I receive a large number of inquires from a site via email that OwnerRez does not recognize or convert into inquires when the email arrives, despite the fact that the emails are specifically sent to my unique OwnerRez Inquiry email address. (It is frustrating that with every inquiry email that comes in, OwnerRez asks "Is this an Inquiry?" on its web page, to which I want to respond "Yes! Otherwise it wouldn't be sent to this particular email address!"
OwnerRez does not 'parse' these inquiries, because OwnerRez actually does not parse any email inquiries. Instead, OwnerRez 'demands' that any listing site submit their inquiry emails with the inquiry data not only in the body of the email, but also in the SMTP headers of the email, and in a particular form, so that they will populate the inquiry form on OwnerRez.
I suspect the owners of this particular listing site have refused OwnerRez's requests to modify the format of their inquiry notification emails for a couple of reasons, one of which happens to be that they also provide a competing PMS system to OwnerRez, and do not see why they should have to spend time doing development work making up for OwnerRez's failings to include a true parsing engine with its own software.
It also may not be a practical request, because it may be that if every PMS requires that a site's inquiry notification emails include SMTP headers formatted in a particular way, that they would be called upon to do additional programming work for every single PMS site that is out there, and that is not their responsibility.
Parsing an email would mean that when it arrives, OwnerRez's own programming goes through the email body and extracts the data needed to populate an inquiry, and a good parsing engine would be able to do this from any email inquiry text, no matter how it is formatted. Parsing is the name for the process of recognizing, extracting and converting data in one format to the one used by the recipient or next processor.
If a system can only recognize data and accept it if it comes in a particular format, then it isn't actually parsing anything; the data is arriving pre-formatted and no parsing is required, it just needs to be 'dumped' into the inquiry fields.
My old PMS software did an exceptional job of this. If an email inquiry arrived, it didn't matter from who or how it was formatted, it did an excellent job of creating a new inquiry with all of the data properly formatted and populated in the inquiry fields. And if their parser was not handling the inquiries well, a simple email request would see the issue resolved within 4-5 days. Sadly, they went out business, and I am now using OwnerRez instead, because it is the closest PMS to what I used to have.
As things are now, I have to manually go through almost every inquiry I receive, and copy and paste every piece of information it contains, one by one, out of the email and in to an OwnerRez inquiry form. It is a ridiculously tedious and tiresome process, and wastes my time, every day. It is the kind of thing that software is supposed to be able to do.
Zapier is an online service designed to 'connect' unrelated systems, through creating a series of steps called 'Zaps'. A Zap contains a set of instructions; when this happens, do this; when that happens, do that. There are a small number of these types of services available online, and I suspect Zapier is the most popular of them.
A Zapier Integration includes a series of Actions which one can employ on Zapier to set up various tasks to be accomplished, and OwnerRez has a Zapier Integration, so one can set up certain things to happen; such as when a new booking is created in OwnerRez, certain tags are added to it, or a copy of the booking info could be sent to a different system, or into a Google Doc, for example. But all of the Actions available in the OwnerRez Zapier Integration relate to Bookings – there are no Actions that involve inquiries.
Why this matters
The Zapier system has an excellent Email Parsing Engine - it can go through practically any email and extract and convert the data out of it. It isn't automatic, but it can be taught once what to do with a particular type of email and it will from then on accurately and automatically pull anything needed from any subsequent similar emails, and send it on its way.
If Booking Actions were added to the OwnerRez Zapier integration (something that OwnerRez would be responsible for doing) it would mean that ANY inquiry from ANY source could be processed through a Zap and a new inquiry in OwnerRez would result, with all of the data populated in the correct fields. It would replace all of the manual copy and paste I have to do on all of my inquiries. And Zaps could be created for inquiries from ANY listing site.
In addition, practically any action that you would like to have occur when YOU receive an inquiry, from any source, could be set up to automatically happen.
Would you like to send a text message using a separate, outside service when you receive a new inquiry? You could do that. Would you like to send a mailed paper letter to the guest as a follow-up to an inquiry? You could also do that (an additional third party mailing service would be required).
Would you like to automatically create multiple quotes for different properties when you receive an inquiry for only one of them? You could do THAT!
The point is, you could do anything you could possibly want to do when you receive an inquiry! Automatically.
And I wouldn't have to manually copy and paste every piece of data in an inquiry, every time I receive one from this site, multiple times, every day.
I have specifically requested this of OwnerRez, but was told that the reaction on the part of the powers-that-be was "their enquiry processing is so good that there is no value or need in creating additional actions for inquiries in their Zapier integration." I disagree. If the inquiry processing was so good, an outside service like Zapier wouldn't be needed to eliminate my manual copy and paste processing of inquiries. But... at least Zapier is a path to eliminating this drudgery, not just for this particular listing site, but ANY of them in the future.
Plus, adding Inquiry Actions to the OwnerRez Zapier Integration would open the door to all sorts of possibilities for ALL OwnerRez users, whose potential use for this I can't even imagine. But you can!
So please, give this request your support and vote, because even if you wouldn't use this feature now, it is highly likely that you will think of some use for it in the future!
Trust me on this. Even if you don't understand what Zapier is or what can be done with it, practically anything you want to do, which OwnerRez presently does not do with an inquiry, can be automatically accomplished if the appropriate Inquiry Actions are added to the OwnerRez Zapier Integration.
Give this your vote!
Thank you!
