Booking cancellation policy: how to write one

A good cancellation policy fits into four or five sentences and answers five questions: until when a booking can be cancelled, how to do it, how long the venue waits for the guest, what counts as a no-show, and what happens if the guest doesn't come. Below we look at why such a text is needed, what to put in it, and give three examples of wording you can adapt for a restaurant, a club and a salon.

Why rules are needed

Without written rules, any disputed situation turns into a conversation of the “that's not what we agreed” kind. The manager has to decide on the spot, often under pressure from a queue or an unhappy guest, and differently every time.

Rules give you three things:

• The same treatment for everyone. Any member of staff answers the same way, and the guest doesn't feel they were treated unfairly.
• A basis for a decision. You can point to a text the guest saw before the booking was confirmed, not to the personal opinion of the shift.
• Fewer no-shows. When people know that a table is held for a limited time and that cancelling takes one message, it's easier for them to write “we can't make it” than to vanish.

Rules shouldn't be a punishment. Their job is to explain how the venue works with bookings and to make good-faith behaviour the easiest option.

What to include

A list of points; pick the ones that suit you.

1. The deadline for cancelling without consequences. “No later than three hours before the visit.” A specific time is clearer than the word “in advance”.
2. How to cancel. “Write to us in the same chat” or “through the bot”. One step.
3. The holding time. How long a table or a specialist waits after the booked hour.
4. The definition of a no-show. The guest didn't come and didn't warn you within the set deadline.
5. The consequences. From a calm note on the card to conditions for the next booking. Write only what you're prepared to carry out.
6. Special cases. Large groups, holiday evenings, long treatments, private events. For these you can set an earlier cancellation deadline.
7. A deposit or minimum spend, if you use them. State the terms in plain words: what's needed and when it's returned or counted towards the bill. You handle the money yourselves; the GuestKeepr bot states these terms as text and doesn't take payments.

What shouldn't be in the rules: long legal phrases, a list of a dozen points, and threats. If the text doesn't fit on a phone screen, nobody will read it to the end.

Three examples of wording

These are templates. The numbers in them are arbitrary; put in your own.

Restaurant

We hold your table for 15 minutes after the booked time. If your plans change, write to us no later than 3 hours before your visit, and we'll free the table for other guests. If you don't come and don't let us know, we'll note it on your card, and for your next booking on a Friday or Saturday evening we may ask you to confirm it separately.

Club

Your table at the club is held for you until 00:30. For groups of eight or more and for the VIP room, bookings can be cancelled no later than a day in advance. If you need to change the time or the number of guests, write to the manager in this chat. We'll tell you the deposit terms for particular evenings when you book.

Beauty salon

An appointment can be cancelled or moved no later than 4 hours before it starts, and for long treatments no later than a day before. Your specialist will wait for you for 10 minutes; after that the time may be given to another client. If you couldn't make it, just write to us: we'll find you a new time.

Note that each example has a deadline, a method and the venue's position, and the tone stays calm. Adapt them to yourself: a club and a salon work at different rhythms, so the deadlines differ too. For more on the specifics of salons, see the article about client no-shows in a salon.

Typical mistakes in the wording

• Vague deadlines. “Cancel in advance” means something different to everyone: one person thinks an hour is enough, another thinks a day is needed.
• Rules that aren't kept. If the text says one thing and in practice you do another, the document loses its meaning.
• An accusing tone. Phrases like “in the event of your failure to appear we reserve the right” read as a threat. Explain the reason in plain words: another guest could have had the table.
• Too many exceptions. Every exception has to be clear to the staff, or they'll start deciding in their own way.
• Rules only on the website or social media. A guest who came through a messenger won't see them.

Test the text like this: read it aloud through the eyes of a guest who is seeing the venue for the first time. If somewhere you want to ask “what does in advance mean?”, make it precise.

How to tell the guest

A rule the guest hasn't seen doesn't work. The terms have to be shown at the moment when a decision can still be made, that is, before the booking is confirmed.

Ways to get the rules across:

• In the first reply to a booking request. “We confirm a table for Friday at 20:00. We hold it for 15 minutes; you can cancel with one message up to three hours before.”
• In a pinned message or the account description in the messenger, so the text is to hand.
• On site. In the menu, at the host stand, in the appointment confirmation for a salon.
• By phone, with a mandatory note on the booking card that the terms were stated.

An example conversation, as an illustration: a guest writes at 23:40 and asks for a table for tomorrow. The answer: “A table for four is free at 20:00. We hold it for 15 minutes, and you can cancel with a message until 17:00. Shall we confirm?” The guest answers “yes”, and the terms were stated before the confirmation.

Try not to send the rules as a long wall of text after the booking: people read what's put into the conversation while agreeing the booking, not what arrives afterwards.

Where to keep the rules, and how the bot does it

Rules that only one member of staff knows disappear with them. Record them in one place that the whole team takes them from.

The minimum: a document with the text of the rules and a note on each booking that the terms were stated. If bookings are kept in software, the history of cancellations is stored there too.

In the GuestKeepr virtual front desk it's done like this.

• The owner enters the deposit or minimum spend terms, the cancellation terms, offers and ready answers in the “venue profile”.
• The bot tells the guest these terms as text. It doesn't invent rules itself and doesn't take payment, so a deposit, if you have one, remains your arrangement with the guest.
• The bot answers in the guest's language: Russian, English, Romanian or Armenian.
• If a guest asks for an exception to the rules, or a question doesn't fit the ready answers, the bot hands the conversation to a person, and a member of staff gets a notification in Telegram and can take over the chat from the dashboard.
• In the dashboard a booking has the “didn't come” mark, cancelling and moving, and the log shows who did what. If a member of staff cancels or moves a booking, the guest gets a message in their messenger (in WhatsApp, provided the 24-hour message window is open).
• A booking whose guests are already seated can't be cancelled or moved, so a mistaken cancellation in the middle of the evening is ruled out.

If your main pain is no-shows, also look at the article about restaurant no-shows: it describes how to keep records and a ladder of responses.

Frequently asked questions