How do I send bulk communications to my Customers?

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Plan Availability: ✓ Soho | ✓ Pro | ✓ Plus | ✓ Enterprise | ✓ Flex |
Locate:

• Manage Statuses: Manage > Layout > Statuses
• Manage Notifications: Manage > Notifications
• Send Notifications: Reports > Booking Index

Prerequisites:

• Admin permissions to manage Statuses and Notifications. 
• The Booking Status, Notifications and Booking Index features are available to both those using items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront, and those using products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront.

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ Products (Inventory > Products) is the successor feature to (Inventory > Items) and is available in our newest version of Checkfront. Not yet on our newest version and interested in upgrading? Please contact our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

In this article, we cover how to send bulk communications to Customers by creating a custom status that sends custom notifications when applied to bookings.

 

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Please follow these three steps, details are provided below.

1. Create a Custom Status
2. Create a Notification
3. Send the Booking Notification

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First, you need to create a new status. This facilitates sending out notifications to a segment of Customers based on the status of the associated booking.

1.  Select Layout from the Manage menu and then select the Statuses tab.
2.  Find the quick +Add button at the bottom-left of your list of statuses. Clicking +Add opens the new Status modal.
3. Give the status a name that conveys its purpose, such as Health Policy Update.
4. The Status ID field automatically populates with an abbreviated version of the name, for example, HEAL. You can edit the Status ID or leave the suggested value in place.

Once you have saved the new status, it is added to the list of booking statuses.

The lock setting next to the status label can remain selected, this ensures that inventory is locked and booking availability is consumed by the associated bookings.

Feel free to change the colour of the status, if needed.

 

Learn more about configuring booking statuses here: Introduction to booking statuses

 

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Next, you need to format the notification that you are going to send out.

1. Go to Manage and then Notifications within the top menu.
2. Choose to +Add Notification.
3. From the New Notification page, enter the Subject of the communication, such as Important Health Policy Update! Please Read.
4. Ensure that the Notification Type is set to Booking Status.
5. Then, choose the Booking Status that triggers the notifications e.g. Health Policy Update.
6. Determine whether the notification is sent Immediately or Scheduled. Scheduled notifications require that you specify the Schedule.
7. Change the From and Reply to email addresses as needed.
8. Choose the Recipient of your email. In this case, you need to select the Customer.
9. Determine if the Message Format should be HTML and/or Text.
10. Choose which products/items the message should Apply to. Only bookings with the selected categories or products/items are notified.
11. Add your message to the Email field provided.
12. Click Create to save your notification.

 

Learn more about configuring Notifications here: Notifications (Booking Status): Introduction

 

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Finally, you can create a segment of Customers and send your Notification to those Customers.

1. Go to the Booking Index (Reports > Booking Index).
2. Filter the Booking Index for the segment of Customers you need to notify. For example, you can filter for all bookings that have a Start Date within the Next 30 days.
3. If your bookings have various statuses, for example, PAID vs DEPOSIT, you need to send out batches of communications by status. To accomplish this you need to filter by Status to isolate bookings, for example, those with a status of DEPOSIT.
4. Next, select the bookings that you need to bulk update. Select the check-box at the top-right of the bookings table to select all the bookings in focus.
5. Click Bulk Update to open the Bulk Update modal.
6. Note the number of bookings, that are going to be sent notifications.
7. Select the status that you need to trigger the notification e.g. Health Policy Update.
8. Make sure the Deliver notifications checkbox is selected.
9. Add a Booking Note, as needed.
10. Click Apply to update the booking statuses and send the notification(s). 
11. Next, you need to revert the status of the bookings, back to the original status e.g. PAID or DEPOSIT. Repeat steps four through seven in preparation.
12. From the Bulk Update modal, this time we need you to make sure that the Deliver notifications checkbox is NOT selected.
13. Select the previous status, for example, DEPOSIT.
14. Click Confirm to revert the status for all selected bookings.
    
15. Finally, repeat this process for each batch of bookings that has a different status e.g. PAID.

View the Booking Invoice (Reports > Booking Index > Booking > Booking Invoice) for any of the bookings to see that the email has been sent and noted in the Log.

 

For Customer email to be sent, the system form field with the ID of customer_email must be enabled. Learn more about system booking form fields here: Booking Form & Field Editor: System Fields

 

Learn more about notifications here: Notifications (Booking Status): Introduction