Don't cancel, postpone: quick and easy solutions to achieve it

For some weeks now, Roiback - a leader in managing the direct sales channel for hotels - has been offering our Booking Center module free of charge to our clients.

Received with enthusiasm by our clients in Europe, Latin America and Asia, the objective is to help mitigate the difficult situation that the sector is going through due to the expansion of Covid-19.

The Booking Center module is specifically designed for reservation departments and Call Centers, allowing cancellations and modifications to be managed in a simple and fast way.

In this article, we describe 5 examples of real situations in which our Booking Center module helps our clients. All of them with the purpose of maintaining - and not canceling - reservations, at a time when every reservation counts.

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1. A client wants to cancel, and as an alternative the hotel postpones the arrival dates while maintaining the price. In this case, the reservation is non-refundable.

The first step is to agree with the client on new arrival dates, maintaining the same price. Next, the dates of the reservation are changed, and subsequently, the reservation is saved, sending the confirmation from the Booking Center module.

              Number of steps / clicks: 3

              Estimated time: 60 seconds

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2.    A customer wants to cancel, and as an alternative, the hotel postpones the arrival dates, offering an additional discount for future dates. The rate is flexible and within the cancellation period without charge.

Instead of canceling the reservation, the hotel offers the customer to postpone the stay for future dates, including a discount as an incentive. In this case, a new room is added with new arrival dates. It informs what the price of the reservation would be for the new dates, applying the original price and the discount percentage agreed with the client. This price will only be visible for reservations via Call Center.

After removing the original room, proceed to save the new reservation and send the new confirmation to the customer.

              Number of steps / clicks: 5

              Estimated time: 120 seconds

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3.    A customer wants to cancel, and as an alternative, the hotel postpones the arrival dates offering a free upgrade to a superior room or board basis. The rate is flexible and within the cancellation period without charge.

Instead of canceling the reservation, the hotel offers the customer to postpone the stay for future dates, including a room or board upgrade as an incentive. In this case, the hotel changes the dates and saves the reservation, sending a confirmation by email.

You can also send an automated quote or estimate by email, which the customer will have 72 hours to confirm.

                 Number of steps / clicks: 3

              Estimated time: 60 seconds

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4.    A customer wants to cancel, and as an alternative, the hotel offers to postpone the arrival dates offering an additional night for free. The rate is flexible and within the cancellation period without charge.

Instead of canceling the reservation, the hotel offers the customer to postpone the stay for future dates, including an additional night free of charge as an incentive. The hotel changes the arrival dates, adds one night (or several if applicable) to the room and saves the reservation, sending a confirmation by email to the customer.

             Number of steps / clicks: 3

             Estimated time: 60 seconds

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5.    In a reservation with multiple rooms, the occupants of both rooms want to cancel. The hotel manages to keep one of the two rooms, postponing the arrival dates and applying a 5% discount as an incentive.

In this case, it is a reservation with an advance payment of 20%. The hotel convinces the occupants of one of the two rooms to keep their reservation by offering a 5% discount on the original rate.

Instead of canceling the entire reservation, the hotel removes one of the rooms from the reservation, and modifies the new arrival dates of the second room, applying a 5% discount as an incentive. Finally, it saves the new reservation and sends the confirmation to the customers who keep the reservation.

             Number of steps / clicks: 4

             Estimated time: 90 seconds

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These are just some examples of advanced reservation modification functionalities.

To complement the functionalities of the Booking Center module, we will soon launch the “anti-cancellation” voucher option, which will allow reservations to be postponed without the need to define future dates. The guest will receive a voucher with a balance equal to the cost of their reservation, which they can redeem in the future when making a new reservation. This functionality will be available in the Booking Center module and the vouchers will be redeemable from the booking engine. We will tell you more very soon!

Step by step and working together, we will move forward.

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#DontCancelPostpone #stayathome

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