New Features To Improve API Performance
Customer demands are evolving at a faster pace than ever. There used to be a time when a simple guidebook, hotel concierge, or endless research would be the only options to find something to do for an afternoon. They didn’t mind planning in advance, and an experience selling out was just part of the booking experience. They adapted to the world around them.
Fast forward to the present day, and a customer’s options for things to do are practically infinite and they expect everything to be as simple as clicking a button. They expect the world to adapt to their needs – they want to be able to get a last-minute ticket to the most popular museum in town. They want to reserve a space whilst they decide on their perfect food tour after they’ve invested a lot of time researching the options. And they want to be able to cancel it without hassle if they change their mind.
That’s where Connectivity comes in. Connectivity enables suppliers to keep up with what customers want to win more bookings and earn more revenue in the process. With over 150 connectivity partners and millions of tickets sold, GetYourGuide has developed innovative new features that help to do just that. Here are six of our favourite:
Notify Availability Update:
A supplier’s availability is updated regularly, but it isn’t displayed in real-time. This keeps things lightning quick for customers when they’re looking to book a tour, but the trade-off is that GetYourGuide sometimes shows more tickets than are actually available to buy. As a result, customers might try to book tickets that aren’t actually available and reserve an error message when they do so.
To prevent this from happening, we created a feature for connectivity partners to warn us when suppliers’ availability is running low. Instead of waiting for us to pull information about the availability, you can tell us that you’re running low so we can update it to the correct amount. When implemented, a customer has near to real time availability, avoiding reservation and booking mismatches.
Moreover, the use of the availability update feature also allows your system to notify us when a new slot becomes available (or a previously sold out slot becomes bookable). This allows suppliers to maximise their last minute sales.
2-Step Booking (Reserve→Book):
With a wealth of options for things to do at a customer’s fingertips, being able to reserve a space on an experience allows customers to freely explore their options, select the best one for them, and complete their checkout safe in the knowledge that space is secured for a limited time – even if others are looking at booking the same experience. Without this reserve, and the subsequent expiration, multiple customers might be fighting for the final few tickets only to be disappointed when they try to proceed with their booking.
Reservation Expiration:
Relatedly, you’re able to let us know just how long a product has been reserved for, allowing for customisation to suit each of your supplier’s needs. We’ll let the customer know so they can complete their checkout in time. This also helps to get suppliers options back on the shelf as quickly as possible
Cut-off Time in Availability Query:
Some products require a cut-off time – the period of time before a ticket should be redeemed or a tour departs – to allow a supplier to properly prepare an experience for a customer. The lower the cut-off, the more flexibility a customer has to book a last-minute ticket.
Implementing this feature and sharing the information via an API lets GetYourGuide know when we should stop selling a product. This prevents customers attempting to book a product that is no longer available for sale and encountering an error during the add-to-cart.
Cancellation:
Customers’ plans change, and they want to be able to cancel their booking (or the ticket they’ve reserved) quickly and without any hassle. Not only does this create better relationships with customers, it opens up their space for other customers to book so that suppliers can recapture any revenue they might have lost as a result of the original cancellation.
Error Message Implementation:
To resolve customer pain points in the booking journey, first you need to identify why they received the error in the first place. Error codes sent to us in accordance with our specification - accompanied by a clear and actionable error message – help us provide solutions to correct any errors that prevent a customer from booking an experience.