How to set up a booking cancellation policy and cancellation reasons
Set up selectable cancellation reasons and configure your cancellation policy.
In simpleERB, you can set up custom cancellation reasons and a cancellation policy for bookings, in hopes to assist in monitoring and deterring customer no-shows or late cancellations.
The cancellation set-up is listed in the 'restaurant settings' section.
You can have both a cancellation policy and selectable reasons enabled, or just one or the other, depending on your requirements. If you have 'none' selected for the 'cancellation in advance', this means a customer or staff can cancel a booking at any time.
Cancellation Policy
The cancellation policy has a selectable period of 1 hour to 2 weeks prior to the booking date/time. When a chosen period is selected, this cancellation policy is applied to every booking.
Note: Setting a cancellation policy will not allow the customer to cancel their own booking via the email cancellation link during the protected period. When the booking enters the cancellation policy, the link is disabled and the customer is prompted to contact the restaurant directly.
This prevents last-minute cancellations which can be missed during service, allowing the restaurant to decide if penalty charges apply as outlined in your terms & conditions.
Important: If you are enforcing no-show/last-minute cancellation penalty fees, please ensure these are clearly highlighted in your booking terms & conditions.
The policy will be highlighted on the online booking widget, customer booking confirmation, and reminder emails.
When a customer calls to cancel a booking within the policy period, the booking cannot be marked as cancelled unless 'manager authorisation' is entered to ensure any potential penalty charges are addressed.
Cancellation Reasons
Cancellation reasons can be enabled and customised to allow your staff to record the reason for their cancellations. These are recorded on the booking for your records and included in the exportable cancellation report.
There are default reasons provided, which you can edit to your preferences. You can also set specific reasons to allow 'free text' for additional details.