Learn how to create and change automatic messages to your customers and staff.
To give your customers an experience unlike the usual, it is important that they have received all the necessary information before they arrive.
It is therefore, in BookPot possible to send messages to your customers via email and/or text message. It could, for example, be a packing list, reminders, or "Think abouts".
You can also send emails and texts to your staff to remind them upon customers arrival.
Note! Automatic payment has to be activated to utilise messages via text.
The setting is found in Settings > Messages.
Default messages
Below Default messages, you'll find standardised messages that are primarily pre-determined by BookSpot.
You are able to change some of the content and settings.
Booking confirmation
This message is sent to the customers email as a default when a booking is created by a customer, however you can choose whether the confirmation should be sent when a booking is created by an admin. You can also decide whether the message should be sent as a text.
The text is the only thing that can be customised in the booking confirmation. A list with the products of the booking and a receipt is mandatorily included. You may decide which users receive a copy of the booking confirmation when it's created.
If you would like to add additional information that the customers need for each or for a specific product, a new message can be created with the same trigger.
Customer satisfaction
This form is called NPS (read more here), and sends out an email to your customers an hour after the booking as handed. It is possible to adjust the time frame of which the email should be sent out.
In Settings > Reviews you'll be able to view the replies. These are only visible internally.
Notifications
There are standardised notifications in the system available for activation for users of the system. Theses are useful to notify the staff of changes in bookings.
To activate the notifications, you set the recipient of the notification. You can also preview, as well as see the notification history by clicking on the icons to the right.
By setting a recipient, the chosen role/user will be notified when a booking has been created, a payment link has been sent out, when a refund has been made, when there has been a rebooking or when a new booking with a comment has been created by a customer.
If you would like to create a new notification, you may create a new message and set the staff as recipient. For example, if you would like to remind the staff to prepare before a customers arrival.
Your message
This is where you create your own automated messages to customers or users of the booking system.
Create the content of the message
Name: This is the internal name of the message, which is never shown to the customer. An example of name could be "Packing list for Kayaking (1 week)".
Subject line: Could for example be "Good to know before dog sledding" or "Packing list for hiking".
Message: This is where you write the message content. To create a personal message with the necessary information, you may use variables. By adding variables, can specific information get inserted based on your facility and booking, for example a recipients name or other types information.
With the button "Add block", you may add additional standardised information such as a product list, your facility's contact information etc. The order of the blocks can be changed by using the arrows to the left of the name of the block
Triggers
Triggers decide when a message should be sent out to customers or users.
You can decide that the message should be sent...
When a booking has been created
x hours/days before a booking start.
x hours/days after the end of a booking.
When a booking has been created less than x days/hours until start.
"Sent manually from booking" is meant as a template from when you send messages directly from the booking page.
The option "Send message even after the time limit has passed" is used when you for example usually send a packing list 2 days ahead of start. With this setting activates, the message is still sent despite the time limit of the trigger has passed.
For example if a booking is made 1 day ahead of the start time and the trigger for the message is set for 2 days ahead of start, the recipient will still receive a message.
You can choose if a message should trigger for bookings created by customers and/or admin. This could be useful if a customer should not receive a message of a booking created by an admin, in case you might want ot make changes in the booking before it's confirmed and a message is sent.
You can choose which products a message should be triggered for. Select one, more or all of the products.
Recipients & settings
Below the "Recipients & settings", you can choose the message recipients and wether it should go to the customer or a user with a specific role or individual email addresses.
This is an excellent way to streamline communication with your staff. For example, you can create a message that goes out to your employees 1 hour before the booking starts, reminding them to prepare the customer's arrival, whether it is accommodation, equipment rental or an activity.
Lastly, you can choose if the message should be sent to the recipients by email, text or both.
Note! A charge is added to your BookSpot cost if you send text messages. You can read more about the fees for Text messages here.
Preview the message
If you would like to, you may preview the message as email or text by clicking "Preview message".
Send and track messages in bookings
You can also send tailored messages directly from bookings, as well as see if they have received and opened their message or which messages are scheduled to be sent. Read more about how to track messages in bookings here.
With messages, you can automate the communication with your customers to save time and improve the experience for your customers and staff. 🙌