Introduction
Sapphire Pawnbrokers is a part of the Associated Security Group, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the last few years, building and maintaining their websites throughout the group alongside getting involved in marketing campaigns and graphic design. The group approached me with the idea of creating a new walk-in-focused pawnbroker branch in Central Manchester and wanted to discuss lead generation and a website to help drive foot traffic and appointments for the branch.
The main focus of this build was to create an easy-to-use online booking system for customers to schedule their walk-in appointments, detailing the nature of their appointments and the type of service they needed at the branch.
Our Approach
Functionality was key here, it needed to be a simple website that introduced the business and drove the customer to book their appointment in a few easy steps. I started by collating a few ‘out of the box’ solutions for the site’s booking system alongside a custom-developed option, however, we decided that the ‘Booknetic’ system provided everything that the client needed and much more, saving the cost of a bespoke build.
The Booknetic solution allowed me to tie in the booking calendar directly to the business’s internal calendar so that staff could easily view and manage the bookings that came in, there’s a ton of automation built into the system too, so as part of the setup, I built the full customer journey post booking into the site.
Design
A logo and brief design guide had already been developed by the client, however I offered a few branding alternatives as part of the package, but they decided to stick to what they had already produced, so it was then a case of creating a design that fit their style. Following a few mockups, we had a signed-off design that then went into development.
Development
This was a fairly quick build, with the design already signed off and every touch point leading back to the embedded booking system, the client wanted a site that they could manage themselves, making changes as they go as they would have a member of staff responsible for it.
To make this as easy as possible for them, I used the Elementor page builder plugin to create the site, along with all of the templates that they’ll need for blog posts and to create additional pages and functions along the way.
I also created a number of guides and tutorials on how to make basic changes and walked the client through them all during the handover.
The Outcome
The site has been live for a number of months now and is performing well, I’m still supporting the client with the site on an ADHOC basis, but generally, they’re able to manage it internally well. Since launch, I’ve also been working with the client to make the most out of Booknetic system, setting up some of the other built-in features such as revenue tracking for each booking, and developing the automated emails further to cover additional needs of the store when they’ve introduced a new service or communication requirement.
