How Cali Party Bus Books Passengers with Jotform

At its core, Cali Party Bus transports passengers to desired locations, and then back to where they started. But that doesn’t really tell the whole story. With bus interiors that include nightclub-worthy speaker systems, flashing laser lights, flat screen TVs, dancing poles, and fog machines, the fun pretty much begins the moment someone hops on board.

Popular for everything from bachelorette parties to company retreats, the Oakland, California-based charter bus company transports the world’s happiest passengers to a wide array of destinations all around the San Francisco Bay Area. The key to passenger happiness is the intimate social experience provided on each bus, which range in size capacity from 10 passengers all the way up to 50.

Owner, Matt Berger, started Cali Party Bus in 2007 in San Diego, but soon thereafter opened operations in the Bay Area, seeing it as a lucrative opportunity.

But back then, things were different. When a customer wanted to book a trip with Cali Party Bus, they either called the number on the site or sent an email to the listed address, while Matt and his team waited for responses. But his web developer recommended trying Jotform for a lead generation form, and that vastly improved the quantity and quality of the responses.

With a lead gen form embedded already asking all the preliminary questions Cali Party Bus needed to know from potential customers, it made the follow-up conversation a lot smoother. Matt and his team implemented a rule to follow up with a customer inquiry within five minutes of them filling out the form — a move that also drove conversions.

Collecting Payments

Almost as important as getting the correct customer information and promptly scheduling a bus, is getting paid. For credit card authorization before a customer’s event, Cali Party Bus uses Jotform’s integration with Authorize.Net to collect the initial payment. The form asks for an uploaded picture of an ID, as well as a signature — both easily enabled on any Jotform form. And when customers are about to embark on their ride, they can pay the balance owed for their trip in person, directly through the driver.

Watch a video about how Jotform and Authorize.Net work together to provide customer payment solutions to small businesses:

One added benefit of using Jotform and Authorize.Net’s integration is that Cali Party Bus’ customers can reserve a ride from anywhere, any time of day. It replaced a workflow of having to ask customers to give their credit card information over the phone for their deposits. And as result is using an embedded payment form for their credit card authorizations, they’ve seen a significant uptick in the number of people reserving vehicles. The company also says that nearly 40 percent of their website traffic comes from mobile devices, which made it critical to have an online payment form on the site that someone could send payment through without hassle.

Cali Party Bus has been using Jotform since 2009, and gets the most out of their account by using forms for a myriad of different types of data collection — including customer feedback, lead generation, collecting payments, and adding different packages to a customer trip.

Would you like Jotform to feature your business? Fill out our Case Study Request Form and we’ll get back to you.

AUTHOR
Chad is a former VP of Marketing and Communications at Jotform. He’s also a frequent contributor to various tech and business publications, and an absolute wizard with a Vitamix. He holds a master’s degree in communication and resides with his wife and cats in Oakland, California.

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