What to put behind a small business site

The studio behind this notebook built sites for a mechanical contractor, a church, a speedway and a handful of bands. In 2007 the hard part was getting a business online at all. A small company needed someone to design the pages, write the markup, set up hosting and keep it all running, and the result was mostly a brochure: who we are, what we do, how to reach us.

That part is now the easy bit. A competent five-page site can be built in a weekend. What decides whether the site earns its keep is the system behind it, the thing that takes the booking, the order or the deposit while the owner is busy doing the work. For anyone who sells time, that means a booking system, and choosing one is a bigger decision than choosing a theme.

Five questions before you choose

1. Commission or flat fee?

Some booking systems are free to start and take a percentage of each booking, or of every new client they send you. Others charge a fixed monthly fee and take nothing per appointment. A percentage feels cheap in a quiet month and expensive in a busy one. Work it out on a good month, not an average one.

2. Who owns the client list?

The names, numbers and visit history of your regulars are the most valuable thing the system holds. Check that you can export them in a plain format whenever you like. Be wary of any service that presents its own marketplace to your customers when they book, since the next business shown to them may be a competitor.

3. What does it do about no-shows?

Automatic reminders by text or email are the usual first defense against missed appointments, and they should come included rather than sold as an add-on. A clear cancellation window, shown at the moment of booking, does the rest.

4. Can it take deposits, and where does the money go?

A deposit on longer or first-time appointments is the other half of the no-show answer. Find out whether payments go straight to your own bank account or sit with the platform for a while first, and what the card fees are on top of the subscription.

5. Does it live on your site?

The booking page should open from your own website with your name on it, not send customers off to a directory. That keeps the link between your site and your bookings, which is the whole point of having the site.

The broad options

Most choices fall into a few kinds. Marketplace apps bring new customers and usually charge for them, either per booking or as a cut of first visits. General scheduling tools suit consultants, tutors and anyone booking simple time slots, but know nothing about a particular trade. Website builders often include a basic booking add-on that works well at low volume. Trade-specific booking apps cost a little more thought to set up and understand the work: services of different lengths, several people on one diary, deposits on long appointments.

For salons and barbers, commission-free salon booking is the kind worth looking at first. Moshee is one example: it is built for hairstylists, barbers and beauticians, charges a flat monthly fee instead of a commission, sends reminders, and pays deposits and payments straight to the business's bank. Other trades have their own equivalents, and the five questions above apply to all of them.

What the 2007 studio would recognize

The studio's manifesto said “We assess needs first,” and its quote form asked about hosting and maintenance before it named a price. The same habit fits here. Before picking a system, write down what actually happens when a customer books: how long the service takes, who does it, whether a deposit is needed, what happens when they don't turn up. The right system is the one that matches that list without adding a fee to every line of it.

And the 2007 argument still holds underneath it all. The late-night customer who wanted to know whether you sold product X now wants to book the 10 a.m. slot on Saturday. A site that lets them do it, at midnight, is the 24-hour business machine the studio was promising.