How Does Instant Book Work?

With Instant Book enabled for a location, guests have the option to immediately book a room that fits their availability requirements and your venue’s. Benefits for the guest include: immediately booking an available time at a location of their choice with a simple, intuitive interface. Benefits for the venue include: shorter sales cycle, the ability to collect a deposit before an event is booked, and having the opportunity to work with well qualified leads.

How Guests Book Instantly

When an Instant Book page is published, you can link it to your website, social media, emails, etc. The process for guests is three-fold:

Select a date, time and input an estimated guest count
Select a room and time that fits their event schedule
Fill in their details, add a card on file, and book the event!

What it Looks Like

At any point in the process, the guest can select “Contact us first” to submit a lead to the venue, rather than instantly booking.

Guests will select the date of their event, the starting time, and provide an estimated guest count. After clicking “Reserve my space now →” if the location’s availability matches what the guest supplied the guest will move to the second step to select a specific time and room.

If the availability doesn’t line up, the venue does not lose the potential guest. Instead, the guest is notified and presented with the option to submit an inquiry - the inquiry submits the guest’s information as a lead.

When the guest’s event matches the availability of a room at the venue, the user will progress to the second step to see details about the rooms available and select a specific starting time:

The final step has the guest enter their information, leave any comments about the event for the default owner, place a card on file, sign and agree to the booking, and finally book and pay the deposit (if a deposit is required). A Gather payment integration is a prerequisite for a venue’s location to utilize Instant Book because guests are required to enter a card on file for all Instant Books, whether a deposit is required or not.

After the guest signs and pays, they will be presented with a confirmation screen, receive an email, and the default owner will receive an email letting them know the booking has been made.

The Instant Book will appear in the booking list as normal:

Ready to configure and implement your Instant Book form? Click HERE to learn how!

Note: Instant Book is an add-on service that is offered for an additional fee.