News And Updates

Integrating Checkfront with Constant Contact

We’re happy to announce integration the Constant Contact email marketing platform. Constant Contact is used by more than 500,000 small businesses to build and deliver e-mail campaigns. You can design, send, and track emails with a simple set of tools, and an easy to use interface.

E-mail marketing is a great way to stay connected with your customers. Last minute deals, sessional newsletters, and VIP offers can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line.

To get started you first need a Constat Contact account. There is a free trial available on www.constantcontact.com, and they offer competitive pricing based on the number of customers on your list(s).

Setup

You can enable the Checkfront / Constant Contact integration in the Add-on section of your Checkfront account. A single click will request your authorization and connect the two applications. You can then select the list to subscribe customers to.

Once activated, when a customer makes a booking they’ll be given the option to opt-in to a mailing list of your choosing. If you take phone bookings you can also ask customers if they’d like to be added to your list and add them while making the booking.

You can further map specific fields used in Checkfront to custom fields in your mailing list. This can include the last booking date, special notes or other information collected at the time of booking.

You can see in the activity log, or the log view while viewing a booking when a customer has been subscribe via Constant Contact.

For more information goto Constant Contact or contact us directly for any setup questions.

Already setup? See: Six Simple Tips to Increase Your Online Bookings.

Payment Processing with Stripe

We are delighted to announce support for the Stripe payment processing platform. Stripe is a popular payment processor currently available in the US and Canada. It allows you to offer your customers the ability to to pay in part, or in full at the time of booking and fully integrates into the Checkfront back-office app.

One nice feature that Stripe has is the ability to store and re-bill a customers credit card as needed. For instance if you currently charge a deposit in Checkfront, you can complete the payment, and / or add to the booking without needing the credit card details again.

Stripe has no set-up fees, no minimum terms and a hassle-free sign-up process, and weekly settlements. It’s priced competitively at 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction. There are no monthly fees, or extra fees for refunds.

Checkfront currently integrates into Stripe by way of their direct payment method. This provides a seamless checkout for your customers, and fully integrates into the Checkfront back-office app.

Please note: the Stripe integration is a premium gateway available at no extra charge to our Professional and above plans. Soho users can still use it, however a 20 cent transaction fee is automatically added to your gateway fees from Stripe.

SMS Booking Notifications via Twilio

We’re happy to announce SMS notifications via Twilio with our latest update (v2.8.5).

With SMS notifications you can send short text messages customers and staff. You can remind customers about a booking date, follow up with a quick post-booking thank-you, and update staff regarding a booking status.

Twilio is a cloud communication service that makes sms and voice services a breeze and affordable. SMS messages costs 1 cent per message (USD).

SMS notifications in Checkfront work simular to e-mail notifications. You can select staff and customers as receipts, and trigger them based on the status of a booking. You can even schedule notifications based on the booking start or end date.

The SMS text can include dynamic details using booking variables. For example:

Hello! This is just a reminder that your booking for {$BOOKING_ITEMS} is on {$BOOKING_DATE}.

Setup

To enable the Twilio add-on, you’ll first need to create a Twilio account and well as a Twilio phone number (this is used as the from number in notifications).

You’ll want to note down your Twilio number, Account SID, and Auth Token and login to your Checkfront account. Go to the Add-ons section, select Twilio and supply the credentials and phone number from Twilio.

Once activated, you can go to Manage / Notifications / SMS and create your SMS notifications.

Staff Notifications

To send notifications to your staff they need to have a mobile number configured in their checkfront account profile. You should include the area code, but not the country code. Eg, 250-555-5555.

Customer Notifications

If you have the customer_phone field configured in your field editor, Checkfront will use this for mobile notifications. You may wish to change the label for “Phone number” to “Mobile Phone”, and add a new paragraph that explains that you will be sending an SMS to this number.

This add-on is free to all plans not including fees from Twilio. Please note SMS notifications are currently 1 way.

Express Bookings with Apple Passbook

We’re happy to announce integration with Apple Passbook for Checkfront, supported by our new mobile reservation interface.

Passbook is an application from Apple designed to store membership cards, tickets, coupons, and reservations — similar to a digital wallet. It’s great for customers because they don’t have to carry around hard copies and information is automatically kept up to date on their phones. For merchants it can be a big time saver and provides a great end-to-end booking experience.

How does it work with Checkfront?

When a customer adds a Checkfront booking to their Passbook, it stores the reservation on their iPhone or iPod. As a customer nears your location on the day of their booking (based on your longitude and latitude), the electronic ticket automatically pops up on their phone. Upon arrival, you can can scan, validate and check-in the customer using the built-in bar-code scanner in our native Mobile Apps (iPhone, iPad, Android). This is all communicated to your central system, in real time.

As an added bonus, if the booking is changed, the details are updated automatically in the customers phone. Your paper receipt can’t do that can it?

Passbook is made available in Checkfront as an add-on and is available to all accounts at no extra cost.

More info

Learn more about Passbook from Apple.

Try a demo of our new mobile booking interface (mobile device required) https://demo.checkfront.com/reserve/.

Learn about more updates in our v2.8 release.

• FAQ

• Do I need an iPhone to process bookings stored in an Apple Passbook?

  No. You can use our Android app to scan the barcode on the customers phone, or just type in the booking id into the Checkfront admin to locate the booking.

• I don’t see Passbook on my iOS device.

  Passbook is available for iOS 6 and later on the iPhone and iPod. There is currently no support for the iPad.

• Is there an Android equivalent to Passbook?

  There is an unofficial app called Passwallet that can be found in the Google Play store.

• I prefer paper only. Can I disable Passbook?

  Yes, just visit your add-on section in Checkfront and disable Passbook.

Checkfront Mobile Apps for iOS & Android

“Makes the job a 1000 times easier. We scan the QR code, reservation pops up and they are ready to go , instantly. Lightning speed, no delays.”
Rafael, New York Helicopter

You can’t put your booking administration on auto-pilot just yet, but things just got a whole lot easier! We are thrilled to announce our new mobile Apps for Checkfront.

You you can now have real time access to your customers and bookings while on the go.

The Checkfront Mobile Apps are available today for iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android devices.

No More Sticky Notes!

With the Checkfront mobile apps you can view and add notes to bookings while on the go and keep in touch with your staff.

You can update the status of the booking in real time, without having to wait till you get back in-front of your computer.

Instant Check-in with QR Codes

The built-in bar-code scanner makes checking in customers and verifying bookings a breeze. Just wave your mobile device over the barcode on the Checkfront Booking receipt and it will instantly bring up the booking. With auto-checkin enabled, the customer will be checked-in or checked-out at the same time. (Remember to enable the 3D barcode add-on in your account.)

Put Customers at Your Finger Tips

Quickly pinpoint customers on a map, directly call or email them from the app, and add as contact to your device phone book.

Other features include:

• View current and upcoming bookings.
• Search bookings by customer, booking id or date.
• Check-in, and check-out bookings.
• View and update booking notes.
• Access your global bookmarks.
• View a map of the customers location.
• Export and open the PDF booking receipt.

Future updates will be based on your feedback, so share your thoughts!

Terms of Use

Please note use of the Mobile Apps are covered by our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Six Simple Tips to Increase Your Online Bookings

Having a booking system to both manage your bookings, and extend self service bookings to your customers is a no-brainer these days. It puts customers in the driving seat and reduces your overall administration, allowing you to focus on your business.

Consider these numbers for businesses on checkfront.com:

38% of bookings made on Checkfront happen outside of normal business hours.

37% of bookings on Checkfront are made by customers.

58% of website visitors arrive at your site to book, price & check availability.

Here are six simple things you can do to increase your online bookings, and ultimately your revenues (yay!).

1. Shout It Out

Just having a booking system won’t do. It’s important that visitors to your website immediately know that you accept online bookings, and know how to get there. Remember, the majority of traffic to your website is there to check your availability, pricing and / or book your service. Don’t make it a scavenger hunt!

Have a clear call to action (BOOK NOW!) visible when arriving at your website. Because visitors can arrive at different parts of your website, a book online button should be clearly available throughout your website — not just your home page.

2. Reach Out To Past Customers

Return customers are the least likely to need a phone call or email correspondence before making a booking. Make sure and let your existing and past customers know that you now accept bookings online. Don’t assume they will just find our next time they arrive to your site.

Tweet, and update your Facebook page: “Hey! You can now book online with us 24/7 at www.example.com/reserve/”.

If you have a mailing list, don’t bury the announcement in a newsletter. Send out a dedicated e-mail campaign that lets customers know you can now book online.

Hi Leah,

Thanks for your past business with us. We are pleased to now offer the ability to check availability, pricing and book online directly from our website!

If you book online with us in the next 30 days, use the coupon code NOWONLINE and receive a 10% discount.

Book Online Today at: http://www.example.com/reserve/?discount=NOWONLINE

3. Change Your Voicemail

If you get a lot of off-hours calls or have a call queue for your reservation number, make sure to mention you can book and check availability online, along with the website address. You’ll be surprised how much your time on the phone drops off.

“Thanks for calling MyBusiness. We are currently on another call or out of the office. Did you know you can check availability and make bookings from our website? Book online now at http://www.example.com/reserve.”

4. Reward Self Service

Taking bookings by e-mail, phone and fax is expensive. It can be frustrating for customers and expensive for your business. Consider rewarding your customers who book online with a small discount or other incentive.

A coupon code is a great way to track the source of a booking. For instance, mention a specific coupon code on your voice-mail and another one in your mailers. You should be able to draw a direct correlation to the discount offered and the money saved by automating the booking.

5. Update E-mail Signatures, Flyers and Business Cards.

You will continue to get requests for pricing, availability or just general questions via email. Put your booking page url in your signature so customers know where to go once their questions have been answered.

Anywhere you have previously listed your email address or phone number, add a direct link to your booking page. For example:

MyCompany
Book Online (Save $5.00): www.example.com/reservations

555-555-5555
info@example.com
www.example.com

Make sure to update any other media you circulate that has your phone number, including rack cards, business cards and advertisements.

6. Engage Your Customers – Regularly

Continue to use social media, mailing lists and your marketing efforts to steer customers to your booking page. Seasonal campaigns work great as do last minute deals.

Make sure you are collecting e-mail addresses (opt-in), following your customers on twitter, and encouraging them to like you on Facebook.

If someone has booked with you, send an automated follow up email thanking them, asking for feedback and providing links to connect to your social media pages.

Other helpful resources

• 10 techniques for an effective ‘call to action’.
• E-commerce tracking with Google Analytics and Checkfront.
• Accept bookings of Facebook.

Tracking PPC Success with Google Adwords

If you market your business via Pay Per Click PPC advertising with Google Adwords, you’ll want need to track your conversions. Obtaining Return On Investment ROI information for your online campaigns is perhaps the most important factor in evaluating the effectiveness of your online marketing initiatives.

There are a lot of resources available online to help you with Google Adwords. We do highly recommend you consult a a qualified Adwords expert, and / or do plenty of research before diving into pay-per-click. A finely tuned campaign can have an immediate positive impact on your revenues. However a poorly tuned and monitored campaign can be disastrous, and costly.

A good starting place is Getting Started with Google Adwords Campaigns at PPCblog.com.

Setting up Google Adwords Tracking with Checkfront

Setting up Adword tracking with Checkfront is easy. First login to your Google Adwords account. Navigate to Tools and Analytics / Conversions and Create New Conversion.

You can name the new conversion “Checkfront Booking”, or something else that helps you identify it. Make sure it’s a Web page based conversion (default). Clicking next will bring you to the conversion settings. Be sure that https is selected, and leave the Conversion Value blank.

The final page will allow you to email your tracking code, or view it. You’ll want to view it to obtain the conversion id. This is a unique id that identifies the conversion. The conversion id is located in the code under “conversion_id = 932993232″. Copy this number and supply it in the Adwords Setup in Checkfront.

The Adwords extension is in your account under Manage / Extend / Add-ons / Google Adwords in Checkfront.

Once activated in Checkfront, new customer bookings will be sent to your Adwords account along with the value of the transaction.

Please note the tracking status in your Adwords account will remain Unverfied till your first successful conversion.

If you don’t currently use Google Adwords, but are still interested in your conversion rates, have a look at our Google Analytics integration.

New API and Developer Tools

We are happy to announce version 2.0 of our API. This release includes significantly more functionality over its predecessor. Developers can now build applications and integrations that have unrestricted access to the Checkfront platform.

New features include:

• Secure and transparent authentication via OAuth2.
• Ability to query availability, create bookings and add customers.
• A SQL based interface for querying and manipulating data.
• Automated instant event notifications.
• Updated documentation, libraries and sample code.

This release also sets the groundwork for our upcoming updated plugins for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

Open Source PHP SDK

To accompany this release, we have made available a PHP SDK as an open source project hosted on Github. The SDK is a turn-key tool kit for developers that takes care of authentication mechanisms, and provides ready access to core resources of the API.

SDKs for other languages are soon to follow including Ruby and Javascript.

Possibilities…

Technically, the possibilities are (close to) endless. Some starting ideas are:

• Import scripts for external databases or services.
• Custom front-end widgets and integrations.
• Custom reports.
• Integration into third party applications.

If you are a developer and wish to contribute to a open source SDK, please find us on Github or drop us a note.

* For more information on version 2 of the Checkfront API, please see our updated Developer API Documentation.

Version 1.0 moved to Legacy

Version 1.0 of our API will continue to be available, but we encourage all developers to build on the new platform, and update existing integrations when possible. There are no immediate plans to retire the 1.0 API.

Update: Customer E-mails and Staff Accounts

(v1.8.8) We are pleased two announce two new updates to Checkfront:

E-mail Correspondence

Till now, all internal customer communications have been by way of automated e-mails via the notification system. This has proven an efficient way to streamline invoices, receipts and follow up emails.

There is however occasion where you need to quickly email a customer a note, and or updated booking details.

You can do this now by clicking on the “E-mail” button in the sidebar while viewing a booking. This allows you to supply a note, and optionally include an updated version of their booking receipt or invoice.

For maximum e-mail deliverability, please see our SPF setup guide.

Staff Accounts

Previously you would create “Agent Accounts” to give other people access to login to your Checkfront account to create bookings, view reports and configure the system. This included three privilege levels: Agent, Manager and Administrator. Each of these had specific per-defined roles in the system.

For clarification, we have done away with the term “Agent”, and replaced it with “Staff” accounts. This has been moved from Manage / Company / Agents, to Manage / Accounts in our main navigation.

Now when you create a new Staff Account, you can individually select what parts of the system you would like them to have access to, and furthermore what actions they can preform (for example preform refunds, and add notes). This provides a much greater control over the system, and allows you to tailor the requirements of each of your staff.

Checkfront Expands Network to Asia-Pacific!

To better service our customers based in Asia-Pacific, we’ve expanded our localized cloud services to the region. This includes service to: Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore.

The new state of the art hosting facility is located in Tokyo Japan, and includes all of the services available in our other locations, including: automated backups, industry leading security, and lightning fast performance.

We understand that network reliability is essential to your business. Once fully migrated, Asia / Pacific customers should see (even) faster response times when using Checkfront. This also reduces the likelihood of network related issues, and solves some access problems for customers in mainland China.

Existing customers in Asia will be migrated from the US network center within the coming days. Please note there should be no interruption in service. If you are in Asia but would like to continue to be hosted out of the US or UK, please file a support ticket.

There is no premium for for our Asia Pacific location. Pricing for this location is the same as our other facilities.

Note: you can determine what data center you are in by logging into your Checkfront console and going to Manage / System.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us.

Remember: Checkfront operates in 14 languages including Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog and Thia.

Salesforce CRM Integration

We’re please to announce integration with Salesforce — the worlds most popular CRM.

This add-on is available in your extension area, and provides the ability to automatically create new customers (or update existing ones) in Salesforce when a booking is created via Checkfront.

This will ensure your customer records are kept in sync, and you can take full advantage of the many advanced customer management tools of Salesforce.

When enabled, a new account is created in Salesforce after a booking is made. A personal contact is created under the account, along with an event that is tied to the booking date and details. You can further customize this in your Checkfront setup.

Setup

To enable the Salesforce extension, Login to your Checkfront account, navigate to Extend / Add-ons, and select Salesforce. From there, click the activate button, and use the links provided to Install the Checkfront package in Salesforce, and Authorize the API.

To test your setup, create a new booking and set the status to Reserved or Paid. You should see the new data appear in Salesforce, as well as an entry and your activity or booking log.

Currently, to make use of this package, you must have an Enterprise, Unlimited or another account with Salesforce that provides API access. This add-on is available to Checkfront Pro and Plus users.

We’ll be adding further integrations with Salesforce, both within Checkfront, and in Salesforce. Please share any feedback you have to help us focus our efforts.

Check-in / Check-out Support

A common request to date has been support for Check-in (Arrived) and Check-out (Completed) statuses.

For starters, as of today you can modify the default status labels and colors under Manage / Layout / Statuses. While there, you may also notice there are some more options for customizing the invoice in the adjacent Invoice tab.

More notably, we have added the ability to Check-in and Check-out a customer while viewing their booking. Please note this is a new feature, and independent of the existing booking statuses (Paid, Pending, etc). Not making use of this feature will not change the operation of your system.

When viewing an invoice while logged in, you’ll now notice a “Check-In” button on the left-hand sidebar. When clicked, this will update the booking as “Checked-in” and add a note as the logged in agent. A Checked-in booking can be Checked-out by clicking “Check-out” in the same location.

When updated, an icon is added to the booking status label showing the Check-in (pin-drop), or Checked-out (checkmark) out icon. This can be seen in several reports through-out the system including the booking and availability report.

When used, you’ll have greater insight into your inventory availability, arrivals and no-shows. Look for more reports specific to Check-in and Check-out in the near future.

Checkfront Wins Emerging Technology Company of the Year

We are very excited to have won “Emerging Technology Company of the Year” at the annual VIATeC Awards last night in our home town of Victoria BC. The awards celebrate excellence and innovation in the booming technology sector of Greater Victoria and Vancouver Island.

Checkfront was launched almost exactly a year ago with the idea of helping schedule based businesses manage, market, and sell their services online. We’ve come so far, in such a short amount of time, and have enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.

It’s a great honour to be recognized by our peers, and we are happy to be part of such a thriving tech community here in beautiful Victoria.

A special thanks to our small, but dedicated team, and of course to all of our amazing customers both locally, and around the world who have supported us. The best part about doing what we do, is being a part of so many interesting businesses, and helping them meet their goals.

A big thanks to Dan Gunn and VIATeC for hosting the awards. Congratulations to the other nominees and winners!

-Jason

2011 VIATeC Awards

April 2011 Newsletter

Where does the time go?  Seems it’s been awhile since our last newsletter. We’ve been busy here at Checkfront, and this is a good time for an update.

In February we announced that Checkfront merchants surpassed 3 million (USD) in online bookings since releasing version 1.0 of the system last June. Amazingly, we’re happy to report that this has climbed to just shy of 5 million. Hats off to our merchants!

The last 8 months have proven an amazing experience for us. We are ever so grateful for the continued support of our customers and those who have offered feedback along the way.

Latest And Greatest

In our never ending quest to build the best cloud booking application, there have been several notable additions to the platform.

Quick Invoice Edit
Quickly change existing bookings while viewing an invoice. Add new items, edit the quantity, dates, and manually adjust pricing.
MORE »

Accept Bookings and Customer Love on Facebook
Version 2.0 of our Facebook App has been release and includes in-App purchases, integrated analytics and the ability to offer discounts instantly to customers who “Like” your page.
MORE »

Mailchimp Addon
Allow your users to automatically opt-into your Mailchimp e-mail campaigns at the time of booking.
MORE »

Preferred Columns in Reports
Select preferred fields to show up in your reports. Include custom fields as defined in your field editor.
MORE »

Better Integrated Support and Billing
Support ticket history and subscription receipts are now available directly from your support portal.
MORE »

New Chrome Extension
This extension takes advantage of additional caching capabilities, native browser notifications, and adds a quick launch to your Chrome startup page.
MORE »

iCal Events in Booking Receipts
Include calendar event requests in email receipts, and offer customers the ability to add a booking to their personal calendar.
MORE »

Other recent updates API enhancements, new documentation, database export functionality, and many other service updates.

Where to Now?

Along side our continued efforts to refine the existing feature set, we’ll be turning our focus to our front-end integrations. This includes brand new plugins for WordPress and Joomla!. We’ll also be making available some new front-end add-ons focused on customer engagement.

We will be making more tools available for developers looking to build custom integrations with our API, such as our PHP and Rails SDK.

Amazing Rates from VersaPay

Although available on the platform for a while now, we wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Versapay as an official partner of Checkfront and integrated payment processor.

VersaPay focuses on ecommerce and tourism businesses to offer tourism related services like seasonal closures and mobile processing. VersaPay is pleased to offer preferential re-negotiated rates to Checkfront customers starting with 1.89% MDR*. See here for more information or call Call Peter Fitzpatrick at 866-999-8729.

Keep the feedback coming, and best success in the coming season.

Regards,
- The Checkfront Team

Show Preferred Fields in Reports

You can now change the default columns displayed in various reports within Checkfront. If you have custom fields defined using the field editor, these will also be available for selection.

When viewing a report, you can click on the checkbox located in the top left of the table header (the leading column). This will bring up a list of available columns and allow to you save them as your account default.

Please note ALL fields are shown when exporting a report in a format other than PDF (Excel, CSV etc).

This feature is not currently available in all of our reports, but will be rolled out across most of them the coming weeks.

Thanks for the continued feedback and suggestions. Happy Friday!

Quicky Edit Bookings in Checkfront

Somewhat overdue — you can now quickly edit pricing, dates and other booking parameters, as well as add / remove items to an existing booking directly from within the invoice view in Checkfront.

To edit a booking while viewing an invoice, select the “Edit” tab. To change a given item, click the “Change” button beside the item you like to modify, or click “Add” to create a new one. This will bring up a dialog that will allow you to adjust the item as required. To change the item completely, click on the item name to bring up a select box of items available during the requested date.

When adjusting the date, a (familiar) popup calendar will appear to showing you the dates available for the selected item, and supplied quantity.

The item pricing, availability and rate will automatically be updated as you modify the booking. If needed you can also override the rated price by changing the calculated subtotal manually.

This is the first of several improvements in managing bookings post-creation.

As always, feedback is most welcome!

Checkfront Merchants Surpass $3 Million in Online Bookings

We are happy to announce that Checkfront merchants have surpassed $3 million (USD) in bookings since we launched version 1.0 of our platform less than 7 months ago.

For a new startup, we arrived at this milestone earlier than expected, but are nonetheless very happy to be here. An obvious big thanks to all of our customers for putting their business’s in our hands, and providing ongoing in-valuable feedback.

Without a doubt, the most rewarding part of doing what we do, is to be able to connect with so many interesting businesses worldwide, and have an opportunity be a part of their success.

We thought we’d take this opportunity to share a few stats from our network. These statistics are gathered are in aggregate from our active (non-trial) accounts for Paid, Deposit, or Reserved bookings as of February 21st 2011. Currency conversions (non USD) are calculated from the date created.

Total Value of Bookings Processed Since Checkfront 1.0 (June 2010)

Bookings by Currency

Checkfront has seen steady growth worldwide, and is currently used by businesses in 27 countries.

This chart shows the most popular currencies used on the platform based on the total value of all bookings processed.

Bookings by Market

Checkfront services several vertical markets well. Although the bulk of our initial customers were in the accommodation space, we have seen some amazing growth in other markets over the last few months.

Looking forward…

We have some great new features set for the service in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Follow up e-mails and Trip Advisor reviews

User reviews on websites such as TripAdvisor can be a great way to promote your business. The more (and the better) your reviews, the higher you’ll be displayed when potential customers are searching out related services in your area. This can be a great source of free, targeted traffic.

Automated follow up e-mails are an easy way to re-connect with your customers post-booking. This is also a great place to include links to review your business or request direct feedback. Incidentally, this is also a good place to include a promotional discount or voucher to another booking.

Checkfront makes follow up e-mails easy with scheduled notifications. Scheduled notifications can be delivered after a set amount of time, past the date of a completed booking.

Creating an automated follow up notification

To create a scheduled notification, login to Checkfront, go to Manage / Notifications and create a new notification.

For the Booking Event, if you don’t do payment processing, select Reserved, otherwise set it to be Paid. Enable scheduling and set the date, ensuring it is set to be delivered after the booking.

See more information on notifications.

Some advice

A good rule of thumb is to wait at-least a couple of days, or even a week before sending a follow up e-mail. This provides some breathing space between other notifications associated with the booking, and gives the customer some time to reflect on their time with you – positively, of course!

If you collect reviews on several websites, you may want to consider driving your customers to a specific page on your website with links to places to review your service. This gets them back on your website, and gives you more targeted options.

As a word of caution, many review sites do not allow you to moderate your own reviews. Be prepared for reviews you may not agree with. If you are worried about bad reviews, keep in mind that consumers are use to a mix of opinions on these sites. Your overall rating is what is important, but make sure your existing customer satisfaction is positive before soliciting public reviews.

In the event that you have a problematic customer you’d rather not request an endorsement from, update their booking status to a status other than that of the notification.

Referral Program

Most of our new business comes from word of mouth — meaning it comes from you, our customers, referring your colleagues and clients. The Checkfront referral program is designed to reward those customers who continue promote our service.

If you send us new a customer that subscribes to the service, we’ll pass on 20% of first years subscription directly to you — that’s up to $360.00 USD!

Each account has a unique Referral ID that can be found by logging into your account, and going to Extend / Extras / Referral Program.

Provide the Refferal ID when purchasing a new subscription, and your account will be credited. Better yet, use the affiliate tracking link or image on your website, and we’ll automatically credit your account for any new business brought in.

It’s that easy!

Summary of use

1. Referrals on yearly contracts are paid out after 40 days from the date of payment. Monthly subscriptions are payed out quarterly, up to the first 12 months of service.
2. Our affiliate tracking link uses a 30 day first-party cookie. This is a reliable tracking method, however not foolproof. The only way to guarantee that a referral will be tracked is to supply your referral id at the time of purchase.
3. Only customers with active subscriptions or certified system integrator accounts can participate.
4. Referral fees are only applicable to service subscriptions, and do not include other fees collected by Checkfront, including extra seat licenses, professional services or training.
5. We credit your account for up-to a year. If your balance is already paid in full, we payout via a Paypal money transfer.
6. By participating in our referral program, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions, specifically those outlined for affiliates. We reserve the right to adjust these terms as needed, and terminate anyone from the program without notice, for failure to comply.

Checkfront 1.5 Update

Many thanks to all our customers for their continued feedback and support. As a result, Checkfront is pleased to announce our 2010 August (v1.5) service enhancements including the following new features:

• Hourly inventory booking and payment management.
• PDF invoices for improved print formatting and archiving.
• Discount codes for campaign tracking.
• Updated field editor to customize your booking page.
• Tiered pricing for multiple price points (eg Adult / Child pricing).
• New rule updates and rate setup.
• Improved Paypal Standard payment flow that includes your customized booking fields.
• New dashboard layout with better sorting of Bookings.
• Plenty of interface updates and improved in-line documentation.

Checkfront is constantly innovating its services to help our customers succeed. Here are some of the near future features on the Development Road Map:

• International module – allows for localization into any language
• New Payment processors including Quickbooks™, and Versapay™.
• Additional integrations into Google Apps™.
• Have a feature request? Be sure and share it in our request forum.

We appreciate and value your business. Look for the Checkfront community newsletter later in September and send us your “Why we like Checkfront?” stories and testimonials if you’d like to be featured.

News

Price increase September 1st (new accounts only)

To help support our growing product requirements and infrastructure, our subscriptions will be going up by 10% on September 1st. This does not apply to existing customers. If you’d like to lock into the existing price and have yet to upgrade, please do so before Sept 1st!

We’re hiring!

Checkfront is always expanding its team and is constantly recruiting. Join a team with a passion for quality, customer satisfaction and personal growth. Checkfront offers a dynamic distributed culture with many unique, innovative people in many countries.

Current openings:

• Sales/ Support
• Developer
• Book keeper, office administration

For more information on opportunities with Checkfront see our careers section.

The end of our free plan

Checkfront 1.0 marks the end of our free Soho plan. Although we had hoped to maintain in some form going forward, we have been unable to keep up with the demand while meeting the needs of our paying customers.

We have re-packaged our Soho account to include more support and features at a low price. We believe offering a discounted rate for small operators will help us provide a better overall product.

Existing active beta customers can continue to use the free account for up to 6 months. We do encourage you to upgrade to the new paid version of the Soho account before then as it includes priority support and will see more features added to it in the coming months.

What is an active beta customer? If you were using Checkfront on your website to take bookings April 27th 2010 (the end of out beta), that is you.

The Soho account is available for a low fee of $19.95 a month USD (see plans for more currencies). We have further reduced this up to 30% off for our beta customers.

To upgrade your account, click the subscribe link when logged into your Checkfront account. Please note the discounted offer expires June 5th.

As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Checkfront adds servers in Europe

To better service our European customers, we’ve added new servers located in the United Kingdom.

We understand that network reliability is essential to your business. Once fully migrated, European customers should see (even) faster response times when using Checkfront.

The new hosting facility is located in London England at Telecity Group’s state-of-the-art Powergate facility (tour) with peering to many well connected providers including Deutsche Telekom, Interoute, Level3, PCCW-BTN, Telia and Tiscali.

Existing European customers will be migrated from the US to the new UK data center within the coming days. Please note there should be little to no interruption in service, however everyone will be given a 24 hour notice before the move is made. If you are in Europe but would like to continue to be hosted out of the US, please file a support ticket.

Note: you can determine what data center you are in by logging into your Checkfront console and going to Manage / System.

For customers located within the United Kingdom, you’ll soon notice your url change from yourid.checkfront.com to yourid.checkfront.co.uk. Your checkfront.com domain will forward indefinitely and no changes should be necessary on your end (exept for maybe your bookmarks!).

If you have any questions feel free to contact us.