Front End Booking Features

An attractive, engaging front-end interface that streamlines the booking process in order to maximise sales conversions is extremely crucial. Fido offers superior control over the look and feel of your website to be customised to fit your online image. By facilitating site-wide consistency, page reformatting and the separation of content from presentation, CSS ensures that maintaining the front-end is a simple procedure that all authorised staff can perform at speed.

The flexibility Fido offers the administrator, with the capacity to spontaneously create or update promotional content about accommodation, specials and other facilities the resort may boast, is combined with the newest and best in interface aesthetics.

Fido integrates seamlessly into the framework of the leading content management systems that DogHouse employs, such as Drupal or Joomla. These centralised but expansive platforms allow the user to edit content through the front-end, so that fresh information or events may be created through the interface of the webpage. The process of managing information that alters regularly, such as room rates, is facilitated by this easy functionality, while rich text editing enhances the application's sensitivity to your website's broader theme. Once the updates are complete, simply save and apply the work and the website instantly updates with the new information.

Booking

The booking interface is Fido's primary concern and chief strength. As explained below, information regarding accommodation and availability updated through the system's back-end is instantaneously replicated on the front-end interface. Customers access the booking engine through a variety of channels: from the 'rooms', 'specials' or 'packages' sections, or by checking availability for certain dates straight from website's front page. Essentially, Fido's entire operation is streamlined to direct customers to the booking engine.

However they access the booking engine, customers will be presented with the same interface, which simplifies and centralises operations. The interface presents them a clear, logical grid template (again fully customisable) displaying information on price and availability for each type of accommodation for a seven-day period.

Below this table, information on the room selected and fields for information on the number of rooms, nights and guests is presented to the customer. At the bottom of the page is an information summary, including the total cost of their stay. Having selected the relevant specifics of their intended stay, the customer enters their contact and payment details, and then completes the booking.

Fido incorporates an innovative set of technologies that operate under Ajax technology to ensure optimum fluidity and efficiency in the booking engine. Many commercial booking systems use the traditional web applications model, which generates a fresh HTML page every time the customer updates their data or seeks new information. Ajax's innovation is to render the user interface such that the user sees one page that updates its information without reloading. While the Ajax engine communicates with the server and specifically alters the relevant data, the webpage maintains a continuous interface. Ajax ensures that user interaction with Fido is functional, efficient and of maximum style and simplicity for your customers.

Typically, commercial booking systems are controlled and regulated by a third party operator. As a client, this means either that your customers are directed away from your website to access the booking engine on a separate hosting site, or that you must accept the rigid limitations on flexibility and customisation that come with framing a generic, 'drop-in' engine within an existing website. These endemic flaws can be inconvenient for both you and your customers, and hence the reason that Fido is designed on an entirely different template.

Because you assume creative control of Fido, the booking engine is tailored to function as a component part of your existing site, and it reflects your design ideas and requirements. The entire system remains customisable throughout its lifetime, and since the complete autonomy you are guaranteed is supplemented with DogHouse's expert support service, Fido's unparalleled functionality is effortlessly maintained without any ongoing licensing or operating charges. Fido is absolutely free of any 'lock-in' features or commercial limitations.