Exciting news in the business hub at Guides for Brides! Two brand new features are now available to make your job easier.
1. First up is our Availability Calendar. We've initially launched this within the categories where date availability is the most relevant; however, if you'd like to upgrade to this feature, please call get in touch.
When you log in to update and edit your advert on our Guides for Brides site, you'll now see this savvy and easy to use calendar, ready for you to fill in with your business availability.
Simply click on a date and select one of the options or use the Repeating Dates option to set a series of dates. Over the next few weeks we will activate the calendar for brides to use, both on your listing and on the Search option, so please update your calendar today and be ready for them.
Don't want anyone seeing your data? The actual calendar will only ever be visible to you, not brides or other businesses. Brides will be able to check individual dates; if they see you have limited availability or are provisionally booked it will encourage them to contact you quickly. If the date is booked it will offer alternatives.
Don't have time to update the calendar? Synchronising with Opera, Delphi or other systems won't give you the flexibility we know you need, so manually updating is the best option but we've developed a widget to access information from this calendar from anywhere you choose so you only need to update one calendar. To make it even easier we'll alert you when activity on the website suggests a date is more popular than you thought and offer "one click" options to change a status.
Late dates? Simply set as "Available" or "Available + Offer". You can choose when to offer discounts, but our research suggests that late date bookings don't need a discount as an incentive to book.
More enquiries? This tool will increase your relevant enquiries and save you time on replying to irrelevant enquiries as it will automatically offer alternative available dates.
Top tip; To get started, use the Repeating Dates button to set all of 2018/19 to "Available", then to change any discounted mid week days to "Available + Offer" before marking any Booked or Provisionally Booked dates. If you know you always fill certain dates such as Bank Holiday weekends set them to "Limited Availability" now to spur brides into action!
2. Our second great new feature is the Enquiries Manager which can be accessed under "Enquiries" when you log in to your account. 
You'll see all of your recent brochure requests and enquiries from Guides for Brides in one place so you can monitor and manage your leads. There is even a one click option to change the status on your calendar.
We'll be bringing you more great features over the next few weeks and we'd love to hear your feedback on these ones. Contact Alison on 01235 770078 or email alison@guidesforbrides.co.uk with your thoughts and if you need help logging in to your account please email jackie@guidesforbrides.co.uk.
We're working hard on generating and managing more leads for you, giving you more time to manage your business.
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