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Cancellation

Allow customers to cancel a reservation​

Empowering your customers with the flexibility to manage their reservations can enhance their overall experience. With TheBooking, you can grant customers the ability to cancel their reservations, ensuring they have control over their commitments.

When this setting is enabled, customers can cancel their reservations in two ways:

  1. Reservation Management Link in email: upon making a reservation, customers receive a confirmation email. If the email content is set up with the appropriate dynamic placeholder, it will contain a link directing them to a specific page where a widget is displayed, allowing them to manage their reservation, including the option to cancel it.

  2. Reservation Status widget: if your website has a designated page with the Reservation Status widget and customers are logged in, they can navigate to this page to view and manage their reservations, including the option to cancel them.

To ensure the reservation management link in the email functions correctly, you must designate a Reservation Status Page. Here's how to configure it:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Core > Redirects.
  2. Find the Reservation Status Page option.
  3. Select a page from your website where a plugin widget is present.
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It's worth noting that the widget on this page doesn't necessarily have to be a Reservation Status widget. If the page is accessed via the email link, the plugin will automatically transition to display the Reservation Status widget, even if the original widget on the page is the booking widget.

Cancellation reason​

To gather insights and understand why customers might be canceling their reservations, you can enable the option for them to provide a cancellation reason.

Once activated, when a customer proceeds to cancel their reservation, they'll be presented with an optional field where they can detail their reason for cancellation. This feedback can be invaluable for improving your services and understanding customer needs better.

To view the cancellation reason:

  • Access the reservation record in the plugin backend and open its details.
  • If you have set up cancellation notifications for the admin or service provider, ensure the content includes the dynamic placeholder [reservation::cancellationReason]. This will display the customer's cancellation reason in the notification.

Cancellation timespan​

To ensure smooth operations and minimize disruptions, TheBooking provides an option to set a specific timespan before which customers can cancel their reservations. After this timespan, the cancellation option will be disabled, ensuring that last-minute cancellations are prevented.

For instance, if you set it to 2 days, customers won't be able to cancel their reservation if the start date-time of the reservation is less than 2 days away.

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It's essential to communicate this policy clearly to your customers during the booking process to avoid any misunderstandings or dissatisfaction.