It goes without saying that canceling bookings, and receiving cancellations from customers, is something everyone wants to avoid. But sometimes that’s just not possible. And when the worst-case scenario happens, we want to help you out.
That’s why we’ve reworked our cancellation feature. Now, you will:
- Be more likely to keep customers, as we’ll direct them towards rescheduling instead of canceling bookings whenever it’s appropriate
- Find it easier to cancel when you really need to, with reworked bad weather and extenuating circumstances options
- Understand your listing’s ranking better, by learning more about the consequences each time you need to cancel
- Get more insights from your customers, thanks to more emphasis on messaging throughout the process
Let’s see what’s new.
Meet Cancellations 2.0
When you used to cancel a trip, you often didn’t get the chance to tell us the whole story. Now, we’ll guide you through a set of actions that will help us learn a lot more about your situation. This means we’re less likely to need to call you after you cancel a trip, and you can save valuable time.
The way your customers cancel bookings has changed, too. Just like you, they now go through a set of steps that are tailored to their situation.
Whenever it makes sense, we’re now encouraging them to contact you or to reschedule their trip rather than canceling it outright. This will help you save bookings when you really need them.
You’re Covered When You Really Need To Cancel
Extenuating Circumstances
You now have more options when you go to cancel a booking. One of the new additions is “Extenuating Circumstances.” This option gives you peace of mind any time you can’t take a trip due to an emergency.
At the same time, if your customer has an emergency, they can now claim a refund easier and faster, so you don’t need to worry.
You can read more about the types of scenarios that fall under the extenuating circumstances policy here.
Bad Weather Cancellations
We never want you to feel obliged to fish if it isn’t safe to do so. Just like emergency situations, canceling due to a storm or other bad weather conditions is now simpler. It’s also more clear that this does not affect your listing’s ranking.
Now, you can let both us and your customer know you need to cancel at the same time.
This makes things easier for you, your customer, and us. We want to hear about bad weather directly from you, as you know when it is and it isn’t safe to fish. So when you let us and your customer know at the same time, we won’t need to follow up with you for additional information.
More Insight Into Your Ranking and Listing Status
We often get questions about why listings rank the way they do. So a big part of this rework aims to make it easier for you to understand how your actions affect how well your listing shows up.
Our ranking system is heavily influenced by your listing’s reliability score. That means, how often you honor your commitment to customers and take them fishing when conditions allow. This, as well as looking at customer review, means we can promote captains who are most likely to give customers a great experience.
Commission comes into it too, but accepting trips whenever you can will make a big difference to your visibility.
That’s why we’ll now let you know what the consequences of canceling will be for your listing, if there are any. You’ll see this while you’re in the process of canceling, as well as when you review your previous bookings.
When we consider a cancellation to be avoidable – for instance, if you were double booked due to not updating your calendar – penalties will be applied, and this will affect your reliability score.
But, if we can confirm you had no control over the situation that caused you to cancel, your listing’s ranking and reliability score won’t be affected.
Avoidable cancellations don’t just affect your ranking. They also affect:
- Your Instant Book status. After 4 cancellations, this gets disabled from your listing.
- Your reviews. You’ll get an automated review posting saying that you canceled the reservation.
- Your calendar. You won’t be able to reopen the date of the booking you canceled.
For this reason, it’s really important to check that your calendar and offers are up to date. Don’t get caught out unnecessarily!
All this means it’s actually very easy to keep your listing ranking well. As long as you’re operating legitimately and updating your listing regularly, your reputation – and ranking – will grow.
Here’s how it looks to cancel a booking now:
These changes will help you understand more about why your customers may be canceling, as well as how your listing is performing.
Read more here:
Let us know how you find it in the comments below!
