Why You Need Outdoor Adventure Guide Scheduling Within Your Booking Platform

Outdoor adventure guide scheduling can be a total headache when you’re forced to do it manually. Operators we’ve spoken to lost faith in their online book system. They’d request features from their previous reservation platforms to no avail. Most admins use one system to book reservations and schedule their guides separately.

Operators want one system they can log into for outdoor adventure guide scheduling. They don’t want multiple logins. They don’t want to share passwords with their guides. You should be able to reserve trips and schedule your guides on one platform. It’s common sense. 

What Is Outdoor Adventure Guide Scheduling Software?

Outdoor adventure guide scheduling software is a software-as-a-service tool used to manage guides’ schedules as an admin, prioritize guides, centralize schedules, and allows guides to manage their own schedules with multiple companies. It’s accessible online without having to download any programs.

Benefits Of Staff Scheduling Software Within Your Booking Platform

We’ve noticed a not-so-great trend with current online booking software. You get the reservation system, but you’re still stuck managing your guides’ schedules. So really, it doesn’t free up your time that much. You need a system that not only simplifies the booking process for you and your guests but also makes it easy for you and your guides to manage their schedules.

Centralize Your Staff Schedules

We know that it’s difficult to get in contact with your guides. They’re not answering emails. They’re not on Slack and they barely answer the phone. That’s okay. It usually means they’re out guiding.

If you’re trying to manage multiple guides’ schedules and booking reservations, you’re likely to miss something. You may double book guides or book a trip without a guide entirely.

Having both your trip and guide schedules under one roof leaves less room for error and fewer frustrations. It makes it so the right guides can accept trips at the right time. It means you know who’s guiding what, when, and where. 

Guides Can Manage Their Own Schedules With Multiple Companies

We understand guides may work for several companies. So it can be a total mess for them to manage numerous schedules as well. When all the companies a guide works for are on Origin, the guide only has to look at one calendar to see trips across all their employers.

Once a customer books a trip, your guide(s) receives a text message to accept the trip based on their availability and priority. When they accept the trip, they’ll automatically get an email invite to add the trip to their calendar. They’ll see all the trip details, their availability, and confirmed guests. 

Prioritize Guides

You can prioritize your guides based on their experience, education, interests, and strengths. The scheduling software allows for guide priority on every account that has more than two guides. Once it’s enabled, you don’t have to micromanage it.

When you’ve prioritized your guides, the system automatically searches for both available and higher prioritized guides to book a trip. If there are no available guides, the system hides the trip from customers. This prevents you from the hassle of refunds or confusion.

Client-To-Guide Ratio

Traditional outdoor adventure trips like skiing, biking, hiking, and fishing use client-to-guide ratios so they can maximize their resources. They don’t want to book one-person trips when a guide can safely and effectively manage 4-6 people in one group.

Having one guide per group means you can pay for the guide and still make a profit. You can see this more when the group is 8 people. Likely, you’d need two guides to keep everyone safe and instructed, but doing this manually can be a hassle. Instead, having outdoor adventure guide scheduling software can run this automatically.

What Happens When Your Reservation System Lacks A Scheduling Tool

One of our clients had to manage her guides’ schedules because her previous online booking system didn’t provide logistical support to run her business. She was up late sending nightly emails. She had to wake up early every morning to book reservations, print out the schedule, assign guides to rafts, and write names on notecards with raft assignments and pass them out in their morning meetings.

Another one of our clients – before coming to Origin – had to pay for a separate scheduling tool because their prior reservation system also didn’t offer outdoor adventure guide scheduling software.

Previously, reservations and guide scheduling had to be two totally separate entities.

But now, both of our clients have their booking tools to process the reservations and their guide scheduling software. It automatically assigns guides based on their availability, prioritization, and client-to-guide ratio.

Scheduling Software Built Around Guides

Historically, no platforms have been built around guides. Instead, they’re built around the trip. But you can’t have a trip without your guides. We took a fresh approach to save you and your guide’s time, so you can spend more time with your clients.

Origin makes it so you can’t book the trip unless there’s a guide available. On other platforms, you can only set rules and constraints on what “products” can be booked. 

Outdoor adventure guide scheduling software needs to be calculated differently. You need to look at your guides’ personal availability, their expertise and education, any required rental equipment, and the number of confirmed guests.

If you want to free up more of your time and make managing guide schedules easier, schedule a call with us today.