Last Updated March 21st, 2019
Every so often we take steps toward improving how we structure the community office structure so as to promote fairness and availability for all. As you may imagine a lot goes into these changes including the feedback we receive from members along the way.
Following is an overview of the Cancelation Policy including a history of how it came to be.
Why Is There A Cancelation Policy?
We didn’t start out with a cancelation policy. In fact, it was a glass half full as you can possibly imagine bestowing complete trust that members would simply claim what they need and availability would be plentiful. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. We observed a very significant trend towards booking all the time a member was hoping to have in place for a future caseload only to see a very large number of cancellations when those imaginary clients were not coming to fruition. This created a lot of stress on members who had real clients to see and finding rooms booked but then seeing them empty upon arrival. This created a lose-lose-lose situation.
Since that time we have been tweaking a few different variables including the number of cancels provided, cancelation window (how soon before the booking someone can cancel) and what to do when someone asks for forgiveness, wanting to cancel within a window of time or beyond their allotted number of cancels.
To date, we have learned that there is no perfect solution but do believe that we are getting closer each time we make an adjustment to as fair of a policy as we can understanding that there is always going to be an edge case to consider and more learning to do on our part.
How Cancels Work
Every member who books a community office has a specific number of cancels, a cancel window and support from us to help them navigate the platform.
If you have remaining cancels and are outside of the cancelation window you may cancel an appointment yourself within the portal. Cancels are to be used regardless of the reason including the client requests to reschedule, cancels, or you want to do the same. We trust that you set expectations with your clients regarding your own cancelation policy and that where you can you will charge them for a late cancelation or no-show your full fee. We are also aware that you may offer grace to your clients on occasion (life happens) or may experience a situation that you are unable to support charging a client for a no-show (1st-time appointments, no payment method, etc). We get it. There is no perfect solution that covers every edge case scenario. That said if you decide to offer grace to your clients you will be doing so while still paying for the reservation unless you cancel according to the policy.
Number of Provided Cancellations
Each membership level provides a specific number of cancellations which falls on a rolling 30-day schedule. This means that the count will include the past 30 days regardless of the day of the month. The following number of allotted cancels was developed following an analysis of several years of usage data by members engaged with our community.
Flexible - 2
Growing - 7
In-Demand - 15
Cancelation Window
Each membership level provides a specific cancelation window. This means that up until that time prior to your booking you may use a cancel if you have one left to use.
Flexible - 12 hours (prior to the booking)
Growing - 8 hours
In-Demand - 4 hours
Expectations
Members are responsible for using the software to utilize the provided cancels. If you run out of cancels in a given 30-day cycle or the window for using a cancel closes you will be expected to pay for space.
With that, we are happy to answer any questions you may have. Just send us an email to support@sondercenters.com