Quick swap: let a late cancellation go without the fee

A late cancellation is awkward for everyone. A client messages on the morning of their appointment: a sick child, a shift they could not swap, a car that will not start. Your policy says the fee applies, and it is there for a good reason. But charging it can cost you a regular, and letting it go costs you the time and the money.

Quick swap is a third way. The time goes to someone on your waitlist who wants it. Nobody pays a fee, and the chair stays full.

What the client sees

Clients open their booking from the Manage my booking button in their emails. With Quick swap on, and only when cancelling now would cost them a late-cancellation fee or their deposit, the page offers an Ask to swap out button. The cancel button beside it reads Cancel (fee applies), so the choice is plain.

Underneath, a short note headed Can't make it? Swap out instead says what will happen. Their time is offered to people on the waitlist. They stay booked until one of them takes it. It says what becomes of their deposit, and by when offers stop. They confirm with Yes, offer my time. Until someone takes it, they can change their mind with Withdraw my request.

What your waitlist sees

Bookatu offers the time to matching clients on your Waitlist, up to five at a time, each with a one-tap link by email. Clients who have agreed to texts get it by text too, when texting is set up. Anyone who joins the list later is offered it as well, until offers stop. A waiting client is never offered the same time twice, and the client who asked is never offered their own time.

The link opens a page headed A spot is up for grabs. The first person to tap Take this spot gets it. They are booked into the same time, with the same person, room and equipment. If the service takes a deposit, they pay their own on the next screen, as for any online booking.

The time is never free for anyone else in between. The old booking lets go of it only at the moment the new one takes it.

What the client who asked gets

When someone takes the time, the client who asked is released. Their booking is cancelled with no late-cancellation fee, and they get an email to say so. Their deposit is never lost. You choose what happens to it, under Their deposit, when a swap goes through:

• Refund it, to their card or to the credit they paid with. This is where it starts.
• Keep it as account credit for their next booking.

A refund that Stripe refuses stays on the booking for you to handle. If nobody takes the time before offers stop, the client stays booked and is told so. They can still cancel then, with your usual fee.

What you see

On the Calendar, a booking with an open ask is marked Swap asked. Open it and a Quick swap card shows where it stands: Swap out asked, with the time offers stop, then Swapped with a link to the new booking, or Withdrawn, or Closed. The new client's booking has its own Quick swap card, marked From the waitlist, linking back.

When a swap goes through, you get an alert and an email. It names both clients and the new booking, and says what happened to the deposit.

Switch it on

Quick swap is off by default. Until you switch it on, late cancellations, fees and deposits work exactly as they do today.

• Open Settings and choose Quick swap, under Essentials.
• Turn on Let clients swap out of a late cancellation.
• Set Stop offers before the start, in hours, from 1 to 336. It starts at 2, because a waiting client needs time to get to you.
• Choose what happens to the deposit.
• Tap Save Quick swap.

Offers stay open after your normal online changes close, right up to that cutoff. Changing these settings needs the Manage the business permission, which owners and admins have from the start.

The fee was never the point. A full chair was.

Two things worth checking

• Your Free cancellation window and Keep the deposit on a late cancellation, under Deposits & cancellations. Together with any late-cancellation fee, they decide when cancelling counts as late, and so when a client is offered the swap.
• Your Waitlist. Quick swap can only pass a time to someone who is waiting for it, so it works best when clients have a list to join.