6 Things Bike Rental Customers are looking for and how to provide them

The global cycling tourism has been growing already for a few years so things are looking promising for bike rental shops. One of the Top 10 Travel Trends for 2018, according to Australia’s Top Travel Company Intredip Travel, is that wellness trips become more active and they are planning more cycling trips. This is all great news for Bike Rentals! But what are the bike rental customers looking for and how can you make sure YOU can tap into this growing number of bike rental customers?

1. AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCE

One of the biggest booms recently in travel industry has been the rise of “Experiential travel” and it is growing fast. It is a form of tourism in which people focus on experiencing a place by connecting to its history, people and culture. “The latest data clearly show that people are prioritizing their spend on experiences, rather than material goods. Health and wellness, culture and events, travel and tourism are more important than apparel, electronics, cars and homes. That’s good news for the travel industry. Travelers want authenticity and personalized experiences – not commoditized, one-size-fits-all holidays. Technology gives them access to the world”, according to Skift Research.

Bike rental shops can benefit from this trend as you are providing travellers with local form of transport. With some insight, you can promote your rentals further.

You can include in your bike inventory bikes that are typical to your area, give customers tips on local events, markets, routes, sights etc. And include in your rental offering typical accessories, like basket for their market shopping, baby seats or trailers. Customers might visualise themselves cycling to buy baguettes and putting them in the bike basket if they are in France for example. If you are near a beach, add parasols to your rentals to help your customers to get the local experience easily. Offer your customers local “customs” to rent.

Bike Rental Manager lets you promote any type of bike or rental item for people booking online and lets your customers add accessories to their booking so you can upsell your rental products easily. How popular are your bikes and how much profit does each bike make? With just 3 clicks of the button you can get the info in BRM, to make it easy for you to decide which bikes are most profitable, which to promote and which you should get more stock of.

2. GOOD VALUE BIKE RENTALS

Remember, cheap is not same as good value. Customers are often willing to pay more if they regard it adds value to their experience. You can easily add value with great bike rental customer service.

Experiment with pricing and see what works for you. You could start with higher pricing and then offer discounts: early booking offers, campaigns, distribute leaflets/offer on website when business is slow etc.

With BRM you can easily change and manage prices, even for multiple bikes in one go. BRM Online booking uses your live prices and displays prices for the duration of the reservation so customers can see the total price when they book. You can manage and use discount codes with ease.

Free up your employee time and let BRM do the admin so your staff can give better customer service. You can let customers register themselves on kiosks and use online booking rather than take telephone bookings. Say goodbye to spreadsheets and get availability with a click of the button.

3. EASE OF DOING BUSINESS AND GOOD COMMUNICATION

Travellers spend a lot of time researching online, comparing and organising their travel arrangements, and they don’t want to spend any more time than they need to. Travel plans can be complicated and time-sensitive, so timely communication is vital for your customer satisfaction. Booking confirmation, pick-up & delivery details and any changes are part of everyday rentals. When you hand the bike out, make sure that your customer will find out any necessary details about the bike to make sure their experience will as positive as possible.

As instant and timely communication is essential, BRM sends out automated confirmations on your behalf and you are able to make any changes with a click of a button. BRM Delivery scheduler will make your bike deliveries effortless for you.

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4. CONVENIENCE OF GETTING ON THE ROAD

Customers want to get on the road as quickly as possible – they don’t want be waiting around in the queue for their bikes or wasting their time doing paperwork.

Impress your customers with having the bikes ready on their arrival, you can ask for detailed information when they make a booking. Get their height, weight, pedal preferences etc recorded in their BRM booking by rider and have bikes tuned up prior to their arrival. Upsell your accessories when they book and get them ready to go. When they arrive at your shop, let them register on a kiosk/tablet and hand the bikes over. Great start!

If your shop is not in an accessible location, use BRM delivery scheduler to take the bikes to your customers and make it super convenient for them. If you use BRM barcode scanning, you will make bike deliveries effortless for you too.

5. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND RELIABILITY

Reading customer reviews is now part of planning travel and holidays when choosing providers, and that goes for bike rentals as well. Customers are concerned that they will get the bikes they booked and that they are safe to ride. This is especially important to groups and families as they need everybody in the group to be happy with their rentals.

Not only should you make sure your bikes are in good working order for each rider but also to offer great customer service.

What is great customer service, you might ask? Timely communication before their arrival. Having the bikes they booked ready, prior to their arrival with booked accessories. Bikes tuned up. Being able offer some local knowledge. That should do it!

Bike Rental Manager will help you to impress your customers by allowing you to record necessary information into bookings, let your customers books accessories in advance and enables easy communication before and after their rental. Send a post rental email effortlessly, asking for a review to build up the trust.

6. TRANSPARENCY IN PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Today’s travel experience looks completely different than just years ago. Mobile computing, mapping apps, recommendation engines, social media, digital payments are now transforming the traveler journey from start to finish.

The ability to have access to pricing information and live availability means travellers can spend less time on research and make their booking faster. They may not want to wait for your response for an email inquiry or bother to pick up a phone if a competitor offers instant information. Or they might not even bother to contact you at all.

You can change that with Bike Rental Manager, BRM can take your rentals into 21st century – say goodbye to spreadsheets and get your bike rentals online with live pricing and availability.

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