Self-cancellation is now an available feature for all accounts! The self-cancellation feature allows your customers to cancel their reservation on their own, through their client terminal, and receive a gift card to rebook with you for a future date and/or time You can also set a time limit for how far in advance you want your customers to be able to self cancel each individual offering or have rules that apply to multiple different offerings.
Self-modification is an available feature for all accounts using the Tickets feature in Flybook. The self-modification feature allows your customers to be able to edit their number of tickets, increase or decrease, as well as change the date and/or time of their tickets on their own without having to call you or wait to ask to make the change until they show up in person to check in for their reservation.
How to set up self-cancellation:
- Go to Setup --> Internal Setup --> Self Cancellation
- Within Self Cancellation's General setup area, you'll see three checkboxes under Self Cancellation Settings:
-- Select "Allow Self Cancellation of Reservations" if you want your customer to be able to self. -- Select "Allow Reservation Change Requests" if you want your customers to be able to send you a message from within their client terminal requesting a change to be made to their reservation (examples of such change requests might be to reduce the number of people their reservation is for, a date/time change request, etc).
-- Select "Allow Self Modifications of Tickets (Tickets Only)" if you use the Ticket feature in Flybook and you want to give your customers the ability to add and remove tickets from their reservation through their client terminal. Checking this box will also allow your customers to change the date and/or time of the reservation. For more information on how to set up self-modification, please scroll to the bottom of this help article.
- If you selected the "Allow Self Cancellation of Reservations" checkbox, you'll then need to select the gift card type you'd like customers to receive when they cancel. Many users prefer to have a separate type of gift card for these reservation cancellations so they can track these gift cards separately than purchased gift cards. If you want to set up a separate gift card but aren't sure how to do that, click HERE for instructions on how to create a gift card type.
- On the right-hand side of the General Self Cancellation settings, you'll want to enter your policy and any details you want your customers to know when they go to cancel their reservation. It's important to note that the text typed here isn't what actually determines the rules in which someone can self-cancel their reservation, which start setting those up in Step 6, but rather this is a written description to your customers to let them know when and/or what they can self cancel.
- Click Save
- Next, you'll set up the rules around which someone can self-cancel their reservation. Click the Rules option near the top left of your screen.
- Click Add New and then name your rule (this is just the name and does not actually determine the rule). Once you've named your rule, click Create.
- Click the name of the rule you just created from your list of rules.
- That will open a box on the right-hand side of the screen to edit/create the actual rule. If needed, you can edit the rule name here. This is also where you'll set that cutoff time for how far in advance someone can self-cancel. This can be down in days, hours, and/or minutes. Once you've set our rule, click Save.
- Next, you'll assign the rule to the offerings you want it to apply to. Click Assign.
- Select the rule you created in steps 6-9 from the drop-down.
- On the right-hand side, under "Items That Follow Selected Rule", check the box next to each activity, rental, dated pass, ticket, and/or room you want the rule to apply to. These selections will auto-save once checked.
- Now you need to make sure your client terminal settings are set up to allow self-cancellation. Go back to Setup and select Client Terminals under Front End/Web/API.
- Select the terminal configuration that you want to allow self-cancellations through.
- On the right-hand side, under "Main Terminal Settings", check the box for "Allow Self Cancellation and/or Modifications then click Save.
To watch a video demo of the setup process, as well as how a customer would self-cancel their reservation and how you'll know someone self-canceled, please watch the below video.
How to set up self-modification:
- To start setting up self-modification, start by completing steps 1 & 2 from the above "How to set up self-cancellation" part of this help article, making sure to check that third checkbox that says "Allow Self Modifications of Tickets (Tickets Only)".
- Check that box will also give you the option to select a check box that says "Follow Self-Cancellation Rule Time Buffers". If you want your customers to be able to modify their tickets, but only up until a certain time period, you'll check this box and it will apply the same time buffer you created in steps 6-12 of the above "How to set up self-cancellation" part of this help article. If you don't check this box, customers will be able to self modify their reservation right up until their first ticket start time.
- Next, you'll want to craft your "Self Modification Warning Message". When a customer changes their number of tickets, or even sometimes their date and/or time of their tickets, this will often result in a change to the balance due. This could be a positive balance due, meaning they owe you money, or it could be a negative balance due meaning you owe them either a partial refund or gift card compensation. The system will not automatically charge your customers if their changes create a positive balance due nor will the system automatically refund or issue gift card compensation if the changes your customer makes create a negative balance due. Use this message area to communicate to your customers what your plan is for handling this balance due. Examples of this might be:
-- If your changes create a balance due, please be prepared to pay that balance due at check-in.
-- If your changes create a balance due, please use the Make Payment option above to pay the balance due. If you fail to do this, we will charge the card on file. **please note you'd be manually charging this as Flybook won't automatically run this charge**
-- If your changes create a negative balance, we will issue you a credit in the form of a gift card when you check in for your reservation.
Once you've crafted your message, click Save.
To see a demo video of what it looks like when a customer self modify their reservation, please watch the video below: