Introducing: The Reaction Engine & Zapier Integration
We have been busy over the last few month beavering away on some exciting new developments. As a startup we are busy building features that are known and expected but we also have to develop groundbreaking advanced features that are not even asked for.
The story behind this feature
Our users ask for a lot of features, it’s why they chose us in the first place. We are happy to please and respond quickly. But we had to turn down A LOT of requests which didn’t benefit the whole. Most of these requests were things like:
Customer: “Can I send an email to guests 3 days before arrival”
The Booking Factory: “Sure we have that feature”
Customer “Great, but I only want to send it to people who booked with booking.com”
The Booking Factory: “Ouch… Sorry, no can do!”
There are lots of examples like this that we had to deal with and it was a painful thing to say no because we love our customers and these small features can save them a load of admin time.
Introducing the Reaction Engine
Our Hoteliers are quite tech savvy, a lot of them are early adopter types, they push us to the limit sometimes! So here is the solution not only to your small requests but far beyond your wildest dreams :)
What does it do?
Ever wanted something to happen when an event occurs? Send yourself a text message when you get a new booking? Add the guest email address to mailchimp on new booking? Well read on….
We have created a trigger and event system that is so advanced that I dare you to find things it cannot do, and also please share some cool things it can do for your fellow hoteliers.
If you are familiar with Zapier then you will know the model well. Here is the wikipedia for an explanation of Zapier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapier
Simple Examples of how to use the reaction engine:
Event: New Booking > Action: Send email to guest
Event: New Booking > Send yourself an SMS
Event: New Booking > Take payment from card details
We will of course provide some default reactions for you, but theres thousands of combinations you can make yourself to automate your workflow.
Yes there are filters too!
Event: New Booking > Filter: Is it from booking.com? > Send email to guest to request their real email address
Event: New Booking > Filter: Is non-refundable rate plan? > Take full payment & Send guest email with invoice copy
Filters can be OR/AND and you can have multiple ones.
Multiple Actions
We always love to go above and beyond so here is multiple actions!
Event: New Booking > Action: Send confirmation email & Send SMS & Take Payment
Are you already thinking of multiple ways this can reduce your workload? great that’s the plan….
Scheduled Events
Do you find yourself constantly generating the same reports daily or weekly? Now you can set it up to be delivered automatically to your inbox!
Example:
Scheduled Reaction: Every Day > Send Housekeeping report to head housekeeper
Scheduled Reaction: Every Sunday > Send Occupancy report for next 7 days
Scheduled Reaction: Every end of month> Send Occupancy report for last month
Zapier Integration
We can work with Zapier also, so if you want to send yourself a slack message of each new booking? Well now you can. Or maybe add the guest email address to mailchimp etc.
If you want to use this please get in touch and we will guide you on how to setup.
Last Words
Warning: As a new feature this doesn’t have the most user friendly user interface… yet. If you want to make a reaction to automate some of your workflow get in touch and we are willing to create them on your behalf.
This feature is designed to automate your admin tasks and save you lots of time. Any missing actions or events that you need, no problem we will get it added for you.
All you need to do is ask!
