To assist with preventing no shows, you can allow customers to cancel their Order online from the 'Accounts' page on the shop should they no longer be able to make their booking.
To allow customers to do this you will need to enable cancellations online!
Before you begin setting this up in your offering settings you will need to head to your Shop settings.
How to enable cancellation online?
To enable customer cancellation online head to Settings > Shop settings > scroll to 'Features'.
Here you will see a button for 'Enable customer cancellation', if you toggle this on this will then meant that customers can now cancel items online but this will only be when the item allows it. Remember to 'Save'.
Once you have enabled customer cancellation you will then have to go into the individual offerings and choose what items can be cancelled.
IMPORTANT: In order to enable customer cancellation online you must have set this up in Shop settings AND on the individual offering you want to make online cancellation available for. If only the shop settings or only the offering is toggled on then the cancellation will not be enabled.
How to set up which offerings can be cancelled online?
After enabling cancellation via the Shop settings then head to Settings > Appointment types/ Session types/ Area booking types > edit > 'Availability' tab.
Here there will be an option for 'Customer cancellation'. You can then choose whether or not you want to allow customers to cancel online. The options from the drop down menu are...
Not allowed - this offering cannot be cancelled online. The customer will have to contact you directly if they wish to cancel.
Allowed - this offering can be cancelled online by the customer.
Allowed if unpaid - this offering can only be cancelled online by the customer if they have not paid for it.
If you select 'Allowed' or 'Allowed if unpaid' then an additional option will appear called 'Latest customer cancellation time'. If you select this you will be able to select how many hours or days before the booking it can be cancelled. Whatever duration you select will only allow cancellations up to this amount of time before the booking. If you do not want to restrict the cancellation select 'None'.
When a customer cancels a booking online the payment will automatically be refunded. Therefore, if you select 'Allowed' for 'Customer cancellation' and then do not choose a time restriction this means that the customer could cancel 5 mins before their treatment and get a refund, so do be weary of this!
IMPORTANT: In order to enable customer cancellation online you must have set this up in Shop settings AND on the individual offering you want to make online cancellation available for. If only the shop settings or only the offering is toggled on then the cancellation will not be enabled.
Customer journey - How to cancel a booking online?
To cancel a booking as a customer on the shop they will need to log in to their account on the shop front and head to the person icon. From here select the 'Orders' tab.
This will display a list of all the orders that have been booked through this account.
To cancel an order, the customer will have to select 'View and manage order' on the order they wish to cancel.
There will then be a button titled 'Cancel item' (if cancellation is allowed)...
If you select this and this item has been set up as being able to be cancelled there will be a warning sign asking 'Are you sure you want to cancel this item?'. The customer then has the choice of either 'Yes, cancel item' or 'No, go back'.
Once cancelled and the order will then have a 'Cancelled' label next to it (highlighted in first screenshot) and when you view the order the item that has been cancelled will have been crossed out...
If you select 'Cancel' for an item that is not set up as being able to be cancelled, a pop up message will appear stating that 'Bookings of this item type cannot be cancelled online, please contact us', therefore, the customer will not be able to cancel this item themselves.