Leaving Hostaway because of their booking fee?

Not interested inquries

cp9293
Apr 24, 2012 2:33 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 395 posts

How does one handle inquiries that people do not respond to, or are not interested? Do you delete those? IF so, which area do you find them all in?

What is the process for these transactions, after quoted. Do we change the expiration date to today, so they don't stay OPEN?

Claudia

Michelle J
Apr 24, 2012 2:48 PM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 582 posts

Hi Claudia,

Don't delete anything. If you do that, you'll lose valuable tracking info. You'll want to see, in our future reporting module, which listing sites sent you the best inquiries, which converted to bookings the most, etc.

You can certainly change the expiration to be expired if you want, but there's really no reason to unless you no longer want the person to be able to accept it. Just leave it as it, and it will expire on its own.

Our software takes care of automatically expiring quotes or preempting them (if someone else books the same dates). Once you respond to an inquiry or quote, you don't need to do anything else to get it to become inactive. Just let it go and the system will take care of it.

Again, DO NOT delete anything UNLESS you created something by mistake. It's best to leave the records around so you can find them later.

-Michelle

cp9293
Apr 24, 2012 2:57 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 395 posts

I don't like things left OPEN, when I know they are no longer interested, or haven't answered. I like everything neat and in a bow. I know, I am a pain. :)

As long as I could go in there and change the EXPIRATION DATE, then that would be good. Unless... in the future you have an extra option stating... Uninterested or No Answer, etc. :)))

Claudia

cp9293
Apr 26, 2012 9:48 AM
Joined Apr, 2012 395 posts

Do you think you have an option we can click on to state UNINTERESTED or NO ANSWER?

Claudia

Michelle J
Apr 26, 2012 9:55 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 582 posts

Hi Claudia,

I think what we want is a single DECLINED flag with a possible explanation. Sometime's the guest will say "too expensive, sorry!" or something like that that you would put in the explanation.

We could have a button on the quote itself with "Decline" on it so that the guest can say it themselves and provide their own explanation, though few probably will.

NO ANSWER is taken care of by the expired status. If someone doesn't answer for a few days, the quote will automatically expire. To me, EXPIRED = NO ANSWER.

Thoughts?

-Michelle

cp9293
Apr 26, 2012 10:27 AM
Joined Apr, 2012 395 posts

Decline sounds good, but it would have to be the owner that would say it, possibly. They probably will not come back to the quote, on their own, to just fill in DECLINE. However, when I send out my followup letters, that is when they would tell me and I would fill it in, at that point. You know what I mean?

Claudia

Michelle J
Apr 26, 2012 10:35 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 582 posts

Yes, in the way I envision it, you AND the guest would both be able to mark it as declined. You could mark it from the control panel, and the guest could mark it on the public quote form. Again though, I doubt few if any guests would actually do that. It would mostly be for your records.

-Michelle

cp9293
Apr 26, 2012 10:38 AM
Joined Apr, 2012 395 posts

Exactly, the guest would nearly never be filling that out.

Claudia

SP
May 20, 2012 8:24 PM
Joined Apr, 2012 20 posts

Hi Michelle,

I think my sister asked this question already but don;t remember the answer. Do you envision setting up follow up correspondence from Owner Rez in the future? I know for now we need to do it manually but just curious if it's on the drawing board for a future enhancement.

Thanks Silvia

Michelle J
May 21, 2012 10:17 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jan, 2011 582 posts

The idea is on the dev roadmap, but it has not been designed or scheduled. There are a lot of unknowns surrounding this. As I'm sure you know, guests could be "not interested" for a lot of reasons or even have been interested but had dates change or had some other conflict.

-Michelle