The Advantages of Selling Service Packages - Bundling Up

Easy Busy Pets

November 29, 2022

Bundling up can be a great way to improve profitability, maximize efficiency and better market your services. With the right knowledge and resources, creating package deals for customers can increase customer satisfaction and help you secure more business. Find out how to get started and the key elements of creating successful service packages.

Understand what makes a good Service Package

Before you decide to create a service package, it is important to understand what makes up a good service package. Your service package should be tailored to the needs of your target audience and should contain items that are related to each other and provide added value. Make sure all services included in the package have comparable levels of quality and value so that customers can relate them together. Additionally, outlining clear expectations about the services being provided is key for setting customer expectations.

Measure and track the effectiveness of your Package

Once you have created your service packages you should measure and track their effectiveness in order to determine the success of your approach. If a package is not performing as expected, it could indicate that something needs to be changed such as the type of services, pricing structure, or product/service bundles. Tracking customer data over time can help you determine which packages are most successful and which need additional tweaking. Additionally, tracking customer data will help you better understand their preferences and create service packages more suited to their needs.

Promote your Packages on your website, social media and email lists

Creating service packages is only the first step, you need to promote them too! Promote your packages across a variety of platforms including email lists, social media channels and even blog posts. Make sure you are highlighting the value customers will receive by purchasing a package. Word of mouth is also an effective tool, so ask existing customers if they know others who may be interested in bundle deals. With other promotion techniques like discounts and special offers, it's worth exploring all the options available from creative campaigns through to engaging content – whatever works for you!

What are the benefits to the business?

1. Client satisfaction

Offering packages is a must for pet care businesses because in most cases clients need repeating services. A great example by dog walkers is to offer 10% off their total bill if clients pre-pay for 10 walks. In this case you offer this incentive as part of an exclusive package that includes 10 dog walks for $300 instead of the normal price of $330. Clients are happy when they get a good deal: More for less money.

So if you can offer an easy user experience online to purchase, use up and auto-renew packages when services are booked, then pet owners will come back for more, and your pet care business will stabilize and grow.

2. Steady revenue

By purchasing a package, the client is less likely to cancel on you because they already have cash tied up in your services, kind of like a % deposit. They also have a stronger incentive to buy when there are incremental savings involved and bundled offers, so you might find consistent purchases of your well formulated packages.

Without having to worry about collecting payments or chasing down past-due accounts, you can now spend more time delivering quality services.

3. Less work hours

When a package is pre-paid, pet owners can book their services at their own convenience thanks to availability automation and there is no need to invoice after jobs are completed.

You can focus on your business now that appointments are booked and pre-paid. This makes it much easier to focus on growing your business rather than having to deal with the day-to-day scheduling, billing and back-and-forth communications to book in a-la-cart appointments. Some Easy Busy Pets customers are 100% on this model, so that they can focus on their VIPs and scale their business.

How to price your package

How good is you package pricing? Is it profitable? Does it meet a pet owner's budget? We use this 12-step strategy to find out:

1. Choose your top selling pet service, one that is requested often. [Ex. Full Day Doggy Daycare]
2. List out what you charge for one appointment / visit or overnight stay. [$40]
3. List how many appointments you feel the client would value from a package, or the number of classes a training session would take. [20 days]

4. Multiply #2 by #3. [$800]

5. Make a complete list of all the add-ons you give clients with this service. [ex. An exit bath if they get too dirty, etc.]

6. Put a $ value on the resources and add-ons you provide a pet as part of the service. For example, driving time / gas, email report after a dog training class is completed, or clean off their paws after a dog walk before you drop them off at home. If you water their plants or clean their dishes. Value it all. [$100]

7. How much extra time and expertise given away by not accounting for it in one time appointments. An example might be initial consultation, additional advice, spending an extra 10 minutes walking the dog because they simply just need it. [10 mins]

8. Value of your extra time and expertise. Multiply #7 by the per hour rate you charge in #2. [$5]

9. Add together the total values in #4, #6, and #8. This gives you the total value of the package. [$905]

10. Take the total in #9 and divide by #3 (the number of sessions you want to offer in the package). [$45.25] This is your TRUE per appointment rate because it factors time behind the scenes and the value of the resources added. We often adjust this now to make an even number. Determine your ADJUSTED rate for a one-off session. [$45]

11. UPGRADED VALUE of the Package. This adjusted one-off session changes the value of the entire package. We now base the value of the number of sessions from #3 at this new ADJUSTED rate. Doing this also raises the value of the entire package. You determine the new value of the package based on this ADJUSTED rate. New value of package by changing #2 to your ADJUSTED rate from #10, and then update #4 and add together the NEW total values in #4, #6, and #8. [$905]

Using the example above for a full day daycare package, set your package price to $800 for x20 full day daycare visits to encourage value based purchases. Then update your one-time (ex. a-la-cart, ex. per-diem) service pricing to $45 per daycare day visit. This ensures you are not losing money on one-offs, while pricing a package that has a meaningful discount, especially when pet owners compare to the a-la-cart option.

Packages by Easy Busy Pets

Seeing is believing, so we put together a sample site to help you visualize how it works!

Starting with our sample: Check out countryboardinganddaycare.com, a demo pet care business. If you sign up as a pretend pet owner, you can observe the following.

1. Pet owners can "Add To Cart" a package from your website:

2. Pet owner piles up their purchases and pays:

Note: Prefer to charge packages on the business side only? No problem! Pet owners can be restricted from this step.

3. Pet owner makes a booking, and doesn't have to pay:

Note: $0 to be charged for this service, because the pet owner has a package for her pet Daisy!

How to set this up?

Scaling to 1000s of clients

There are so many methods of implementing a package. Pet care businesses can find some success in maintaining it all using a simple paper and pen. Then as they grow to 100s or 1000s of clients, some automation can be very handy (if not critical).

Here are our top 5 criteria to look for in a software that offers packages as an automated feature.

1. Scheduling and client online booking

2. Pet CRM

3. Website Add-to-cart for payment acceptance

4. Credits management and automation

5. Staff scheduling and availability

Having worked with thousands of pet care businesses like dog grooming salons, doggy daycare, dog walking, pet sitting, dog trainers, kennels and boarding, Easy Busy Pets has a unique perspective thanks to our packages feature that is unparalleled because of our integrated all-in-one solution. Contact us today to learn more.

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