Best Online Booking System for WordPress UK: Bookwhen

Our favourite UK online booking system for WordPress!

With 10 years of experience moulding and developing their online system, bookwhen is now one of the best online solutions for business looking to get the most out of their website. Due to its simplicity and ease to use the system has seen a huge growth in popularity and now serves thousands of customers, across 140 countries, in 7 different languages.

Simple setup, super support

One of the most obvious advantages of using bookwhen for your online booking system is how user-friendly the setup and dashboard are. The creation of a bookwhen account is completed in three easy steps:

1.  Create An Account
2. Add Events to your Schedule
3. Connect with a Payment Gateway (Stripe, Paypal or WorldPay)

Once your setup, bookwhen have a variety of features focussed on reducing the time it takes to run your online bookings such as ‘Recurring Schedules’,  ‘Block Booking Discounts’ and a feature currently in Beta Testing ‘Membership Subscriptions.’

These various features combined with the excellent in-app chat & email support make this the product of choice.

Bookwhen & WordPress Integration

There are two main methods used to integrate a bookwhen schedule/bookings onto your website. The first method involves taking advantage of the free customisable booking page included in all bookwhen packages. The page is fully responsive to mobile & tablet devices and requires minimal effort in setting it up. The downside to using this page is that it takes you away from your own website and may lose some of your branding design.

The second method, which we tend to opt for, is using the embedded iframe feature. This involves copying and pasting the iframe code provided by bookwhen and adding this onto your website. This feature does require some knowledge of how your WordPress theme works, however results in the online booking system being inbuilt into your website. No need for your customer to follow a link to another page. Methods:

Booking Page – Button link

Select this option to locate and copy the code for a Book Online button that will link to your schedule page.

Booking Page – Standard link

Select this option to locate and copy the code for an embedded URL link to your schedule page. You can amend the text that is displayed here in bold:

<a href=”https://bookwhen.com/example“>Book online</a>

The link will then appear like this – Book online.

Embedded iframe

Select this option to locate and copy the code for your embedded iframe. This option will embed your schedule page into your website. Please note the iframe will not include the banner, logo and title section of your public booking page or on your website.

Mobile-first design

Both the web-based app and the embedded class schedule are responsive to mobile and tablet. Bookwhen focus on mobile first design with the knowledge that over 70% of users access Bookwhen via mobile or tablet. Having a responsive design straight out the box saves a considerable amount of time when incorporating on your website.

Clear pricing plans, no hidden fees

This is to discourage people from leaving the app and heading over to Instagram or your website. The tricky thing is, you can still see your comment, however it is not displayed to your audience, so they won’t receive your reply to their comment!

With the new TikTok shop feature, people can shop in the app itself, meaning there is less opportunity to drive people to your website. This could also be a reason to encourage more businesses to swap from a creator account to a business account, as creators cannot access the TikTok shop function, meaning they are extremely limited to drive people to their website and make sales via TikTok.

Case Study: Apilates

Website: https://apilates.co.uk/

We created this website for a local startup business who wanted to take his weekly pilates classes to the next level. Alongside giving his business additional credibility, the website needed to handle online bookings & showcase the monthly class schedule. Bookwhen was able to cover both of these requirements with their embedded iframe integration.

Case Study: The Cradle Club

Website: https://thecradleclub.co.uk/

We we’re approach at the start of the year to create a website for a startup business, looking to create a community for new and expecting parents, offering support and advice in a relaxed environment. The client initially needed a website which could handle online booking for their coffee clubs, which bookwhen handled perfectly.

The club now offers a variety of services private consultations, twice weekly coffee clubs and 6 group workshops, all of which are scheduled and organised on bookwhen.

More From The Morgan Branding Blog