Offering discount coupons is a great way to reward loyal customers and attract bookings. In this article, you’ll learn how to easily create, manage, and distribute coupons and packages.

Coupons

Coupons are special offers applied to a single booking! A coupon can be applied at checkout to discount the price.

Creating a coupon

Here’s how you create a new coupon:

Step 1: Go to Settings > Coupons & Packages, and click Create Coupon.

Step 2: Fill out your coupon details, like name, code, discount amount, time frame, etc.

Here’s an example of a New Year Special coupon for 25% off:

Important: Your Display Name must be unique. You cannot create more than one coupon with the same name.

Note: Coupons may share the same Code, but only one of the coupons can be active at a time.

If you only want a coupon to be active during a certain time frame, for example, the week of New Year, use the Time Frame field to set the start and end dates.

Limiting coupon use

You can adjust or limit your clients’ use of coupons on a per client basis or across clients.

To adjust or limit how many times a coupon can be redeemed per client, fill out the Max. redemptions per client field. The default setting is one coupon per client. Adjust this limit as you see fit.

You can also adjust or limit the total use of your coupon across clients using the Max. redemptions field.

Note: If you want to permit unlimited use of your coupon across clients, leave either of these fields blank.

Tip: Use the Max. redemptions field to implement an attractive first come, first serve limited-time offer.

Limiting coupon validity

If your coupon is only valid for certain services or offered by certain staff members, use the Does this coupon apply for all services/staff? section.

Under the Does this coupon apply for all services/staff? field, set your limits on what type of bookings this coupon can be applied to.

For example, this coupon applies to all services, but only when provided by specific staff members:

Promoting your coupons

You can share your coupon right away in the Share Your Coupon popup. Simply go to your Settings > Coupons page and click to select any of your coupons:

From here, you have these three easy ways to share and promote your coupon:

1. Copy and paste the coupon code: Copy and paste the Code in a message or social media post and send it out.

2. Send a direct email message: You can use our system to send a direct message with the coupon code included.

3. Create a campaign: Use the built-in marketing features to quickly build an eye-catching campaign around your new special offer.

When you choose this option, our system will create a basic campaign which you can then customize.

Note: The campaign option allows you to send your coupon promotion via SMS as well.

Tip: Options 2 and 3 allow you to choose clients from your account’s client list, and to take advantage of Tags to target your marketing efforts.

Applying a coupon to pending payments

Your client may have forgotten to apply their discount, or you realize you’d like to apply a discount to a booking or outstanding payment retrospectively.

For your convenience, you can still apply a coupon to a pending payment to apply a discount even after a booking has been made.

To apply a discount to a pending payment request follow these steps:

Step 1: Locate the pending payment you’d like to discount, either in the Payments section or by going to the client’s client card and click on it.

Step 2: On the payment page, find the Pending section. Click and select Apply Coupon.

Step 3: Choose the coupon you want to use and click Save.

After saving, the pending amount will be updated.

Tracking coupon use

Want to find out how popular your coupons are? Open the Payments menu and select Invoices and Bookings.

On the right side of the page under the filter options, select the Has Coupon filter.

Narrow your focus to see how specific deals are performing by using the Selected Coupons dropdown:

Learn more: To learn more about how to promote bookings, visit the Using Your Calendar article. For general marketing help, visit the Marketing page of the Guide.

Packages

A package is a convenient bundle of services your clients can purchase and apply toward future bookings without having to pay online each time - they can buy 10 bookings for example, all in one go and book their future sessions at their own pace. Packages are a great way to drive repeat business and you can even offer special, discounted rates to encourage more bookings and purchases.

Creating a Package

Step 1: Start in your vcita account and navigate to Settings > Coupons and Packages.

Step 2: Switch to the Packages tab and click on Add Package to start building your package.

Step 3: On the package builder page, customize the following:

Package Info: Basic information like the package name and how long the package is valid for use.
Package Services: Choose the bundle of services that the package will be valid for.
Price: Set a price for your package.

Step 4: Check the Package can be purchased online checkbox to enable clients to purchase it from your service menu.

Note: If you do not have this option enabled, you can still add packages to clients on a case by case basis in the client card.

Promoting your packages

Promote your packages on your online scheduler so that your clients know that they can avail a special offer when they go to schedule.

Important: Make sure your packages are set to Package can be purchased online so that they are visible in your online packages menu!

Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Online Booking Options

Step 2: Scroll to the Display Options and select a package display option. You can between a link to your packages menu or a clickable banner.

Applying a package to a booking

Your client will be able to use their package the next time they book online.

Important: Your client must be logged into the client portal to use any of their packages.

Once your client has an eligible package to use, you can also 'redeem' that package when you set an appointment with that client on the calendar.

Tracking package use

You can find out how many of your bookings were made with packages - Open the Payments menu and select Billing and Invoicing.

On the right side of the page under the filter options, select Packages from the Type dropdown.