Messages

Messages are used to send emails to guests, and you can customise the messages sent out for almost any action. The Messages tab is where you will find the default emails sent by Bedful to both the customer and the property owner. These messages are sent the instant a customer confirms payment. Please note, when you add a booking manually (referred to as a Dashboard booking), we do not automatically send the Owner or Customer Confirmation message, but instead give you the option to send the messages of your choice once you have confirmed the booking.

You can view the default Customer Confirmation & Owner Confirmation by clicking the Preview button next to the relevant message or simply clicking on the message subject. These default messages contain all the key booking details including the number of guests, arrival & departure dates, unit(s) and any extras booked. Please note, the stock image and booking details displayed are simply to illustrate how the confirmation message will look.

The Customer Confirmation also contains your Booking Policy, Cancellation Policy and a link to your Terms, so it is very important that these are complete before you start taking bookings. If you have uploaded a brand image, this will also be displayed at the head of the Customer Confirmation email.  See our Booking Policy guide and Cancellation Policy guide for more information.

The Owner Confirmation sent to you by Bedful contains the same key booking details as the Customer Confirmation, with the addition of the customer's contact details and any notes the customer might have included in the booking form.

Custom Messages PLUS

We highly recommend leaving the default messages in place, however you may wish to amend these slightly or add additional recipients to the Owner Confirmation message. Bedful Plus and Bedful Pro users may also wish to create their own additional Customised Messages to automatically send at times of their choosing. For example, you can setup an email of directions to the property and schedule it to send to your customers a day before their holiday start date. 

Please note any customised messages you create will be sent instead of the default ones if the send time and recipient are the same. For example, if you create your own custom message to send Booking Date + 0 days to the customer email, this will be sent instead of the standard Bedful Customer Confirmation. This is why we advise that you leave the default messages in place, then create your own customised message for any additional information you would like to send to the customer and schedule to send at a different time. 

To edit the default messages or create your own customised messages, first select the green Customise Messages button. The button will then change to read 'Add Message'. Select this to get started.

• Is this message ready to send? – Set to live when it is ready to send, otherwise leave as draft.
• Who would you like to send it to? – Select whether you want to send this message to the customer, your own email, or another recipient. If you select 'Other email', you can add multiple email addresses, being sure to separate them using commas. 
• When would you like to send it? – You can set the time in days before/after the booking date, holiday start/end date or booking cancelled date. All messages are sent at 10:30am UTC.
• What would you like to say? – Select a template from the dropdown menu. You can include all the standard booking details found on the Customer Confirmation and Owner Confirmation or, if you would rather create your own content entirely, select the Blank option. If you select one of the template options, this will appear above any message text you enter. 
• Subject – This will appear in the subject line of the recipients' email.
• Private Name – This is for your own reference and will appear under the Name column on your Messages list.
• Message text –  Please enter your message text here. You can use the buttons on the styling bar to select from a few different header options, make your text bold or italicised, paragraph and embed hyperlinks.

Once you have saved changes, you can then assign your custom message to specific units. So it is quite possible for you to send different messages to customers depending on which unit they have booked.

Guidelines

Please try to follow the following guidance when writing custom messages for your guests:

• Be sure to check your spelling and all information is correct.
• Please ensure your messages are assigned for the correct units.
• Please do not rely upon the confirmation messages as the sole means of managing your bookings. Although rare, there may be occasions where you do not receive confirmation messages due to your email provider's spam filters, your inbox being full, or you may have opted out of a marketing email from one of our channels, such as Cool Places, meaning your email address is on a suppression list (for this reason we advise signing up to all relevant mailing lists). Always check the availability calendar, bookings tab and daily diary for a list of your upcoming bookings.
• In order to prevent your email provider incorrectly marking any booking confirmations as spam please add booking@bedful.com to your contacts/address book. You should also mark any confirmations as 'important' or add a star next to them (if you have this function) so that your email provider does not class the confirmations as spam.