Alternative messaging for guests who don't use email

Since I began using Airbnb I've had multiple instances of guests who have simply ignored all emails that I've sent to them. So I'm looking for an alternative way (hint-hint need texting support!) to get them the information.

This post got longer than I wanted so here is the key summary:

Problem - I want to CONFIRM that my guests are getting the info I send them, in an automated fashion

a) must include texting, since not all read their emails or have access while travelling
b) needs to have automated confirmation of 'message received' where guests confirm they will pay attention
c) ideally provides booking-relevant information details accessible from a smartphone (a custom, temporary website for example)

That's it, here's more of the details...

I do require a rental agreement be signed, and that is only sent by email, so my issues is not a problem of me using the wrong email, it's just that there are guests who simply will not read emails. One of them said that they thought my emails were spam, and the other said they got a new phone and haven't configured email. So in the latter case it could also be situational, yes they have email, but no they don't plan ahead and while travelling cannot get to their email.

In any case, it seems that texting keycodes would be a great backup plan for all guests, but it would need to be done around noon on arrival day, not 3am in the morning.

But this brings up an interesting problem, if guests don't really read emails then they are missing out on lots of info I send them. And texting isn't a great way to get them all the information they might need because the texts will quickly get large/unwieldy.

So how about having a personalized, per-booking web accessible link for each booking. Maybe it's only valid for a few weeks ahead of a stay and maybe a few weeks after, then it can disappear.

Would OwnerRez consider doing something like this? It would be similar in concept to a booking landing page controlled by content from OR. So if I make an update to a custom field, it would appear to the guest in their page. Would have a unique url of course.

If this existed in an automated fashion, I could simply include the url and be confident that guests could follow it from their smart phone and access all the key information relevant to this trip.

I'm not talking about sending a link to my website - this would need to be a specialized page that is simple to use for finding critical information at the time it becomes critical.

As a final thought, what's needed to tie all of this together is a type of positive confirmation by the guest, some time (days or hours) ahead fo their stay, that they are getting the information I am sending them. For instance, 2 days ahead of a stay I'd send a text that requires a return message like "YES" to confirm this is the phone number they will have access to on the trip. If that confirmation isn't received, the fallback could be an automated email which also asks for confirmation. If both fail, I'd get an alert which tells me to manually intervene by calling, texting, etc so that I don't end up with guests arriving at 10pm at night without having read my keycode emails.

Mmm... that's a lot to unpack. Definitely food for thought!

We have tossed around the idea of a central guest portal accessible by link that you can customize with info about the property, lock codes, etc. If we want to get fancy it could have areas for requesting date changes, updating credit cards, all that sort of stuff that'd be nice to give more self service for the guest. Some of those things are already done by channels and we'd have to direct them to the channel on those bookings, but would work for direct bookings at least. Useful for a lot of different things and could be shared in a link with the guest via SMS vs the long and windy welcome email.

The confirmation is another interesting concept. The only way I could see it truely working is if you made them reply to get the door code and entry information. "Your stay is coming up soon... reply to get your door code" or something. Otherwise you'll still get people that don't.

These are all things we've been thinking about and will do eventually, but we don't have any near term plans yet. Well except for SMS. That's actively being worked on, although I don't have an ETA yet.

SMS yes, so many emails end up in spam. I have been texting manually after email is sent, but hey, I do have a day job!

From what I've heard, OR is working on getting channel messaging (i.e. replying through Vrbo, Airbnb, etc.) implemented, so once that goes live, we'll be able to send some stuff there, although rich content like PDF welcome packets and things might still have to go via email, and URLs might get censored (TBD).

I signed up for Touch Stay (they were a vendor at the Scottsdale Vrbo conference). It was about $300 for a year for my 7 properties. It allows you to set up a very nice-looking and easy-to-use digital guidebook and then send a URL to guests they can use to access it. They have an option to do booking-specific URLs (so info can be customized per guest and some info, like access info or directions, can be hidden before or after their stay); however, the system to manage this would be pretty cumbersome to use to manually input every stay in. I had a call with the CEO the other day and asked him about integration with my PMS; he said they've actually talked to the OR guys and have found them very friendly and open, but they have to prioritize the big guns like Escapia and V12 first before they can get to smaller players (but they are interested). I guess it's a race to see whether they launch their integration with OR before OR can get their guest portal built. ;)

That said, I've had decently good luck by emphasizing in my post-booking Airbnb message multiple times and very clearly that my system will be *EMAILING* them *VERY IMPORTANT* documents to their EMAIL, not their Airbnb inbox, and that these will be delivered to whichever email account they used when signing up for Airbnb. I have a pretty good open rate and haven't had many issues with people not finding their codes. I also send the welcome packet and door code immediately after booking (I integrate with RemoteLock, so the door code doesn't start working until their check-in time anyway) and again 7 days before stay and once more 1 day before stay.

I do kinda wish the emails didn't go out at 3am...something more sane like noon Eastern time would be more logical, or even better, allowing me to specify the time as part of the trigger...

You can already reply via vrbo. But that can end up in spam also.

In my case I do not care for digital brochures etc. We are in the mountains and reception can be poor I want to ensure that they check their email and actually PRINT directions on paper and bring with them b4 driving to the destination as they may lose satellite and phone signal.

I guess I need to emphasize EMAILINg part more - just today had airbnb person whop was asking about door code (was emailed 3 days ago). I guess ppl do not check their emails...

Chris L - how is your post-airbnb booking messaging sent? By email? Or somehow through their app?

Blue Mtns - if keycodes are sent by sms they'll be available even without cell coverage. So even in your case with spotty cell coverage, almost certainly your guests will have cell service sometime in the 1.5 days before a visit. Now maybe they'll forget, but I think it would be pretty hard for a guest to be upset if they were emailed and texted several times.

In any case, sounds like sms is being worked by OR so maybe we'll see it sometime in the coming months ;-)

I manually send it via the Airbnb app (or website) when I see the booking come in. It's saved as a template, so it's just a couple of taps/clicks.

I like it, thanks for the suggestion !

Make sure to read this:
https://www.ownerrez.com/blog/product-updates-hosted-header-styles-menu-buttons-links-condensed-view-fixes-pool-icon-sms-sees-limited-daylight

I am using SmarBnB for Airbnb and VRBO messaging.
You can automate every message and it is sent trough the apps, not mail or sms, also including pictures, very handy when for directions

I would love to see the portal functionality built into OR... perhaps built using the same platform as the websites so it isn't really an app it's just a bunch of managed web pages that pull booking details and property information. We have started investigating the guest portals that OR does integrate with to see how far we can push it...

Ideally we would like OR to be our system of record for anything and everything related to our bookings. And so while we may have integrations with 3rd party "experts in their field" having information flow both directions is really important for full optimization of revenue stream and guest satisfaction.

I will say we have found the same thing with emails... particularly ABB and Booking.com where you do not have the real guest email address. These seem to be black holes. We always send a text message the day after we send the arrival instructions that basically says "We've sent your arrival instructions to the email we have on file: {that ugly email address}. This email contains important information you will need for your arrival. If you did NOT receive this email please contact us - {our phone nunber}

In order to send text messages we had to come up with a solution outside of the PMS (I know OR is building this so that will be great). The solution we chose to use is called ClickSend. They can basically receive an email from your specific email address and send the contents of that email to a phone number you indicate in the to address. For example - send an email to 15551234567@sms.clicksend.com and it will send a text message to 5551234567 with the content of the email. Has worked great for us for years.

Along the lines of fully integrating solutions with our PMS this is a vision of what our ideal situation would be.

Think of a scenario like this with integrated cleaning app, smartlocks, guest portal, credit card processor, website
1. Bookings are created...from wherever they come from and guest is charged as appropriate to your booking requirements.
2. Door lock codes are sent to a door lock solution (from the booking, not generated by the door lock) - we prefer to use the last 4 digits of their phone number to cut down on the number of "I forgot my PIN phone calls"
3. Communications flow to guest letting them know the basics of their booking and pointing them to the guest portal (webapp) for info about the property as well as their booking.
4. The guest decides to bring their dog or they want an anniversary package - they can request that in the portal and add it to the booking (channels are totally unaware of this) Charges are added, payments are taken, etc.
5. Prior to arrival we send them a text message letting them know their access code and reminding them about the portal for information on the area and the property as well as checkin information, driving directions and the like.
6. They arrive on property - the first time their door lock code is used, OR is notified that the guest has checked in and change a status on the booking/property to occupied or in house
7. The system checks to see if there are "gaps" in the schedule after the checkout date for this booking and if so it sends a message to the guest asking them if they would like to extend their stay with perhaps at a discount..
8. They go to the portal and add the day and pay for it... booking is updated, door lock is updated.
9. On checkout day they are reminded via text message what time checkout is... and we ask them to respond to the text when they have checked out. They respond to the text, status on OR changes to checked-out
10. Cleaning integrated app is notified of the check out so the housekeepers know when they can get in to clean... perhaps it is early?
11. Cleaners finish cleaning the unit and mark the cleaning app as completed, OR is notified the unit is Guest Ready...
12. Next arriving guest wants an early check-in. they are looking at the app and it indicates an early check-in is available and there is an upsell opportunity to give them that early access. They purchase the early access and the booking arrival time changes and the door lock codes are updated.

All of this is visible in OR... single system of truth.

This would be the Holy Grail solution, 100% yes please!