Little Moon Cottage
About Us
We liked the fact that we could customise the booking system pages so that they look like the rest of our website - they integrate seamlessly so that customers are not aware that they have moved between our pages and Holiday Bookings Online pages.
Little Moon Cottage and Sunbeam Cottage are bright and sunny holiday homes in a beautiful rural location near Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. Set on a leafy lane at the foot of Tennyson Down in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the self catering cottages are pet friendly and have wonderful views.
The cottages are excellent for walking as they are close to the coastal footpath which runs along the Down to the Needles or to Freshwater Bay and on to a network of trails covering the whole Island. There are several lovely beaches and a dog friendly pub with good food close by.
Why did you decide to add online booking to your website?
We knew that a booking system would be a key component.
When we started letting Little Moon Cottage last summer we realised that in order to be successful, our business had to be internet based. We had the skills to make a simple attractive website, but we knew that a booking system would be a key component. We knew little about the market, so we read as much as we could on the internet and studied other owner’s websites.
Nowadays people want to ‘click and buy’ they are used to sites like eBay and Amazon. If they like a property they want to know if it is available, how much it costs and to be able to book it there and then. We thought that if we couldn’t offer them this service, they would move on to the next property and we could lose their custom.
What made you choose Holiday Bookings Online as your online booking software provider?
The system is cost effective and has lots of useful tools and features.
Holiday Bookings Online is simple and easy for our customers to use and they have all been able to book without any problems even those with very little experience of booking on the internet.
The system is cost effective and has lots of useful tools and features. We wanted to offer Stripe as a payment option because we use it ourselves all the time, we trust it and we believe a lot of other people feel the same.
We liked the fact that we could customise the booking system pages so that they look like the rest of our website - they integrate seamlessly so that customers are not aware that they have moved between our pages and Holiday Bookings Online pages.
The system is very flexible. Our customers are all very different some book online and we have little contact with them until they arrive on our doorstep! Others may be a bit wary of technology and we can key their details in to the system while they are on the phone giving us a chance to have a friendly chat with them.
How has the booking system helped your business?
Holiday Bookings Online makes it simple for us to manage bookings. We can even use it on our netbook when we are away from home!
Our business has been extremely successful from the outset and we believe a large part of this success is due to the booking system. We try to make it as simple as possible for people to find out about us and book their holiday. The booking system is a crucial part of this process.
We believe we get more bookings because people can secure the week they want quickly and easily, they dont have to phone or email and wait for a reply. Also, the excellent live availability calendar allows people to be sure that the week they want is still available. In this respect, the booking system saves us a lot of work because people would otherwise enquire about weeks that are no longer available.
Little Moon Cottage proved to be so popular that we decided to let Sunbeam Cottage too for the summer this year. It was very easy and inexpensive to add the second property to the booking system.
Holiday Bookings Online makes it simple for us to manage bookings. We can even use it on our netbook when we are away from home! We always know who is coming on a Saturday, who is due an invoice, who needs a welcome email and who we should thank for leaving the cottages clean and tidy!
What appeals to you about the HBO system?
We find the owner live stats very useful
We find the owner live stats very useful, after nearly a year of letting and collecting data from HBO we can anticipate which months people will be looking for at any time. Since the system revamp this year it is even easier to look at customer details quickly and the look of the system is very pleasing.
We like the fact that we sometimes get bookings late at night people browse for a holiday in the evening, fall in love with our cottages and perhaps buoyed up by a couple of sherries, book then and there! It is very satisfying in the morning to find ‘A new provisional booking has been made’ in the email inbox. It’s like a little lottery win every time!
How would you describe the support you've received from Holiday Bookings Online?
The online support is second to none
The system is self-explanatory and simple to use, so we dont have to contact Holiday Bookings Online very often, but when we do, the online support is second to none we receive answers to our queries immediately and when we have needed to phone, the service we receive is fast, friendly and extremely helpful.