Using OwnerRez's templates and triggers provides a powerful way to communicate automatically and streamline your vacation rental business processes by reducing errors and improving efficiency. You can respond to guests with personalized messages without lifting a finger! To read more about triggers, check out our Trigger overview support article. We've created a number of Template and Trigger Examples to help get you started.
In this example, we're dealing with a booking for the following scenario:
Scenario: Send Morning After Arrival Message to Your Channel Guest With Contact Information to Ensure Everything is Alright
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. Checking in with your guests the morning after arrival is important to ensure that you, as the host, can proactively address any issues promptly so that your guests will have a comfortable stay.
Don't have your guest's contact information? See the Ask Channel Booking Guest Without Contact Info, to Provide Contact Info and Sign Renter Agreement support article for more information.
By setting up an email, channel, or SMS template and trigger, you can send a Morning of Guest Arrival Information message template to your channel guests. 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 After Arrival Message to Your Channel Guest With Contact Information to Ensure Everything is Alright
Go to Settings > Templates to configure the "booking" template type message you want to send to your guest.
There are three choices for the type of template you can create - email, channel, 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. Likewise, if you want to send a message on Vrbo, the booking must have come through Vrbo, to begin with, so that our system knows how to deliver your response back to the correct Vrbo thread.
Note: Why can't you use a platform email or proxy email address like "joe.blow.12345@messages.airbnb.com" or "joe.blow.12345@messages.booking.com?" These platform/proxy email addresses aren't real. If you send messages to them, your message will be collected by the channel, stripped, re-formatted and displayed on the channel's message platform in various ways that typically don't work well for email.
Email Template & Trigger
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. For detailed information about how email templates work, check out the email templates overview article and field codes article.
Copy and paste the following values into your new email template.
Name:
Channel Guest Morning After Arrival Message to Ensure Everything is Alright Email Template
From Name:
{MYCOFULL}
From Address:
{MYEMAIL}
To Name:
{CFULL}
To Address:
{CEMAIL}
Subject:
Welcome to {PDISPNAME}!
Body:
Good Morning {CFIRST},
Just wanted to check in with you this morning to make sure you have everything you need.
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 property name {PDISPNAME} field code. In the email body, we included our {MYPHONE} phone number field code so that guests have our contact information if needed. 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.
Next, we need to add a Trigger to send our email template. Navigate to Settings > Messaging > Triggers > and click + Create Trigger to create a new trigger.
Event:
1 day after booking arrives at 9:00 AM
Conditions:
Listing Site is one of Vrbo Email Address On File Status is one of has real email address
Action:
Channel Guest Morning After Arrival Message to Ensure Everything is Alright Email Template via Email
We are now armed with a Morning After Arrival email template to send to your current guest. But what about channel messages?
Channel Template & Trigger
Even though we assume that the guest has already provided their contact information and signed a renter agreement in this scenario, some users and guests still prefer to keep all communications on the channel. OwnerRez directly integrates with the native messaging platforms at Vrbo, Airbnb, and Booking.com, so this is easy to set up!
Note: Why can't you use a platform email or proxy email address like "joe.blow.12345@messages.airbnb.com" or "joe.blow.12345@messages.booking.com?" These platform/proxy email addresses aren't real. If you send messages to them, your message will be collected by the channel, stripped, re-formatted and displayed on the channel's message platform in various ways that typically don't work well for email.
For detailed information about how channel templates work, check out the Channel Templates and field codes support articles.
To create a channel template, go to Settings > Templates > Channel tab > click the Create Channel Template button > select the "Booking" option. This will open a message editor with some sample field codes filled in.
Copy and paste the following values into your new channel template.
Name:
Channel Guest Morning After Arrival Message to Ensure Everything is Alright Channel Template
Body:
Good Morning {CFIRST},
Just wanted to check in with you this morning to make sure you have everything you need.
Have a wonderful stay, and feel free to contact us at {MYPHONE} if you have any concerns!
{MYFIRST}
Channel templates have a Preview button, so as you type, take a quick look at the preview window to get a sense of how the channel message will look.
Here is a quick look at how the above channel template looks in preview mode:
As you can see, this message is plain (no colors, images, or rich text), but that's good because it will be sent to the guest via the channel messaging platform, and the messaging platforms don't allow anything other than plain text.
Again, the channel message is dynamic to the booking by including the property name {PDISPNAME} field code. We also included our {MYPHONE} phone number field code so that guests have our contact information if needed. You want a concise message for the guest to read, and this does the trick!
Next, we need to add a Trigger to send our email template. Use the same Event and Conditions settings as the email trigger above (Settings > Messaging > Triggers > and click + Create Trigger), but instead select your new channel template in the Action dropdown list to configure your trigger.
Now we have your channel message template created! But maybe we want to send an SMS message?
SMS Template & Trigger
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, such as Vrbo.
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:
Channel Guest Morning After Arrival Message to Ensure Everything is Alright SMS Template
To:
{CPHONE}
Body:
Good morning {CFIRST}! Just wanted to check in with you this morning to make sure you have everything you need. Let us know if you need anything. 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 {MYPHONE} phone number field code. Instead, it's a quick sentence to ensure that the guest has everything they need to have a comfortable stay at your property. If you'd rather say something else - that's totally fine. Or you could send a larger message body if you like, similar to the channel template above.
Next, we need to add a Trigger to send our email template. Use the same Event and Conditions settings as the email trigger above (Settings > Messaging > Triggers > and click + Create Trigger), but instead select your new SMS template in the Action dropdown list to configure your trigger.