Client self-service cancellations

Every booking confirmation email includes a Manage Your Booking button. Tapping it takes the client to a private page where they can see their appointment and — if they're still inside your cancellation window — cancel it themselves without calling or texting you.

This article explains what clients see, what you see, and how to set the cancellation rules.

What clients see

The manage page is dead simple. There's no login. The link itself is the auth — each booking has a unique URL.

Clients see:

• Date and time of their appointment
• Service(s) and the staff member they're booked with
• Total duration and price
• Your salon's name, address, and phone number (with a tap-to-call button)
• A "Cancel Booking" button — only if they're still inside the cancellation window

That's it. There's no reschedule button, no chat, no upsell. To move an appointment, the client cancels the existing one and books a new time on your public booking page.

The cancellation window

Whether the Cancel button shows up depends on the cancellation notice period you've set for the location. By default it's 24 hours — clients can cancel any time up to 24 hours before the appointment, after that the button disappears and they see a message asking them to call you instead.

To change the window:

1. Go to Settings → Bookings.
2. Scroll to Cancellation Policy.
3. Pick a notice period from the dropdown — options are 2, 4, 12, 24, or 48 hours.
4. Save.

The change is live immediately and applies to every booking from that moment forward.

Which to choose?

• 2–4 hours — generous, lots of last-minute cancellations. Use this if your no-show rate is already low and you'd rather have an empty slot than an angry client.
• 12 hours — overnight buffer. Clients can cancel before bed for a morning appointment, but not on the way to it.
• 24 hours (default) — the industry standard. Long enough to text the next person on your waitlist.
• 48 hours — strict. Use for high-value services (colour, extensions, weddings) where rebooking is hard.

What happens after a client cancels

When a client clicks Cancel Booking:

1. They're asked for an optional reason.
2. They confirm.
3. The booking status flips to cancelled.
4. The slot becomes bookable again on your public page.
5. The cancellation reason (and "Cancelled by client on …") gets appended to the booking notes — so you have a record.
6. You and the assigned staff member are notified by email (or SMS, depending on your notification settings).
7. If the booking was a multi-service appointment, all services in the group are cancelled together — they're treated as one appointment.

The cancelled booking stays on your calendar greyed-out so you have a paper trail and accurate stats. To clear it from view, the staff member can delete it from the calendar.

Past the deadline

If a client tries to manage their booking after the cancellation deadline has passed, the page still shows their appointment details — but the Cancel button is replaced with:

The cancellation window for this booking has passed. Please contact the salon directly to make any changes.

…followed by a tap-to-call button (using your location's phone number from Settings → Location Details). Make sure your phone is filled in or this button won't appear.

Cancelling on behalf of a client

When a client phones to cancel after the deadline, you can still cancel for them from your end:

1. Open the calendar and click their booking.
2. Change the Status dropdown to Cancelled.
3. Save.

This frees up the slot the same way a client cancellation does.

Tips

• Tighter isn't always better. A 48-hour window doesn't reduce no-shows on its own — it just shifts them to "didn't bother to cancel". Pair stricter rules with deposits for high-value services.
• Keep your phone number current. The "call the salon" fallback only works if Settings → Location Details has your real phone number.
• Watch the cancellation reasons. Reasons accumulate in the booking notes and on the client profile. If the same client cancels three times in a month, that's a useful pattern.
• Don't hide the cancel button to lower cancellations. Clients who can't self-cancel become no-shows. Self-service cancellation is the single most effective no-show reducer in TimeToBook — it just shifts the cancellation from "vanished" to "I knew about it in time to fill the slot".