You’re probably reading this because you have an automated booking confirmation process, right? You take trip reservations over the phone. You write your client’s contact information and credit card details on a random piece of paper. Then you draft an email with the trip date, time, meeting location, and whatever they need to bring with them.
We’ve heard this story hundreds of times. In fact, one of our clients, Ryan, at Atlantic Climbing School, realized he was working hours before and after business hours doing menial and mundane tasks like sending confirmation emails to clients. All the extra time spent on manual tasks took time away from his personal life and drove him to the edge.
Since implementing Origin, Ryan’s saved 15 hours a week and got his personal life back. So, you might still be wondering, what are booking confirmations, how do I automate them, and what are you trying to sell? Let’s start with your first question
What Is A Booking Confirmation?
A booking confirmation is a receipt you give to your client after you successfully reserve their trip.
A booking confirmation typically includes:
- Your client’s details: Their name, contact information, and number of guests/participants in their party.
- Booking details: Trip date(s), meeting location, add-ons, and required gear.
- Confirmation number: Unique identifier for their reservation.
- Payment information: The amount paid or deposited and confirmation of payment method.
- Cancellation policy: Details on how to cancel and any associated fees.
- Contact information: Your phone number and email for inquiries.
This doesn’t just give your guests peace of mind, but it helps you as well. It keeps your records organized, helps you plan trips, and protects you from any disputes that could arise.
Types Of Booking Confirmations
There are several different kinds of booking confirmations you can include in your booking confirmation system—and we suggest including them all. This is likely your guest’s first time adventuring with you so give them as much information as is necessary for them to feel confident and get excited.
Receipt
The most important booking confirmation is their receipt. Adventure trips are not cheap. Send your clients peace of mind with a booking receipt that breaks down their costs. If you’re using booking and scheduling software, the system will send this automatically.
Booking confirmation
A booking confirmation can be part of the receipt or separate, depending on the booking and scheduling software you use. If you do this manually, then that’s entirely up to you, but you’re doubling your process and possibly annoying your customers by sending them separate emails with the receipt and trip information.
Origin includes the cost of the trip as well as the booking details in one automated email to your clients so they have all their information in one message. This helps prevent information getting lost or forgotten too.
Waiver
Another automated booking confirmation is the digital waiver sent to your clients to protect your company in case any of your guests injure themselves. When it’s automatically sent, there’s less worry that it’s A.) Not signed and B.) Not forgotten.
Day Before Trip Reminder
Depending on the system you use, your confirmation system may or may not send a message one day before the trip. Origin does this because people are human and clients forget. We include important details in case there is required gear or a certain meeting spot that your clients need to remember.
Day Of Trip Reminder
Using Origin, guests receive an email notifying we charged them the remaining balance owed on their trip (if you take deposits). If you don’t take deposits, clients don’t receive any Origin emails day of the trip, but if you’re doing this all manually, you might be sending out another reminder email day of, which could be a waste of your time.
Review Request Day After Trip
Reviews are what get you future business. In fact, 98% of people trust reviews when buying sometihng. Asking for a review when your trip is still top-of-mind gives you a better chance of your customers leaving one. And if you don’t have an automated post-trip review request setup, you’re missing out on so many opportunities.
1-Week Reminder Of Review Request
Sometimes, your clients won’t respond to your first review request and that’s okay. That’s standard and that’s why Origin sends a friendly reminder one week after the trip. How many of you (or your current booking system) are giving up after the first attempt? If you asked first manually, it’s likely you didn’t ask again. Set up automated review request emails so you don’t have to think about it later.
Why Should You Bother Automating Your Booking Confirmation Communications?
Because your current manual process is holding you back. Operators who are sending every email from their account are wasting hours every day. You’re likely coming into the office early and leaving late because of tasks like these.
There are several other reasons why tour operators should automate their booking confirmation communications:
You’ll mess up less and have 24/7 availability
When you automate your booking confirmation communications, you’ll help reduce human errors and your customers will get immediate and accurate confirmations regardless of the time of day.
You’ll better serve your customers
Incorporating automated booking confirmation systems gives your customers confidence in your guiding business. By sending them instant confirmations with important information like payment details, meeting points and times, and essential gear, you project a professional image throughout the booking process.
You’ll reduce operational costs and scale easier
Automating your booking confirmations frees up staff time which could help reduce the need for additional personnel and lower operational expenses, especially during the busy when you have a higher booking volume.
How Origin Can Help You Create The Best Damn Automated Booking Confirmation System
Automating your booking confirmation communications can be simple if you work with the right software, apps, or tools. Or, you can make it hard on yourself by continuing to do it all manually. And it’s not just time that’s at stake, right?
Your reputation and business are also on the line too when you continue to do things the hard, manual way.
Instead of jeopardizing your business, let’s see how using Origin can help you create an automated booking confirmation system with minimal work.
1. Choose Your Tools To Automate Booking Confirmations
You only need two different tools: booking software and an email marketing platform. Outside of Origin, there are other booking platforms—The Flybook, Checkfront, Peek Pro, Rezdy, and Acuity—but we can’t speak to their automated booking confirmation communication capabilities.
With your chosen booking software, next you need to setup any email marketing that’s not part of the platform already. Besides MailChimp, there are email marketing platforms like Constant Contact, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, and MailerLite. Make sure your booking and scheduling software integrates with your email marketing platform, otherwise, you’ll create more work for yourself.
You could also get by with just using Origin if you’re not ready to tackle email marketing (P.S. Origin integrates with MailChimp).
2. Define Triggers and Templates To Make It Easier For Future Messaging
If you’re not using Origin, you’ll have to create triggers and templates for your emails. It’s work at the beginning because you’ll be starting from scratch, but once you’ve created them, you won’t have to worry about it until you want to make edits in the future.
- Confirmations: Set up automatic triggers for emails to be sent immediately after bookings. If you’re not using booking and scheduling software, you’ll have to create this in your email marketing platform.
- Reminders: You should schedule additional emails with reminders closer to the tour date so your guests remember the meeting time and location and what gear to bring. Again, if you’re not using a booking system, you’ll need to set this up in your email marketing platform.
- Cancellations and Modifications: For cancelations, you’ll need to craft separate templates for different scenarios, like bad weather, no available guides, etc.
When you’re on Origin, you don’t have to set up any triggers or templates—they’re built into the system. Check out the graphic below to see the various booking confirmation communications the system automatically sends on your behalf.
3. Customize and Optimize Your Booking Confirmation Emails
When creating an automated booking confirmation communication system, you’ll need to customize emails with your customer’s information. You also want to make sure they’re able to be read on different devices. Something an automated system can do for you.
If you want to do it manually or set up an automated system yourself, some components to include in your emails should be:
- Dynamic Content: Your customer’s name, details, tour information, gear needed, and meeting points.
- Branding: Maintain consistent branding with your logo, colors, and images.
- Call to Action: Encourage engagement with links to other tours, social media, online reviews, etc.
- Mobile-friendliness: Ensure emails are responsive and easy to read on all devices.
- Testing: Experiment with subject lines and content to see what drives the best results.
If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is, especially for guides with not much downtime. Instead, consider using booking and scheduling software that will do all of that for you. Origin sends emails to your customers on your behalf with all the important information they need (your customer’s name, details, tour information, guide’s name, gear needed, and meeting points) to get excited and feel confident about their adventure with you.
You don’t have to do anything to send these booking confirmation communications. We do it for you. When you’re ready to take on email marketing (read Email Marketing For Adventure Guides In 5 Easy Steps to get started), Origin connects with MailChimp so you have your customers’ contact information already in one place. From there, it’s as simple as creating marketing email templates and scheduling them to go out to different lists you make.
4. Monitor and Refine Your Strategy
Rarely can you “set it and forget it” when it comes to booking confirmation communications when you’re doing it yourself. There’s always something to tweak and refine when you’re managing it yourself.
Consider the following elements to monitor messages and use them to refine your automated booking confirmation communications:
- Track Open Rates and Click-Throughs: Analyze email performance and understand customer engagement by tracking how many customers open your emails and the number of people who click on a link in your emails. The higher the numbers, the more engagement you’re getting from your clients, which is what you’re looking for.
- Feedback: Listen to and incorporate your customer feedback into future template improvements. If they’re having a hard time reading an element (maybe your brand colors aren’t ADA and WCAG-compliant), you’ll want to make your emails accessible.
- Learn As You Go: Start small and gradually implement features as you gain experience and confidence with automation. It can be intimidating at first but remember: most things are un-doable.
- Stay Compliant: Provide clear options for customers to unsubscribe from emails if they prefer. Also, make sure to keep up with data privacy regulations when collecting and using customer information. This keeps you compliant with governmental regulations.
By following these steps and continuously refining your system, you can create an automated booking confirmation system that saves time, improves customer experience, and drives success for your tour operation.
Of course, if this doesn’t sound like something you want to take on yourself—there’s Origin. It automates booking confirmation communication for you so you can take reservations, schedule guides, and communicate with clients from one platform with very little work on your end.
