Hi @Marlissal. Yup, no-shows are the absolute worst. There ought to be a law! Ha. Anyway, You are free to define your own cancellation policy. Square requires the following statement and they add it automatically — “We ask that you please reschedule or cancel at least 2 hours before the beginning of your appointment.”. You can add your own policy to that.
Honestly, if you are having a lot of problems with no-shows right now, I’d recommend making it tough enough that people think twice about wasting your time. Something like “Prepayment is fully forfeited in the event of a no-show.”
Once you have reduced or eliminated the number of no-shows, you might change your policy to something like you will retain 50% of the prepayment in the event of a no-show. But that would be up to you and your comfort level.
One more thing. If you upgrade to the Plus subscription, you can require customers enter a card on file that you can charge in the event of a no-show.
I wish you less confusion and weariness!
This phenomenon has been frustrating restaurants for years, especially around the holidays. People think nothing of making reservations (Party of 10) at 5 different restaurants and then choosing one at the last minute, leaving the other 4 high and dry. The last full-service restaurant where I was the Chef du Cuisine started requiring cards to hold a reservation and then charging a flat $25 per head for no-shows. Out of that, 25% of that went to the servers 10% in the tip-out pool and the rest the restaurant kept. Trust me, once word got around that nonsense stopped on a dime! Sometimes you just have to hit people over the head with a big stick. Ha.
