Repeat Guests - Custom message triggers

I'd love to send repeat guests slightly modified versions of our standard messages. "Looking forward to having you back!" -- that sort of thing. Right now, I can't figure out any way to set a message template to trigger specifically for repeat guests (and then set my standard ones for every other guest). Would love to see that ability integrated into trigger options!

Hi Alece,

Could you just not setup a tag for prior guests and assign it to every guest after their departure (after all, once a guest has stayed with you, any contact they have with you makes them a repeat guest) and then use the tag in your triggers to have a different version of your template sent out? You could have an 'original' version and a 'repeat guest' version of your templates, and which one gets sent by a trigger is determined by what tag has been applied to the guest? A new guest would not have the tag applied, and get the original email, the repeater would have the tag applied and get the repeat guest version.

Robert -- Having to tag every guest after their stay is certainly an option, but it's a tedious step we would rather avoid!

There was also a feature request about having tags automatically assigned when a booking is created, so this could solve the issue you are raising.

But you did bring it up, which leaves me confused. If you would have to tag every guest then why bother? Every guest is every guest, and they can be emailed without a tag.

Perhaps what you're really thinking of is those guests that have stayed with you a second time, making THEM a repeat guest. If that's the case, then would it really be that much work to tag those particular guests after their second stay?  In my case it would only represent perhaps 5 - 10% of my guests. And those guests that have stayed more than once are certainly worth the effort.

I hope that makes sense... unless I'm missing something?

I'm not trying to send out an email blast to previous guests. My goal is then when someone books another stay with us after having already been a guest, that our template messages sound more personable and warm and acknowledge the fact that they're returning guests. As it is now, they receive all the same standard messages as when they initially booked their first stay because there is no way to target them with a modified message via available filter criteria. 

So then when a guest books as a repeat, add a tag for that to their record. And have all of your templates duplicated as necessary to send out the 'repeat guest' version of your emails when the tag is present. And send out the 'normal' one when it is not.

You only have to tag the repeat guests when they book, as a repeat guest. That should be easily doable, no?

Or is the issue that you can send out the repeat guest version using a tag as I suggest, but that wouldn't stop the regular one from going out as well?

Let me think on this and try a couple of experiments, as I need to solve the same issue for my own situation.  I'll get back to you...

That would work for the follow-up messages, yes. However the guest would have already received the primary initial correspondence (booking confirmation) same as they did on their first booking. And it necessitates that for each booking that comes in across all our properties, we have to manually check if they're a repeat guest and add the tag. not really plausible for us (maybe for others that would work). Again, looking for an in-system option to do this more fluidly. Appreciate the creative thoughts though! 

Could you not add to the trigger the requirement that the guest's departure date is more than two weeks previous? Only a previously stayed guest would have a departure date like that. A new one, or future booking, would not. (Their departure date would be later.) So create your template, assign the departure date criteria to it, and it will only go out to those guests who stayed with you before. New guests wouldn't get that email.

It would take a bit of testing to ensure it operates as desired, but you can create a very narrow departure date window so that the email would only go out for one particular booking, one that you have setup for the purpose, or your own booking, just to use as a test case. Once it is working as desired, remove the second date requirement, and the email should go out to just previous guests.

Let me know if you try this and how it goes.

Robert

Sadly that wouldn't work as the booking field criteria is for the NEW booking. It's not referencing any previous departure associated with the guest, but the departure date of the new booking itself. 

Well... I gave it a good shot. At least I have a workable solution for my situation going forward. I wish you lots of luck with yours and hopefully a new feature will come out to provide what you need.

You've got my vote! :)

This is a great idea, Alece! It really deserves more votes!

Alece,

I am with you!

I don't understand why this doesn't exist as I noticed that OwnerRez already identifies that they are a repeat in the booking screen.

Reached out on another thread but this seems easy to automate to me since their is existing functionality.

Would certainly make for better dynamic messaging!

I think there is ONE rather simple step that could allow much of this to be done in various ways to suit a multitude of uses.

Make the repeat guest counter an available field in both templates AND triggers.  The field already exists, it's here:

This would allow TRIGGERS to filter on values over or under a certain value and, in my case, allow email and SMS TEMPLATES to show the counter value. I want my team to know when they get a text message how many prior bookings a guest has had.    Ex:  LastMinRes: Guest Name (number of prior bookings) 

However, this field is the total number of bookings, both prior and future.  While I think it is still very helpful to round this out, add

• number of prior (completed) bookings
• total number of prior (completed) night

Ideally, these should be part of all reports that include a guest name. Even if optional, a daily or weekly check-in report should likely have this information available.