No Show Protection

[Wilyem]

I'm not new to Square Appointments, but new to the No show protection. Just need a better understanding,  If they cancel at the very last minute (after the 1hr) or do not show, would the system pop up asking to charge the card they used to hold the appointment? 

Thanks

[Kassi_]

Hey @Wilyem - 

Welcome back to the Community. 

When it comes to No-Show Protection and charging your customers, you have two different options to choose from. 

Option 1: Setting up a flat fee per service or per appointment to charge your customer for the cancellation. At the time of their appointment, it will ask them for their card information, so you will be able to charge them.Here is a Support Article to get that set up. 

Option 2: Requiring a prepayment at the time of booking. This would require the customer to pay for services in full when booking the appointment. Also, their is a feature to let customers add a tip at this time too. 

I would say most sellers use option 1, but it really depends on you business and what would work best. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions. 

[Wilyem]

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I did set that with the No show Protection. What I was suggesting if the 2 options be separated for Cancellation and No Shows because the options you choose are the same for both. There should be at least a variable when selecting that button charge the card,  to manually put in 100% when you select one or the other.

As for the Prepayment, it was alot of toothpulling when I would explain to my clients I was changing to card to hold appointment to minimize the no shows. So from that,  I know I would loose some clients if prepayment was selected. 

Mayb this would b a good example actually happened last week - New customer made an appt., did an haircut on a teenager, the mom instead of waiting in the waiting room she left, the son said he needed to step outside my suite to call the mother to get a signal (not thinking everyone phone goes off in the suite) and never came back, so since I had the card I canceled the appointment and only was able charge half vs 100% for the service that was received, that they baled on. 

Thanks

[Idontknow]

So if they don't show up, how do you get the card info to charge them?  Can't they easily just walk away?  If so, whats the purpose of this?

[Wilyem]

You don't they just walk away or you have to charge them the next time they come - if that happens (if I remember correctly been sometime since stopped using Square Appointments) if Prepayment has options (like 60%, 70% and so on) so I use square for processing payments only with another scheduler to set my appointments for the other payment options and a better interface. (Squarespace scheduling or Acuity)