services are going digital for a smoother, smarter passenger journey. Explore the latest innovations today!
Customer Success Story: TourExpress.ca’s Journey – Technology-First Transportation with Zaui
Read our latest Zaui Success Story featuring Tourexpress.ca's journey to scalable point-to-point transportation with Zaui's powerful platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Zaui’s pricing is fully pay-as-you-go. You aren’t locked into any long-term contract. In fact, leading platforms emphasize this flexibility. Similarly, Zaui lets you start and stop anytime. You can change or cancel your plan freely, so you only pay for what you use.
Absolutely not. Zaui’s pricing is 100% transparent. We disclose all fees up front with no surprise add-ons or “sneak-in” charges. In fact, Zaui’s plans include all core features “without additional fees”. Industry experts note that hidden fees undermine trust so we avoid them entirely. All costs are clearly outlined in our pricing, and there are no extra setup charges or undisclosed surcharges at checkout.
Zaui integrates with major payment gateways (e.g. Stripe) so you only pay standard credit-card processing rates (roughly 1.9%+$0.30/transaction) and we don’t mark them up. Only the published platform commission is added on bookings. You also have full control over who pays the commission, we let you decide whether to absorb booking fees or pass them on to customers. In short, you’ll only pay the transparent booking commission and normal gateway fees, nothing extra.
Your onboarding and support are included in the price. We provide white-glove setup help and ongoing 24/7 support at no additional cost. Our dedicated customer-success team will guide you through every step, ensuring a smooth launch. You won’t pay extra for training or service other than the onboarding fee; it's all built into your plan.
You can schedule a free demo with our team. Our Zaui ninjas will walk you through pe how Zaui can work for your business and highlight opportunities to grow with our advanced features all without any upfront payment. This way, you can feel confident it’s the right fit before making a commitment.
Of course. Zaui’s plans are fully flexible. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time to match your needs, without penalties. You can move to a higher tier or back down easily, and your billing adjusts automatically.
No. Zaui does not charge its commission on offline/manual bookings. “No fees on offline bookings” You only pay the commission when a booking is processed online through our system. Manual reservations (or bookings from partner channels we set up for you) incur no extra platform fee. (30% or less)
All of Zaui’s core features are included in your plan at no extra charge. We believe in value and transparency: Zaui provides over 15 advanced features (Google Things to do, reporting tools, marketing tools, reports, etc.) at no additional cost. Many competitors charge extra or require higher plans for the same features, but with Zaui you get the full suite of tools in one package. Any optional add-ons (if any) will always be clearly listed and optional there are no surprise paid upgrades for standard features.
Each Zaui plan is designed for clarity and fairness, following industry best practices. You can trust that our pricing is transparent and flexible, with the support you need built in.
Extra accounts- unlimited agents, resellers, user
