There are circumstances where you do not want bookings from specific customers to be confirmed automatically so that you can screen who can make bookings with your business and avoid dealing with problematic customers.
In your Bookeo dashboard, you can set that bookings made by a specific customer require approval from your staff members. When this feature is activated for a customer, account users must approve a booking request before the booking can be confirmed. Staff members can also deny the booking request and optionally provide a reason why the request is not confirmed.
In this article:
- Set that bookings made by a specific customer require approval from your staff members
- Set that bookings made by a specific customer no longer require approval from your staff members
Set that bookings made by a specific customer require approval from your staff members
If you do not want to automatically accept bookings from a specific customer - identified by the email address associated with the customer profile - and want to manually review any booking requests made by that customer:
1. In your Bookeo dashboard, go to Customers
2. Click on the customer profile
3. In the Status section, tick the Require approval [1] checkbox
4. Save
Registration settings
Account users can set that bookings made by a specific customer require approval only if you set that new customers must set a password when they make their first booking, or verify their email address or set a password only if they make a subsequent booking.Account users can not set that bookings made by a specific customer require approval if you do not require customers to set a password or verify their email address.
Click here to learn more about the options for customer accounts with your business.
This setting applies to new bookings and doesn't affect existing bookings.
A customer that requires approval will still be able to purchase gift vouchers, prepaid packages, and enroll in memberships.
If the customer uses a new email address to make a booking, the system will create a new customer profile. Therefore bookings made by the new customer won't require approval from your staff members.
Payment terms for bookings made by a customer requiring approval
If you have set to collect a deposit or full payment to confirm bookings, you will have to set the timeframe when a payment is required if the booking request is accepted, and if you want to be notified or automatically cancel the booking if payment is not received within that timeframe.
1. Go to Settings>Booking Preferences
2. In the Payment after acceptance for customers requiring approval section, set the timeframe [2] when a payment is required, either:
- after the booking request is accepted, or
- before the start of the appointment
If payment is not received by that time, you can set that the booking request will be [3]:
- automatically canceled, or
- that Bookeo will notify you that the payment is overdue
What happens if the Accept/Deny feature enabled for the tour/class/workshop
- Payment deadline: If the accept/deny feature is enabled for the service booked, the stricter Payment after acceptance rule - the shortest timeframe - will be applied.
- Automatically accept booking requests when a minimum number of participants is reached: if this feature is enabled for a tour/class/workshop, booking requests made by customers that require approval will not count towards the minimum number of participants required, and the booking request will not be automatically accepted.
Accept/Deny a booking request made online by customers requiring approval
If a customer requiring booking approval makes an online booking, you will receive a booking request in your Bookeo home page.
You can click on it to accept or decline it
1. Accept the booking request
To accept the booking request, click the Save button. If you accept it, and tick the Send email to customer checkbox, an email will automatically be sent to the client, informing him/her that the booking has been accepted.
If you have set that you require payments to confirm the booking, the email will always be sent, even if you do not tick the Send email to customer checkbox, and it will contain a request for payment within the time you set. If you set that you want to automatically cancel booking requests within a specific timeframe if payment is not received, the timeframe for the automatic cancellation will also be included in the email.
2. Decline the booking request
If you decide to deny the booking request, you can type a message to be sent to the customer.
Create a booking from your dashboard for customers requiring approval
If you create a booking from your dashboard calendar for a customer requiring booking approval - selecting the customer using the autocomplete function -, the warning message Manual booking confirmation is required for this customer will show in the booking tabs.
Set that bookings made by a specific customer no longer require approval from your staff members
You can turn off the feature that bookings made by a specific customer no longer require approval from your staff members at any time:
1. In your Bookeo dashboard, go to Customers
2. Click on the customer profile
3. In the Status section, untick the Requires approval checkbox
4. Save
Once saved, all future bookings made by that customer will no longer require approval. This will not automatically approve existing booking requests. Those booking requests will still require manual approval in order to be confirmed.