Rules & Regulations

Taking Bookings

In this topic:

• Taking bookings
• Terms and conditions
• Cancellations, no shows, amendments, refunds and compensation
• Guest registration

A booking is a contract

However it is taken - verbally, electronically or in writing - and whatever it is taken for - a laser shooting birthday party, a guided tour, a wedding reception, an overnight hotel room or a week in a cottage by the sea - a booking constitutes a legally binding contract. The customer contracts to purchase and pay for a service or product and the business contracts to supply it.

As a result both you and the customer have rights and responsibilities under law. Some rights are immutable, no matter what you put in your terms and conditions - the right, for example, to a refund if something is faulty. But others can be - should be - influenced by your business' terms and conditions, for example the amount of time a customer must give for a cancellation so as not to incur a fee, or your right to eject someone for anti-social behaviour.

It is therefore vital that you have terms and conditions for the bookings you take, and that they set out:

• What the customer does and doesn't get, and what they can and cannot do
• How you or the customer cancel a booking and any refunds or compensation

Terms and conditions are a customer service

Don't think terms and agreements are tedious and off-putting legalese. Well written terms and conditions should be plain English and readable (this is actually a requirement of law) and they should really be part of your customer service. You are making the customer aware of exactly what they are getting and what they can and cannot do, and you are setting their expectations. Good terms and conditions inspire confidence and clarity, and can help you avoid problems, complaints and customer dissatisfaction.

Have good procedures

Having quality procedures that you and your staff always follow when taking an enquiry and making a booking helps to avoid many problems later. You should have clear procedures, and train (and test) your staff in them, for taking enquiries and bookings:

• over the phone, in person, by email, by letter and on the web

However the communication takes place, your procedures should include:

1. providing clear, helpful information about your products and services
2. taking down customers details for an enquiry and collecting all the relevant information you need to sell your products and services (including where they heard about you, the data protection question and any further 'profiling' you might like to do)
3. making your customer aware, at the point the enquiry turns into a booking, of your terms and conditions and where possible getting your customer to indicate that they have understood them (this could be a tick box on the web, a member of staff reciting the most important aspects over the phone - use a checklist - and asking the customer if they've understood, emailing a copy and asking for a response, or mailing a copy and asking them to return a signed copy)
4. taking any relevant deposit or payment

You should also have clear procedures for, and training on, how to handle cancellations, no-shows and complaints.

Use a booking form

For every booking you take you should use a form that shows:

• your business name and contact details (including, preferably, the member of staff who took the booking, or a contact for dealing with any enquiries about the booking)
• who is making the booking, and all their party details as relevant to your business (one address of the lead booker is usually enough, but names and ages -especially of children - of other party members are often useful)
• what they are booking (what is included and anything that is excluded that might be assumed to be in, eg lunch on an all day seminar)
• when the booking is for (dates, times, no of nights etc as necessary)
• the price (what it includes and, for the sake of clarity, what it excludes that might be assumed, as before and any deposit and/or bond paid/payable)
• your terms and conditions (see next section)

Deposits or credit card details

Taking a deposit is a really good idea. It gives the customer an incentive to stick to their deal and gives you an easy method to get compensated against no-show, cancellation or damage caused by the customer. You must, however, set out terms and conditions under which you would not return all or part of the deposit. You could also take credit card details as 'security' but you must store these safely - they are sensitive information - and you must tell the customer the conditions under which you'd charge their card, eg cancellation within a certain time-frame, no-show, damage, taking additional goods or services etc.

Insurance

Where appropriate, especially for higher value bookings, you should encourage your customers to take out insurance. You can offer insurance yourself, contact your local insurance broker or use the Toolkit to see which North East insurers are offering particular services to tourism businesses. But you cannot force customers to take your insurance - that is against the law.

Also in this topic:

• Terms and conditions
• Cancellations, no shows, amendments, refunds and compensation
• Guest registration