When a customer books with Quirky Campers, they have often visited our website hundreds of times, perusing dozens of vans. They have fallen in love with the van they book, which is exactly what we want to happen, and what makes our business special.
If they are then informed that the van will no longer be available, most people are very upset. Many will choose to cancel (even if they are offered the opportunity to transfer the booking to a new owner – they have lost their trust). Those bookings that are transferred have a higher rate of complaints and issues. We speculate that this is because customers already have had a less than perfect experience.
We work really hard to get bookings so we need to know they'll go ahead wherever possible. Cancelling bookings is always very distressing for customers and often results in us losing a booking and the customer losing faith in Quirky Campers. This has a detrimental effect on all other owners who work hard to keep our collective excellent reputation. There is also a cost to us in time and in offering appeasement credit on future bookings. So we need to make sure you understand your obligation to honour the bookings you have agreed to. It is part of the promise to all our customers and that certainty and security is one of the reasons customers choose Quirky Campers. If your vehicle is written off or irreparably breaks down then we would always be happy to contact the customer on your behalf but when the reason for cancellation is within your control, we ask that you try to make alternative arrangements with the customer first before we look for an alternative. Please refer to section 10 of the owner agreement.
We're committed to making the hire process a fair and positive experience for both our customers and owners. If the customer chose to cancel at this point, you would be within your right to retain the deposit so we need to give customers the same reassurances when they make a booking with us that it will be honoured.