How to start a bike rental business: Running operations

Successful and well-kept processes help keep things like inventory management, customer service, equipment maintenance, and so on streamlined and under control from the shop’s point of view. At the same time, streamlined processes have a direct effect on the customer experience — when a rental shop’s processes are in line, it creates a professional and reliable image for the shop, all while allowing the staff to focus on providing the best and smoothest service for the customers.

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at what advice our industry professional has regarding the essentials of running a rental shop.

The essential processes & operations

✔️ Promoting your rental business
✔️ Establishing a social media presence
✔️ Running an e-commerce website
✔️ Customer service
✔️ Equipment maintenance
✔️ Utilizing different tools

Promoting your rental business

The importance of marketing cannot be highlighted enough — particularly during the time period before you even open up your rental shop’s doors. You want to do as much of awareness marketing as you can in order to let people know of your existence and convey a good vibe about your shop in advance. You already win half of the battle when potential customers are aware of you before they even realize they need your services.

Just like we mentioned in our previous post, balance is key. You don’t want to over-promote yourself and end up not being able to meet the demand.

Establishing a social media presence

‘’Especially for a smaller business, it pays off to put in effort into social media — even with a zero budget, you can do so much and ultimately find your target audience.’’

Even if you’re not putting in a lot of money into the promotions and ads, if you take into account the working hours that it takes to create the materials and content, you’ll see that you actually do spend a considerable amount on marketing. However, investing in marketing and content creation pays off. Roll Outdoors’ have experienced a clear interest and demand for the content they produce, and it’s evident in their stores’ activity levels.

Running an e-commerce website

A part of effective marketing is maintaining a good, solid website that you direct your followers to. In addition to the visual side of the website, make sure to have all the needed, accurate information available on your website. Things like general store info, opening hours, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. are things potential customers will be looking into.

To make running your store even more efficient, integrate a booking system onto your website. Not only offering the opportunity to book gear straight away but also providing the customers with detailed product descriptions and clear instructions, makes the renting experience so much easier and smoother for the customers.

Take a look at what makes an e-commerce website successful and how to write accurate listings.

Customer Service

‘’Making the customer feel welcomed, giving tips on routes, helping with the equipment, making sure they have the right equipment, and overall taking care of them will never stop being important.’’

Being available to answer questions or concerns, does not only provide better customer experience and a better reputation for your business, but it also increases the probability that the customer will go through with their booking.

Equipment maintenance

Since the rental equipment is the center of the business, it’s really important to prioritize and really take care of the equipment. If there was something to happen in the midst of a customer’s rental period due to the lack of maintenance work, or if the product was not up to par with what they expected to receive, it might ruin the customer’s whole trip.

Letdowns do not only have a negative effect on the overall customer experience, but also on the reputation of the rental shop, which leads to losing potential customers.

Utilizing different tools

‘’Don’t get stuck on the same old systems — when your business starts to grow or change, make sure you always choose the tools that are suitable for you and that can meet your needs.’’

Don’t hesitate to try out different systems — for each process you should have some kind of tool that will help you manage the process better and keep it systematic and streamlined.

For example, Roll Outdoors utilizes multiple platforms and systems in order to keep their processes in check — Rentle for bookings and inventory, separate one for scheduling the equipment’s maintenance work, another one for employee shifts, and so on.

This is a snippet from our second part of our series ‘‘How to start a bike rental business’’. For the whole article & all the tips visit our blog here!

👉 Download our free e-commerce for rental shops e-book for more industry trends and tips.