AutomateWoo Brings Automated Communications to Bookings

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AutomateWoo is this handy extension for WooCommerce that adds triggers actions based on your online store’s activity. Someone abandoned their cart? Remind them by email. Someone made a purchase? Ask them to leave a review or follow up to see how they’re liking the product so far.

This sort of automated communication is gold. Automatically reaching out to customers based on their own activity keeps them engaged and encourages more activity, hopefully the kind that makes you more money.

AutomateWoo now integrates with WooCommerce Bookings and it includes a new trigger: booking status changes. So now, when a customer’s appointment changes—say from “pending” to “confirmed”—AutomateWoo can perform an action, like sending an email confirming the customer’s booked appointment. Or asking for feedback after the appointment. Or reminding a customer to book a follow-up appointment.

Or really anything else you can think of based on the status of a booking. It’s like having your own version of Zapier right in WordPress, but without having to manage another platform.

OK, real-life situation.

Sometime in the middle of last year, I was working with a client that takes online appointments, or bookings. The user finds an open spot on a calendar and books that time to come in for service. A lot like making a hair appointment.

Well, what happens when a bunch of appointments need to be canceled? I don’t need to tell you what a big deal that was this time last year. This particular client had the unfortunate task of reaching out to each and every customer and updating the status of over 200 appointments.

That was awful. Fortunately, we found a way to bulk update the appointments. Then we sent a mass email to everyone with a canceled appointment. Not the most elegant solution, but it got the job done. I’ll tell you what, though, it would have been a heckuva lot less work and the communications would have been much polished if we had this AutomateWoo + WooCommerce Bookings combo. Simply create a trigger for a canceled status change, write the email, and bulk update the bookings statuses.

AutomateWoo and WooCommerce Bookings are both paid extensions for WooCommerce. The licenses will run you $349, which includes a year of updates and customer support. The value you get out of it really depends on your overall budget and how much activity happens on your site. I can tell you that would’ve been a stellar deal when we were trying to resolve 200+ canceled appointments. And if it leads to additional bookings, upsells, and fewer cancelations (because, hey, research has shown that 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns), then it could very well pay for itself.

You can give WooCommerce Bookings a front-end test drive with a live demo. Both extensions also come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, giving you a good amount of time to try them out.

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