Donna Genie says campgrounds lose guests when booking is hard. Offer mobile-friendly online reservations, save repeat visitor info so they don't re-enter it, cut unnecessary steps, and skip long check-in lines. She picked a park near Tyler, Texas partly because it took reservations online.
Hey, let's talk about friction. Have you ever tried to buy something and had to jump through a lot of hurdles to be able to make that purchase? It's frustrating. And guess what? You're going to lose people in that process. I want to talk to you about how to remove friction from the process in your campground. I'm Donna Bordeaux with campgroundaccounting.com and we help our clients make sure that they can bring in all the revenue possible without losing people in the process. And one of the biggest ways in campgrounds to deal with friction is to remove the friction from making a reservation. Yes, I know. I might be beating on this drum for a long time, but I'm going to say it again. You must have online reservations. These days, your marketplace is younger and they depend on using their phone and mobile devices to make reservations with you. And if you don't have a way for them to do that, you're going to lose out on revenue. Now, I've heard the same story over and over. Oh, my. My customers love to call in to make these reservations, and my customers, I still have the same booking levels I always have. Well, I've got news for you. This may sound grim, but those people are dying off, and you're going to be left along with them with no business. We want you to make sure that you are able to reap the rewards of the marketplace, make your life easier, and make sure that you continually generate new visitors to your campground each and every day. New campground visitors are the lifeblood of your business. You cannot always depend on your old standby. You must continually market each and every day to find new people who will love your campground and learn that they can make new traditions by coming to you. So the first way again, remove friction by having online booking. In online booking, there are even further ways that you can reduce friction. Are you able to use a platform that will store people's information for repeat visitors? Do I have to enter in my address, my size of coach, all of my vehicle license information each and every time I make a reservation? If I've already been there, you already have that information. Where I can at least verify that it's all still correct? Right. Make sure that you're looking at things that make it easy and quick to schedule a reservation. If you've got 15 screens and steps that I to go through, I have to enter in my address and my vehicle registration and upload documents and choose those dates over and over again. You're going to lose people in that process. I actually was on Making a reservation that this reminded me of yesterday. We were looking to make a reservation near Tyler, Texas. There were about eight different campgrounds that could hold us. There was only one that took online reservations from start to finish. There were probably two or three that had a little jot form where I had to fill out a form and wait for somebody to contact me to see if my reservation would be accepted. And there were another couple that just had a phone number to call. Well, it was about 8:30 in the morning and I'm on eastern standard time. So guess what? Most of those people wouldn't have even answered the phone if I wanted to call them. Guess where I made the reservation. It was the one park that had online booking. That was my decision because I want to make sure that I go with a park who has online booking because that probably means they're maintaining not only the reservation system. Well. But the rest of their park. Well, it is a sign to me that these are people who care about their next step. They're forward thinking and they're keeping up with technology and maintenance both. So remove friction in every way you can. Also other things like where when I check in, do I have to wait in a line with 15 people? And are you going to read the same riot act to every single person about your rules? I've been to almost a thousand different campgrounds. I've not heard rules that are very dramatically different in most cases. Yes, I know to pick up after my dogs. I know what time I should be quiet and what time I can. You need to come through the gate. I can. I can read that on my own. And 99% of the people who are checking in are looking just to get checked in. They're not hearing you anyhow, so save that spiel. All right, so remove the friction. Make sure that I have an easy time. Make sure that I'm happy when I arrive because I've not had to go through a lot of trouble and wait for a lot of things. So look at every point that you deal with the public and see how you can reduce the friction. It.
