How Energy Badminton Centre cut no-shows by 80%

When we first started working with Energy Badminton Centre (EBC) in Bundoora, their no-show rate sat around 18% on weekday off-peak slots. That meant roughly one in five booked courts went unused — a court paid for, but a court no member could grab last-minute either. For a 12-court centre running 14 hours a day, that’s real revenue walking out the door.

Two changes — both small, both Daifo-native — brought it down to under 4% within ten weeks.

1. Prepaid bookings, always

EBC used to allow a “reserve now, pay at the centre” option for members. It made sign-up frictionless, but it also created a class of bookings that cost the customer nothing to skip. We worked with their manager to turn it off in Daifo’s settings — every booking now collects payment at confirmation, either via card or by drawing down on the customer’s Daifo Credit balance.

The effect was immediate. Members topped up their Daifo Credit in $30–50 chunks at the front desk or in the app, then spent it like a tab. Casual customers paid by card. The act of putting money down before walking through the door made people show up.

2. A 60-minute cancellation window

The second change was a free-cancellation deadline set at 60 minutes before the booking start. Cancel earlier than that and the credit goes straight back to the customer’s account. Cancel later — or don’t cancel at all — and the centre keeps the fee.

This isn’t a punitive measure. It’s a signal: “if you genuinely can’t make it, tell us early enough that another player can grab the court.” The result wasn’t more revenue from cancellation fees (those barely registered). It was more secondary bookings — courts that freed up 70+ minutes out got snapped up by members watching the schedule.

What didn’t matter

We tried a few things that turned out to make little difference:

• SMS reminders. EBC sends a reminder 24 hours and 2 hours before each booking. Useful for member experience, but the no-show rate barely moved when we A/B tested with and without the 2-hour message.
• Punitive deposit policies. A higher cancellation fee didn’t reduce no-shows further — it just made the few customers who did flake feel worse about it. We rolled that one back.

The takeaway

If your centre runs anything close to 15%+ no-shows, the simplest wins are usually upstream of the booking itself: collect payment at the time of booking, and set a free-cancellation cutoff that’s long enough to be fair but short enough that the court can be re-booked. Daifo handles both as settings — you don’t need new hardware or a new workflow, just five minutes in the merchant portal.

Want to see EBC’s setup? Book a 20-minute demo and we’ll walk you through it on a live account.

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