Contacting your guests

Updated 1 month ago | 4 min read time
Save

Staying in contact with your guests can help with your planning and provide a better experience for them. You can easily keep in touch with your guests using the extranet or Pulse app. To contact guests in a different language, you can use our translation function.


What's in this article:


Getting in touch with your guests

You can use the extranet or Pulse app to communicate with your guests.

Follow these steps to send a guest a message in the extranet:

  1. Log in the extranet
  2. Go to Reservationsclick on the guest name you want to contact
  3. Scroll down to Conversation with guest
  4. Type your message or select a template
  5. Click Send

Follow these steps to reply to a message from your guest in the extranet:

  1. Log in the extranet
  2. Click on Inbox
  3. Click on Reservation messages
  4. Choose the message to which you want to reply
  5. Write the message
  6. Click Send 

Follow these steps to send a guest a message in the Pulse app:

  1. Open the Pulse app on your mobile phone
  2. Tap on Bookings, then select the guest you want to contact
  3. Under Messages, write your message
  4. Tap Send

Privacy

For security and legal reasons, any communication that takes place via our platform is securely stored. We may access these messages for the following reasons:

  • Legal reasoning, such as fraud detection and prevention
  • If a guest or partner requests access to their message history
  • To analyse messages to improve our service
  • If your system detects spam or other malicious content 

To protect your and your guests’ privacy, we don’t share private email addresses. Both you and your guests will only ever see an anonymous alias ending in @guest.booking.com or @partner.booking.com. Please use only the Booking.com platforms, extranet and Pulse app to continue communicating with your guests securely.

If we detect suspicious activity in your extranet account, we’ll immediately disable the ability for your property to include links in any messages you send to your guests via our platform. This is to prevent cybercriminals from impersonating you and exploiting this messaging channel to send fraudulent payment links to guests, particularly in the event of a phishing attack on your property. 

Read more


General tips for contacting your guests

Answering questions from your guests can help create a smoother and more positive experience at your property. Potential guests can ask questions about your property before they book. Your answers will be displayed publicly so we can help match a guest with the perfect property for them.

Here are a few tips on communicating with your guests:

  • Get in touch before their stay

Provide information such as check-in hours, directions or parking information before their arrival by using the Guest Q&A feature in the extranet.

  • Quickly respond to messages

Quick replies help guests plan their trip in advance, giving them peace of mind before travelling.

  • Create message templates

Save yourself time by setting up automatic replies or message templates to quickly answer frequently asked questions.

  • Keep track of your Reply Score

Your Reply Score indicates how promptly you reply to guest messages. The sooner you respond, the higher your score. You can find it in the extranet (in the Reservation messages section of your Inbox tab and the Data section of the Home tab).


Translating messages from your guests

To make it possible to communicate with guests from across the world, we have translation functionality integrated into the extranet and Pulse app. Message translation is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Arabic and Portuguese. Follow these steps to translate guests’ messages into your chosen language.

  1. Log in the extranet and click Reservation messages, or open the Pulse app and tap on Messages
  2. Next to the message you want to translate, click on the three dots
  3. Click on Show translation to see the message translated into the language selected in your settings

FAQs

  • We understand the importance of being able to communicate with your guests before their arrival. Whether it’s because you aren’t able to meet them in person, or you need to share check-in information with them in advance. You have two options for communicating with them ahead of time:

    • Contacting your guest on their reservation page
    1. Log in to the extranet and click on Reservations
    2. Click on the guest name or their reservation number
    3. On the Reservation details page, scroll down to Conversation with guest
    4. Type your message in the text field, click on Templates to select one of your message templates, then click Send
    5. If you’d prefer to call your guest, you can see their contact number of clicking on Show phone number
    • Contacting your guest using message templates

    Message templates are prepared responses that you can quickly send to save yourself the hassle of repeatedly typing the same message for different guests. You can add in custom replies and image attachments to provide them with additional information and schedule them to be sent according to your preference. To create a new template or update an existing one, follow these steps in this article.

    Get in touch with your guests as soon as possible, as they may be travelling or have limited access to their emails closer to their check-in date.

     

    If you want to contact a guest specifically about picking up keys, you can read this article on setting up the key collection feature

     
  • To ensure partner and guest information-sharing safety, we don’t support PDFs or QR codes as an attachment format – we only support images.

  • You can use our messaging security settings to specify which email addresses you use to communicate with your guests and which links can be shared in messages with guests.

  • You can help potential customers with quick answers by using the Guest Q&A feature in the extranet. Create messaging templates with potential questions and answers already included, then schedule them to be sent before check-in or after booking. Learn more about how you can set up messaging templates.

  • You can send messages from the time of booking until seven days after checkout or cancellation. If the guest sends any message to the reservation, there is a 14-day window to reply. After one year after checkout or cancellation period, you cannot read any of the messages.

  • There may be times when you cannot reach your guests and would like to communicate with them beforehand, during, or after their stay. To ensure your and your guests' security remains intact, we cannot share any personal information with either party, and the communication should stay on the Booking.com platforms.

  • If you can't find the information on your ‘Reservation Statement’, please contact our customer support team following these instructions. If you would like to prevent this from happening in the future, you can add additional guest requirements in the extranet to give you more control over who can make bookings at your property.

  • We cannot delete messages shared between guests and partners due to legal requirements.

Is this article helpful?