Triggers give you a powerful way to communicate automatically. You can respond to guests with personalized messages or notify third parties without lifting a finger! To read more about triggers, check out our Trigger overview and Triggers - Setup & Configuration support articles. We've also created a small library of trigger examples to help get you started.
In this example, we're dealing with a booking for the following scenario:
Scenario: Send Guest Morning of Arrival Information to Your Guest Who Booked Through Your Personal Website
Good guest communication is essential for a positive guest experience. Clear and timely communication can greatly influence guests' perceptions and impact their reviews.
This scenario assumes that the guest has already provided contact information and signed a renter agreement.
By setting up an email or SMS template and trigger, you can send a Guest Arrival Information message template to guests who booked through your personal website. OwnerRez can do that for you with message triggers.
Here are the steps for how to set up a template and trigger for this scenario:
- Create a Booking Message Template to Send Morning of Arrival Information to Your Guest Who Booked Through Your Personal Website
- Create a Trigger That Applies to Bookings to Send Morning of Arrival Information to Your Guest Who Booked Through Your Personal Website
- Variations
Create a Booking Message Template to Send Morning of Arrival Information to Your Guest Who Booked Through Your Personal Website
Go to Settings > Templates to configure the "booking" template type message you want to send to your guest.
There are two choices for the type of template you can create - email and SMS. These are the delivery methods that will be used for your response. To send these types of templates, the booking must have contact information you can reply to. For instance, if you want to send an SMS message as your reply, the guest must have provided a phone number with their booking.
Send by Email
First, we'll create an email template, so go to Settings > Templates > Email tab > click the Create Email Template button > select the "Booking" option. This will open an email editor with some sample field codes filled in. Check out the email templates overview and field codes support articles for more detailed information.
Copy and paste the following values into your new email template.
Name:
Guest Morning of Arrival Information Email Template
From Name:
{MYCOFULL}
From Address:
{MYEMAIL}
To Name:
{CFULL}
To Address:
{CEMAIL}
Subject:
Important details about today's check-in for your {BARR} to {BDEP} stay at {PDISPNAME}
Body:
Hi {CFIRST},
Thank you for choosing {PDISPNAME} for your upcoming {BARR} to {BDEP} stay!
{PDISPNAME} is located at {PADDRUG}.
Check-in is anytime after {BCHECKINSTARTTIME}, {BARRDAY}, {BARR}, and your door lock code is {BDOORCODE}.
Have a wonderful stay and feel free to contact us at {MYPHONE} if you have any concerns!
{MYFIRST}
If you're wondering what those field codes do, check out the field codes support article or use the "Preview" button on the booking to take a live look.
Here's a quick preview of what the above email message looks like:
Notice how clean and personalized the content is. The subject line is dynamic to the booking by including the arrival {BARR} and departure dates {BDEP} field codes as well as the property name {PDISPNAME} field code. In the email body, we included our property location {PADDRUG} field code and the {BCHECKINSTARTTIME} check-in start time, and the booking door lock code is {BDOORCODE} field code. The body addresses the guest by name, so it looks like the body was written by hand. In other words, it looks like a hand-written manual response, even though it wasn't.
After copying and pasting the above subject and body into your template, feel free to play with the words and styles to make it your own. However, remember that we are creating a message that is specific to "bookings." This message assumes that all bookings as it responds to are bookings with guest contact information, so make sure to customize accordingly.
You could easily include other pertinent field codes for even more automation, such as the Wifi Network Name {PWIFINAME}, Wifi Password {PWIFIPASS} field codes, or more detailed instructions about how to operate your door lock.
We are now armed with a Guest Arrival Information email template to send to the guest. But what about an SMS template?
Send by SMS
Some bookings that arrive in your account will already include the guest's phone number. This typically happens when a guest books on your book-direct website, using your Book Now widget, or on a listing channel that passes guest contact information at the time of booking.
Using our SMS premium feature, you can reply directly to their cell phone via SMS. For detailed information about how SMS templates work, check out the SMS Templates and field codes support articles.
To create an SMS template, go to Settings > Templates > SMS tab > click the Create SMS Template button > select the "Booking" option. This will open an SMS message editor with some sample field codes filled in.
Copy and paste the following values into your new SMS template.
Name:
Guest Morning of Arrival Information SMS Template
To Phone Number:
{CPHONE}
Body:
Hi {CFIRST}, {PDISPNAME} is located at {PADDRUG}. Check-in is anytime after {BCHECKINSTARTTIME}, {BARRDAY}, {BARR}, and your door lock code is {BDOORCODE}. Enjoy! 😁
Once again, smack that Preview button to see how this looks live! SMS templates are similar to channel templates in that they are plain text with no colors or formatting options, but you can still dress them up with personalized field codes and light-hearted emojis.
Here is a quick look at how the above SMS template looks in preview mode:
Not a fan of emojis? No worries, edit that part out!
You'll notice that this SMS template differs from the email and channel templates in that it is much shorter and doesn't include the arrival {BARR} and departure dates {BDEP} field codes. Instead, it's a quick sentence to ensure that the guest has directions to your property and the door lock code. If you'd rather say something else - that's totally fine. Or you could send a larger message body, including the arrival {BARR} and departure dates {BDEP} field codes like the email template above does.
Now that we have some message templates created, it's time to configure the trigger that will send them.
Create a Trigger That Applies to Bookings to Send Arrival Information to Your Guest Who Booked Through Your Personal Website
Since each trigger can only send one message template, you'll need to create a trigger for each type of reply you send. Above, we crafted replies for email and SMS, so we'll need to create two triggers to send each one.
First, we'll create a trigger to send the email message. Navigate to Settings > Messaging > Triggers > and click + Create Trigger to pull up the new trigger screen.
Here is a list of all the settings the trigger needs to have:
- Type: Scheduled Time
- Event: 0 days > Before> Booking has arrived > at 9:00 AM
- Add Condition > Email Address on File is One of > Has Real Email Address
- Add Condition > Listing Site is One of > Your Personal Website
- Action: Email Templates > Guest Morning of Arrival Information Email Template
Now, let's talk about what the above settings mean!
The Type and Event fields will make the trigger send your email tempate at a scheduled time 0 days before the booking has arrived at 9:00 AM.
Since we are targeting "bookings" for guests for whom we already have contact information only, we want to add a "Condition" to the trigger that will stop it from sending out messages for other bookings. Adding the "Has real email address" condition status covers that.
We also added the condition of "Listing Site is> Only: Your Personal Website," but you could omit that and this email template would be sent to all guests (both channel and direct booking guests) that you have a real email address for.
You may want to add other conditions, but for now, this is enough to make our trigger send the Guest Morning of Arrival Information email message prior to their arrival.
Finally, the last thing we select is the "Action" for the email template we want to send. Since this trigger is supposed to send an email message, select the email template and be careful not to select a your SMS template.
At this point, your trigger should look like this:
Nice and simple!
Click Save, and now you have a trigger ready to go. These actions do exactly what they say. 0 days before your booking has arrived at 9:00 AM, the trigger runs and sends your Guest Morning of Arrival Information Email Template. That's it!
Variations
Effective guest communication is crucial for your vacation rental business. It impacts your guests' perception of their experience and the reviews they leave, which can make or break your business. Therefore, clear and timely communication with your guests is vital. There is no reason why you cannot employ a combination of both of these communication methods to send your Guest Arrival Information to incoming guests.
Consider your guest experience when you've provided a detailed Guest Arrival Information Email Template 5 days before the guest arrives, and then send an SMS Guest Arrival Information SMS Template the day of arrival that includes the important property location for directions and the door lock code!
There should be no shame in your guest communication game. Using our messaging templates and triggers is a guest communication win-win!