How clients manage their own sessions

Anyone who books a session with you gets a place on your own site where that session lives. They can see when it is, where it is, what they paid, what your cancellation policy said, and, within that policy, move or cancel it themselves. Nothing is set up on your side. It appears as soon as they have a booking.

This is the single biggest saver of back-and-forth in Coaching. Every "can we move Thursday?" email that your client can answer themselves is one you do not have to.

How a client gets there

1. They go to your TribeNest site.
2. They sign in with the same email address they used when booking.
3. They open their account area, then the Sessions tab. On some site designs the tab is labelled Bookings.

The heading on that tab is My Sessions. If they have not booked anything, it says so.

What a client sees for each session

• The session type and the date, start and end time, shown in your time zone where you set one.
• How long it runs.
• Where it happens. An online session shows the meeting link in full, so it can be copied onto another device. An in-person session shows your address exactly as you wrote it. A session on your site shows "Video call on this site".
• What they paid.
• Your cancellation policy in one sentence, plus your own cancellation terms if you wrote any.
• Add to calendar links for Google Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft 365, Apple Calendar and a downloadable calendar file.
• Cancelled in place of the buttons, if the session has been called off.

Joining a video call

For sessions you set to happen on your own site, the client joins straight from this tab. The button appears fifteen minutes before the start and stays available until two hours after the end. Outside that window they are told when the room opens, or that it has closed.

There is no link to send, and there is nothing they can forward to somebody else. They join from their own signed-in account.

You and your client land on exactly the same call screen. Being in a call is worth a read before your first session, and worth sending to a client who has never used it.

Rescheduling

If your cancellation policy lets them, a Reschedule button sits on the session.

1. They click Reschedule and pick from Choose a new time.
2. The times offered are the open slots on that same session type over the next two weeks, in the same time zone the session is shown in.
3. They click a time and the session moves.

You and your client are both re-invited, and the new invitation replaces the entry already in both calendars rather than adding a second one. The booking keeps its price, its questionnaire answers and its location. The old time goes straight back on sale.

If two people go for the same time at once, whoever is a moment later is told the time was taken and picks another.

The button is only there when the session can actually be moved. It disappears once the session has started, once it has been cancelled, and once your cutoff has passed.

Cancelling

If your policy allows it, a Cancel session button sits alongside.

• For a paid session, the full amount is returned through the original payment method automatically.
• The time goes straight back on sale for someone else.
• You both get a cancellation notice and the entry is withdrawn from both calendars.

If your policy does not allow it, or the cutoff has passed, the button is not shown at all. Your client can still email you, and you can cancel from your side. See managing bookings.

What decides whether they can do any of this

Everything above hangs on the Cancellation policy you set on the session type:

• Not set or No self-serve cancellation. No buttons. Every change comes through you.
• Until a cutoff before the session. Both buttons show until your cutoff, then disappear.
• Any time before the session. Both buttons show right up until the session starts.

What clients can do without signing in

The confirmation email is enough for most things. It carries the date, the time, the amount, where the session happens, a calendar file attached, and Add to calendar links. So does every reminder. Signing in is only needed to move a session, cancel one, or join a video call on your site.

Tips

• Set a cancellation policy with a cutoff you are comfortable with. Twenty-four or forty-eight hours is common. A released slot goes straight back on sale and can be rebooked, so allowing it usually costs you nothing.
• Use the cancellation terms box for anything the one-line policy cannot say: late arrivals, no-shows, how you handle refunds outside the window.
• Fill in where sessions happen. Without it your client gets a confirmation with a time and no way to attend, and you are back to sending the link by hand.

Where to go next

• Set the policy that drives all of this in creating a coaching product.
• Do the same things from your side in managing bookings.
• Make sure there are times to move onto in setting availability.