A Waiting List Instead of a Closed Form

The form that says no

By mid-December, plenty of service businesses are full. Every slot until the holidays is taken, and the booking form on the website gives way to one line: fully booked, try again in the new year.

The line is honest, and it is a dead end. Someone reading it has no way to say they would take a cancellation, a January date or the first opening of any kind.

So they leave, and they book with whoever still has a working form. Some would never have waited. Many would have, if anyone had asked.

A waiting list keeps the door open without promising anything, as long as it is honest about the odds.

What a closed form gives away

• Cancellations that come with a day's notice and nobody to offer them to.
• January bookings from people who would have chosen a date if asked.
• Contact details for a customer who was ready to book.
• Group bookings that could have moved a week or changed size.
• The next search, which finds a competitor still taking requests.

The first is the one that stings in December. Plans change in every month, through illness, weather and family, and a slot that opens on Thursday for Saturday is wasted unless someone is ready to take it.

What the list asks for

Keep it shorter than the booking form: a name, a phone number that takes text messages, an email address, and what the person wants, such as the service, the group size and the dates that would work.

Ask how much notice they need. Someone who can come at a day's notice is exactly who a late cancellation needs, and the answer decides who hears first.

Ask whether a January date would do instead. Many people will say yes, and that answer turns the list into next month's bookings.

Leave out anything needed only once a booking is confirmed. Deposits, waivers and dietary notes can wait.

Say how likely an opening is

The most important sentence on the page is the one that sets expectations. "Join our waiting list" on its own lets people assume they are next in line for something.

Say what usually happens instead: "Openings in December are rare and usually come with a day or two of notice. Most people on this list book a January date."

Then say how offers will arrive, and how long people have to answer before the slot goes to the next name.

People accept a no they were warned about. What they resent is silence after a form that sounded like a booking.

When a slot opens

Decide in advance who sends offers, and how. A text message is usually read within minutes; an email may sit until evening, which is too late for tomorrow afternoon.

Offer each opening to one person at a time, or to several at once with the first reply taking it. Either is fair, provided the page said so beforehand.

When a slot is taken, tell the others it was offered to. A short note saying that one has gone and they are still on the list keeps their goodwill.

A worked example

A laser tag arena in an industrial park takes birthday and office parties through a booking form on its website. By the first week of December, every weekend slot until the new year was taken.

The form was switched off and replaced with a note saying the arena was fully booked for December. Walk-in games were still running every evening, but the note did not mention them.

Calls kept coming, and staff wrote names on a pad by the till. When an office party cancelled a Saturday slot, nobody could find the number of the parent who had asked about that afternoon.

The closed form had not stopped the demand. It had only stopped the arena from recording it.

The note became a waiting list form asking for group size, possible dates, notice needed and whether January would suit.

The page now says openings are rare, offers go out by text and must be confirmed within two hours, and everyone on the list chooses January dates before they open to the public.

A line above the form points walk-in players to the evening schedule, which the old note had hidden.

January is where the list pays off

Most people on a December waiting list will not get a December slot. The list earns its keep in the new year.

Before January's calendar opens to everyone, contact the list with dates held for them. They asked first, and they already know what they want.

Do it in the first days of January, not the third week. By then the birthday on the list has been celebrated somewhere else.

A waiting list is not a mailing list

Someone who joins a waiting list has asked to hear about a booking. That is not the same as asking for your newsletter.

Replying about the booking they asked for is expected. Adding them to promotional email is a separate question under Canada's anti-spam law, best settled with a separate box, left unticked, for anyone who wants the newsletter.

Keep the list where only the people making calls can see it, and delete it once January is booked.

Where the list belongs

Put it where the booking form was, under the same heading, so people who bookmarked or searched for the booking page land on it.

And tell staff it exists. A caller should hear the same offer the page makes: full for December, but on the list and first in line for January.

The counter-case

Some businesses rarely see December cancellations they could fill, such as work booked weeks ahead with deposits and preparation. Their list is really a January list, and should say so.

A business with nobody free to send offers quickly should not promise texts within the hour. A simpler list that only offers January dates is better than a fast one nobody runs.

For most, though, when the calendar fills, swap the closed form for a waiting list that is honest about the odds.

Before the next cancellation

1. Replace the closed form with a waiting list.
2. Ask for dates, group size and notice needed.
3. State the odds in one plain sentence.
4. Decide who sends offers and how.
5. Set a reply deadline for every offer.
6. Offer the list January dates first.
7. Delete the list once January is booked.

Step three is the one that keeps the list from backfiring. A waiting list with no stated odds reads like a booking, and a booking that never happens is remembered longer than a polite no.

Showing what is still free before the calendar fills is covered in holiday booking pages for a service business.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.