200 unpaid bookings a month → zero.
Vera Sport is a family-run tennis club in Łódź with 8 courts. For years, no-shows were treated as "part of the cost of running a club". Receptionists phoned players with reminders, and they still didn't turn up. After switching to Playmore with mandatory online payment, no-shows disappeared — and nobody left the club.
No-shows: the silent drain on tennis revenue
In tennis, no-shows are structurally harder to control than in other sports. A tennis court can't take a last-minute "walk-in" player — playing time is planned precisely and two people have to arrange to play together. When one of them doesn't turn up, the whole court sits empty for the full hour.
Vera Sport lived with this problem for years. Around 200 times a month, someone booked a court and didn't come. Receptionists phoned with reminders — with little success. The club couldn't charge the player because it didn't have their card. It couldn't give the court to someone else because it didn't know in advance that the court would be free. Every no-show meant 20–30 PLN down the drain — over a month, that added up to 4,000 PLN.
Edyta Wiśniewska considered introducing no-show fees but worried how regular customers would react. Without a system that takes payment automatically and applies the cancellation policy, there was no way to enforce it fairly and without conflict.
What changed
- Bookings by phone and text — no upfront payment required
- Around 200 unpaid bookings a month — players simply didn't turn up
- Losses of ~4,000 PLN a month on empty courts, with no way to charge the player
- The receptionist phoned players with reminders by hand — to no effect
- No data on which customers were "serial" no-shows
- Payment by card or BLIK (Poland's mobile payment system) required for every booking
- No-shows fell to zero — you can't book without paying
- Automatic text reminders 24h and 1h before each booking
- Cancellation policy: full refund up to 24h before, no refund after that
- The best slots go to players who actually turn up
Three metrics that changed
When payment is required at booking, people either really want to play or cancel in advance. Nobody "forgets" a court they have paid 40 PLN for. Since switching to Playmore, the club hasn't recorded a single no-show.
Each unpaid booking cost the club 20–30 PLN in lost revenue on average. Multiply that by 200 and you get what the club was losing every month. Now every booked slot is a confirmed payment.
The best slots (17:00–21:00) are now taken by players who actually turn up. With no-shows no longer cluttering the schedule, other people can book those courts — and they do.
"My biggest fear was that members would leave. They didn't. Occupancy went up — because the best slots are now taken by people who actually show up."
What Vera Sport uses in Playmore
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