Doug Stoddart

CEO & Founder

5 Reasons why customers want to book rental bikes online

August 2, 2018
, 9:38 am
, Business Growth, Customer Experience, Rental Management

7 min read

Today’s travel experience looks completely different than just years ago. The world has gone digital. In 2016, 76% of population in Europe were internet users and 71% in the Americas, according to Hootsuite reports. Mobile computing, mapping apps, recommendation engines, social media, digital payments are now transforming the traveller journey from start to finish. So, what are the reasons behind the growth of online bike rental bookings? Why do customers like to hire bikes online?

1. TO ENSURE AVAILABILITY AND LESS HASSLE WHILST ON HOLIDAY

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. Online booking means that customers are able to book their rental bikes in the comfort of their own home, prior to their travel. They don’t need to spend their precious holiday time looking for bikes to rent at the location hoping they might get what they want.

By booking bike online they can make sure the bikes are available at the right location at the right time, when they need them. Travel itineraries can be complex so people want to make sure rental bikes are available when needed or their want to test certain bike models.

Bike Rental Manager online booking lets your customers book your bikes against your live availability and live prices so you don’t need to worry about double bookings. You can make most of your bikes as you won’t under or overbook your bikes.

2. TO GET THE BEST VALUE HIRE BIKE

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 can easily compare what bikes are available at what price and choose the bikes based on best value for them. It does not necessarily mean the cheapest bike but could be a combination of price, type of bike, model, accessories, your location, delivery option etc.

Bike Rental Manager online booking will calculate the rental price for the duration of the rental and let’s you easily upsell your accessories like helmets, pedals, baby seats etc.

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.

3. GET BIKES CONFIRMED FOR EACH MEMBER OF FAMILY OR GROUP

When travelling with family or group, it is especially important to them that everybody gets what they need: the right size bike (adult & kids), type of gear (tag-a-long, baby seat, trailer, pedals, helmet, lock etc). If they can get all this from one rental place booked and confirmed, they are very likely to book them as soon as possible to avoid disappointment or renting from multiple places.

You can easily manage and show all your available bikes and extras like helmet, baby seats, trailers etc. with Bike Rental Manager. And your visitors can make a booking for the whole family/group.

4. TO GET QUALITY BIKES

All customers expect fully working safe bikes when they rent. It is worth having good images of your bikes on your website as this can be an important factor when customers are looking to book bikes. The newer your bikes (and images) are, the easier it is for customers to think your bikes are also of high quality and well maintained.

Customers especially booking high end premium bikes, expect them to be in excellent condition and well maintained.

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

Bike Rental Manager has inbuilt bike maintenance that will help you to make sure your bikes are always in good working order and available when needed.

5. GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE TO GET ON THE ROAD AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE

Customers don’t want to 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!

Bike Point Tenerife and bike.rent Manager

Will you tap into this growing bike rental market? Choose carefully the online booking provider to make sure you wont create more work for yourself and wipe the increased profits away on increased salaries.

Many online bookings will not help you with dealing with actual bookings and they end up in a pile for you to sort out manually. To take full advantage of increased online business, get a rental system that will actually manage your rentals all the way through from booking to delivery and beyond.

The right bike rental software will more than pay for itself by allowing you to generate more rentals, minimize any mistakes and free up your staff time.

Bike Rental Manager software will do the admin for you so you can concentrate on things that matter. Online booking looks awesome and you can customize it with your pictures, colors, font etc. It is super user friendly and your customers can choose their language. You can take a payment or deposit when booking is made.

BRM online booking works seamlessly with your current website and is super easy to add to your page.

Take your rentals into 21st century with Bike Rental Manager – say goodbye to spreadsheets and manage all your rentals in one place with a click of a button.

Work less and rent more with Bike Rental Manager.