Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any other questions, please feel free to call us at 505-435-9731, extension 103.
Here are the basics about Event Rental Systems:
ERS is a web-based software package that allows your customers to order on-line while viewing real-time availability. Everything that can be automated has been all the way down to automated/intelligent add-on sales, customer surveys and reminders to book next year. ERS then allows you to run your business more efficiently through the use of reports, automatic marketing tools, scheduling, and customer relationships management (CRM) tools that combine into a money making machine. You can use the software from any location that has internet access, including your phone!
The only thing cooler than taking an order while shopping or hanging out, is getting orders from customers while you sleep! You can have as many order takers or customers accessing your site at the same time as you wish. Many ERS users find that 30-60% of their orders are placed on-line by the customers. This saves time and labor in the office because moms often like to shop on-line without having to talk to anyone.
If you own a Family Entertainment Center or Indoor Playground, you owe it to yourself to start your free trial today and see what our software can do for your company.
ERS is a web-based software package that allows your customers to order on-line while viewing real-time availability. Everything that can be automated has been all the way down to automated/intelligent add-on sales, customer surveys and reminders to book next year. ERS then allows you to run your business more efficiently through the use of reports, automatic marketing tools, scheduling, and customer relationships management (CRM) tools that combine into a money making machine. You can use the software from any location that has internet access, including your phone!
The only thing cooler than taking an order while shopping or hanging out, is getting orders from customers while you sleep! You can have as many order takers or customers accessing your site at the same time as you wish. Many ERS users find that 30-60% of their orders are placed on-line by the customers. This saves time and labor in the office because moms often like to shop on-line without having to talk to anyone.
If you own a Family Entertainment Center or Indoor Playground, you owe it to yourself to start your free trial today and see what our software can do for your company.
Event rental systems software saves LOTS of Time and Money. How do we know? For starters, we made this for our own bounce house rental company. When we implemented the scheduling and routing features that are built into ERS we saved over $1600/month in gas from the MUCH more efficient routing. Of course, routing and logistics aren't as important for FECs and Indoor Playgrounds, but there are many other ways in which the ERS system helps you save and make money.
When we added yearly reminders to the software we tracked an additional $400 per month on average. Can you send emails to your customers 11 months after their last event? Sure, but will you do it consistently every month? Well, if you can pull that off then you're better than we were...
ERS handles all of the reminders like clockwork and can even include a repeat customer coupon that you can send as enticement to be a return customer. If you didn't have to answer the phone for 40-50% of your bookings, would that save you time (if you're still answering the phone yourself) or money (if you're paying someone)? Even keying in credit card numbers into a machine is eliminated since it's all handled on-line.
"But with ERS, you have to keep paying a monthly fee. That adds up!" Once upon a time, you had to cough up a bunch of money up front to buy a license and maybe your own server, and there are still a few companies doing that, but most of them did and still do charge a monthly or annual fee on top of that huge "down payment" anyway!
Modern-day SAAS, or Software As A Service, when it's done right, relies on top quality, enterprise-level dedicated servers in the country of service (the USA in this case, of course) and a cloud-based, completely unified system, with no up-front payments and a monthly billing cycle with no contracts (except with Elite Services), so you can cancel at any time. We do all that and give you a Free 30 Day Trial, and updates are always free!
You can access the full ERS system from any device with internet access at any time, from laptop to desktop to tablet to smartphone. We offer unlimited user accounts at no extra cost to you, each with its own unique user permission level.
When we added yearly reminders to the software we tracked an additional $400 per month on average. Can you send emails to your customers 11 months after their last event? Sure, but will you do it consistently every month? Well, if you can pull that off then you're better than we were...
ERS handles all of the reminders like clockwork and can even include a repeat customer coupon that you can send as enticement to be a return customer. If you didn't have to answer the phone for 40-50% of your bookings, would that save you time (if you're still answering the phone yourself) or money (if you're paying someone)? Even keying in credit card numbers into a machine is eliminated since it's all handled on-line.
"But with ERS, you have to keep paying a monthly fee. That adds up!" Once upon a time, you had to cough up a bunch of money up front to buy a license and maybe your own server, and there are still a few companies doing that, but most of them did and still do charge a monthly or annual fee on top of that huge "down payment" anyway!
Modern-day SAAS, or Software As A Service, when it's done right, relies on top quality, enterprise-level dedicated servers in the country of service (the USA in this case, of course) and a cloud-based, completely unified system, with no up-front payments and a monthly billing cycle with no contracts (except with Elite Services), so you can cancel at any time. We do all that and give you a Free 30 Day Trial, and updates are always free!
You can access the full ERS system from any device with internet access at any time, from laptop to desktop to tablet to smartphone. We offer unlimited user accounts at no extra cost to you, each with its own unique user permission level.
If you don't LOVE our software after your site has been live for 90 days....We'll give you $100 dollars or $150 to the charity of your choice. No hard feelings.
Why would we offer this?
Because we believe in our product.
Why would we offer this?
Because we believe in our product.
Your customers see a simple, easy to use web site that allows them to pick a date and then see everything that you offer that is still available for that date. They are never shown items or services that aren't actually available.
We are NOT talking about a common request form...but real-time inventory tracking!
Never double book or miss a sale again!
We are NOT talking about a common request form...but real-time inventory tracking!
Never double book or miss a sale again!
ERS is billed monthly and you can cancel at any time. In addition to the monthly subscription fee (see our pricing page for a listing of monthly fees), there is an annual fee of $99 to host your website. Note, even if you are not using our site as your primary website, we still charge a hosting fee as all of the data from the website is stored on our servers. We offer optional services (such as a Conversion Booster, which allows you to split-test, or test two different versions of a page to see which one works better) that are not required to operate the system. There may be an additional fee for some of these services.
There are no hidden fees, cancellation fees, or term commitments.
To cancel your subscription, we ask that you send us your request in writing (even a simple email is suitable). There are no long term contracts. In fact, the only contract that we use is our user agreement that basically says our program is ours and your database information is yours. You can leave at any time with no hard feelings. Of course we're banking on the fact that you'll love it and won't want to leave.
We won't ever share any proprietary information with any other company. Your info is yours and that's the way it should be. You can download/export your entire database at anytime (and you should for extra safety anyway.)
Our system is encrypted and is mirrored on multiple servers for safety. We are always looking for ways of improving our safety and redundancy.
We have over $500,000 worth of development time into this software so far and we aren't stopping any time soon! Features are always being added and improved. Updates are free!
There are no hidden fees, cancellation fees, or term commitments.
To cancel your subscription, we ask that you send us your request in writing (even a simple email is suitable). There are no long term contracts. In fact, the only contract that we use is our user agreement that basically says our program is ours and your database information is yours. You can leave at any time with no hard feelings. Of course we're banking on the fact that you'll love it and won't want to leave.
We won't ever share any proprietary information with any other company. Your info is yours and that's the way it should be. You can download/export your entire database at anytime (and you should for extra safety anyway.)
Our system is encrypted and is mirrored on multiple servers for safety. We are always looking for ways of improving our safety and redundancy.
We have over $500,000 worth of development time into this software so far and we aren't stopping any time soon! Features are always being added and improved. Updates are free!
Use your voice mail to send your customers to your website to place their order right away for best selection.
Your customers will appreciate instantly emailed receipts with pictures and deposit information. They will also appreciate the pre-party tips and reminders that are automatically sent to them.
Customers like being asked about their opinions (and you'll like the feedback). That's why Event Rental Systems automatically sends each customer an on-line survey and can ask them to rate or comment on anything that you would like to know.
Your customers will appreciate instantly emailed receipts with pictures and deposit information. They will also appreciate the pre-party tips and reminders that are automatically sent to them.
Customers like being asked about their opinions (and you'll like the feedback). That's why Event Rental Systems automatically sends each customer an on-line survey and can ask them to rate or comment on anything that you would like to know.
Well, it's all the rage right now and it should be. SEO, in case you don't know, stands for "Search Engine Optimization." People talk about it because when a site is "optimized," search engines like Google find the site easier and place it higher in the organic search results. The goal is to be ranked as high as possible. Statistics show that if you aren't on the first page of a Google search, you basically have a zero chance of being found at all because people don't typically look past the first page.
We are always improving our sites' SEO. Rob, One of the owners of ERS, used to teach SEO tips and tricks to tons of clients while operating a multimedia company that produced high end websites.
Our sites come pre-loaded with keywords for the FEC industry such as birthday parties, trampolines, laser tag, etc. For best results, you'll still want to tweak and edit the text, and have good, incoming links to your website (not spammy "link farm" types of links; search engines may actually penalize you for that! Form real, organic business relationships and link to each other's websites.). Your website will be very user-friendly and allows you to easily edit and tweak your page content (text), and also meta tags, including HTML Titles and Meta Descriptions (by the way, search engines don't use Meta Keywords any more for positive search results. They won't help you at all; in fact, the only thing they could possibly do is hurt you, so don't bother with them). It is so easy that you never need to see any code or HTML (unless you want to, of course).
What you really want from your software as far as SEO is concerned is for it to 1) be easy to use and edit your content and Meta Tags, and 2) use programming methods that naturally augment your SEO work. So for example, a lot of software will use page paths that don't include any useful information. For instance, if the item description page for your Laser Tag Arena says something like "your_company_name.com/items/item_number_1234abcd," or something like that, that doesn't help your SEO at all, because it provides no useful information for the search engine crawlers that index your pages and determine search results. However, if that page says "your_company_name.com/items/Laser_Tag_Arena," that might help your SEO, and it certainly won't hurt it. Our system has been designed to autopopulate that kind of useful information on item pages to the page path URL, so that's what we mean (along with other efficient programming techniques like automated caching and picture size management that ensure fast page load speeds, which is an important SEO criterion) when we say our software naturally augments your SEO work.
To that end, we firmly believe that, while hiring an outside SEO expert can sometimes be a good move, as they can supplement and refine your efforts, they can't do it FOR you, or replace you. You are ultimately your own most important SEO expert! That's because SEO really comes down to providing good, useful content for your customers, and you're the person who knows your market and customers best! So our goal is to make it easy for you to create and share that good content, and then back you up by amplifying all your hard work through best-practice, elegant, behind-the-scenes programming.
Another thing: keep in mind that all the SEO in the world by itself won't necessarily lead to conversions, i.e., people actually giving you business. If your SEO is tip-top, but your site is confusing or not user-friendly to the actual humans browsing it, your customers won't stay there and do business with you. So try to follow best practices for user-friendly, strategic web design and integrate your website with Google's free website traffic and conversion monitoring tool, Google Analytics (integration is a simple process with our system), so you can track your conversions. It's also not a bad idea to get your free certifications through Google Analytics Academy and Google Webmaster Academy.
And one more thing: SEO is constantly changing. Make sure that when you're researching it, you're reading from reputable sources, and that the information you're reading is fairly recent, as following advice from five years ago, or even sometimes two or three years ago, can really steer you in the wrong direction and maybe even hurt your SEO!
We are always improving our sites' SEO. Rob, One of the owners of ERS, used to teach SEO tips and tricks to tons of clients while operating a multimedia company that produced high end websites.
Our sites come pre-loaded with keywords for the FEC industry such as birthday parties, trampolines, laser tag, etc. For best results, you'll still want to tweak and edit the text, and have good, incoming links to your website (not spammy "link farm" types of links; search engines may actually penalize you for that! Form real, organic business relationships and link to each other's websites.). Your website will be very user-friendly and allows you to easily edit and tweak your page content (text), and also meta tags, including HTML Titles and Meta Descriptions (by the way, search engines don't use Meta Keywords any more for positive search results. They won't help you at all; in fact, the only thing they could possibly do is hurt you, so don't bother with them). It is so easy that you never need to see any code or HTML (unless you want to, of course).
What you really want from your software as far as SEO is concerned is for it to 1) be easy to use and edit your content and Meta Tags, and 2) use programming methods that naturally augment your SEO work. So for example, a lot of software will use page paths that don't include any useful information. For instance, if the item description page for your Laser Tag Arena says something like "your_company_name.com/items/item_number_1234abcd," or something like that, that doesn't help your SEO at all, because it provides no useful information for the search engine crawlers that index your pages and determine search results. However, if that page says "your_company_name.com/items/Laser_Tag_Arena," that might help your SEO, and it certainly won't hurt it. Our system has been designed to autopopulate that kind of useful information on item pages to the page path URL, so that's what we mean (along with other efficient programming techniques like automated caching and picture size management that ensure fast page load speeds, which is an important SEO criterion) when we say our software naturally augments your SEO work.
To that end, we firmly believe that, while hiring an outside SEO expert can sometimes be a good move, as they can supplement and refine your efforts, they can't do it FOR you, or replace you. You are ultimately your own most important SEO expert! That's because SEO really comes down to providing good, useful content for your customers, and you're the person who knows your market and customers best! So our goal is to make it easy for you to create and share that good content, and then back you up by amplifying all your hard work through best-practice, elegant, behind-the-scenes programming.
Another thing: keep in mind that all the SEO in the world by itself won't necessarily lead to conversions, i.e., people actually giving you business. If your SEO is tip-top, but your site is confusing or not user-friendly to the actual humans browsing it, your customers won't stay there and do business with you. So try to follow best practices for user-friendly, strategic web design and integrate your website with Google's free website traffic and conversion monitoring tool, Google Analytics (integration is a simple process with our system), so you can track your conversions. It's also not a bad idea to get your free certifications through Google Analytics Academy and Google Webmaster Academy.
And one more thing: SEO is constantly changing. Make sure that when you're researching it, you're reading from reputable sources, and that the information you're reading is fairly recent, as following advice from five years ago, or even sometimes two or three years ago, can really steer you in the wrong direction and maybe even hurt your SEO!
Absolutely! We made our own CMS (content management system) that allows you to add and edit your own pages and text. It's just like using a word processor. You can make as many pages as you want. For example, once you've collected some nice testimonials about your laser tag company (the automatic surveys do this for you), you can make a "Testimonials" page and it will be automatically added to the navigation on the site. Just copy/clip the text!
Yup. Spanish, French, and German are already available. Need another? Just ask. We have a great way of making new language sites.
We can make your site look and feel any way you want. You can either choose from one of our templates, provide us with a template, or we can take some of the graphic images from your current site and make a new template just for you.
Some companies that have large complicated sites choose to link to our software just for the ordering process, and we do have a Wordpress plugin, so you can keep your existing Wordpress website and embed an online store through our system into it. This works too, but if it isn't huge we suggest moving the pages to our system. Doing so makes the pages easier to maintain and keeps a uniform look and feel throughout the site.
Some companies that have large complicated sites choose to link to our software just for the ordering process, and we do have a Wordpress plugin, so you can keep your existing Wordpress website and embed an online store through our system into it. This works too, but if it isn't huge we suggest moving the pages to our system. Doing so makes the pages easier to maintain and keeps a uniform look and feel throughout the site.
