How to Avoid Double Bookings When Renting Out Halls and Rooms
Double bookings happen when the calendar and requests are separate. See where the mistake comes from and how to prevent it by hand or with a system.
Published 6 min read
A double booking happens when the same room has been promised to two customers for the same time. To avoid it, you need one reliable calendar where all bookings are recorded and a check that does not let an overlapping time be entered. Below are the most common causes, rules that work by hand and what a smart system does.
How a double booking happens
Usually it is not carelessness. The cause is how things are organised:
- Several channels. Requests come by email, phone, Facebook and in person. If the calendar exists only in one person's head or file, another employee cannot see it.
- A promise before confirmation. You say on the phone "Friday is free" but do not note it anywhere. An hour later a colleague promises the same time to someone else.
- Several calendars. One calendar for halls, another for accommodation, a third for the whole house. A whole-house booking does not block the individual rooms.
- A forgotten buffer. One event ends at 4 pm and the next starts at 4 pm, even though an hour is needed for cleaning.
- Simultaneous entry. Two people enter a booking at the same moment and neither sees the other's.
- An old quote. A customer accepts a quote sent weeks ago, but in the meantime the time has been given to someone else.
What a double booking really costs
The simplest consequence is an awkward conversation: you have to tell one customer that the room is not free. In the worst case you lose the customer, have to offer a replacement, pay compensation or damage your reputation. There is no point naming a figure here, but one day, when two customers are standing at the door, you will realise that prevention is cheaper.
Manual rules that work
If you are not yet using a system, these rules help:
- One calendar. All bookings, including provisional ones, go in one place. Not a "reminder" or a notebook.
- No promises before noting. Calendar first, then the customer.
- Temporary hold with a deadline. If the customer is thinking, mark the time "on hold" until a specific date and then release it.
- A buffer around every event. Enter setup and cleanup in the calendar as separate time.
- Block all rooms for a whole-house booking. And the other way round: if one room is taken, the whole house is not free.
- Mark recurring bookings separately. Weekly arrangements are the easiest to forget.
- Check again on confirmation. Before confirming a quote, check that the time is still free.
- One person is responsible. If there are several staff, agree who looks after the calendar.
Table: cause and prevention
| Cause | Prevention |
|---|---|
| Several channels, no single calendar | One shared calendar for everyone |
| Verbal promise | Note it in the calendar first |
| A pending request that is not held | Temporary hold with a deadline |
| No buffer | Put setup and cleaning in the calendar |
| Whole house versus individual rooms | Linked blocking |
| Old quote | Check again on confirmation |
What a good system does
Manual rules work as long as everybody follows them. A system can do this work for you, but check exactly how it does it. Three levels:
- Warning. The system shows the overlap but still lets you save. That is better than nothing, but not protection.
- Check in the application. The application refuses an overlapping booking. With two simultaneous entries a mistake can still occur.
- Check in the database. The database itself does not accept two overlapping bookings for the same room. This is the most reliable.
Also helpful are temporary holds with a deadline, a buffer before and after a room, a link between whole-house booking and individual rooms, and a web form that shows the customer only free times. See also what a conference room booking system should be able to do.
A checklist for the week
If you want to quickly review your current arrangement, go through this during the week:
- Do all staff know where the calendar is?
- Of last month's bookings, are there any that exist only in an email and are missing from the calendar?
- Are whole-house and individual room bookings linked to each other?
- Are setup and cleanup marked for upcoming events?
- Do pending requests have a deadline after which the time is released?
- Do quotes have a validity period?
Every "no" is a place where a double booking may arise.
Example: how an ordinary week can go wrong
Example: on Monday a company asks by phone for the hall for Friday evening and the administrator answers "it's free". She does not note it in the calendar because the customer promised to let her know. On Tuesday a wedding request arrives from the web for the same Friday and a colleague, who sees nothing in the calendar, confirms it. On Wednesday the company confirms. Now there are two confirmed customers and one hall.
Nobody has to be at fault for this to happen; the cause is that the promise never went into the calendar. The rule "calendar first, then the reply" would have prevented it.
A web form as protection
One of the simplest ways to reduce the risk is to let the customer see only free times. If the web form shows only free times, the customer cannot ask for a time that is taken and you do not have to say "no" to it. It also reduces back-and-forth correspondence: the customer chooses a time that really exists.
Special cases that get forgotten
- An event running over. The customer asks to stay an hour longer. Before you agree, check whether the next booking allows it.
- Changing rooms. If you move an event to another hall, release the original hall in the calendar and check that the new one is free.
- Repairs and maintenance. Enter these in the calendar in the same way as bookings, otherwise someone will sell that time.
- Your own events. In-house meetings and events belong in the calendar too.
What to do if a double booking happens anyway
- Say so as soon as you notice. The earlier the customer finds out, the more options there are to resolve it.
- Check which booking was confirmed earlier and in writing.
- Offer a replacement time or another room, or if necessary another venue.
- If you have promised to refund a deposit, do it without delay.
- Review how the mistake arose and fix the process. On compensation or contract terms, consult a lawyer if needed.
How Saalo solves this
Saalo refuses to save overlapping bookings of the same room, at database level. In addition there are temporary holds with a deadline, a setup and cleanup buffer, whole-house booking and a web form that shows only free times. When a customer accepts a quote, availability is checked again before the booking is confirmed. See the features, the pricing or the solution for your type of venue, for example manors. For preparing quotes faster: how to prepare a venue quote.