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Hi John...
1st:
I noticed a few days a go that the emails are not being sent by my address anymore... Although I understand there has been some problems for others with spam, mine was working good... My emails get relayed mostly by Airbnb anyway...
The reply still working with my address...
I have asked you personally this in the past but I do not remember the answer..
Why not use the "On Behalf"
"From: Bookerville <service@bookerville.com> On Behalf of Amazing Villas <amazing@website.com>"
2nd
As I spoke with you in the past about the email footer, you explained really well the motive and I understood...
Now why are you adding more stuff on the header of the emails???..
I have formatted my emails for what I need... I really don't like and I don't need all the extra stuff there...
Please remove the extra header and links!
Because FlipKey, Airbnb and others add their own fee at the guest expense, what the guest see on their reservation on BookerVille webpage (the new link being sent to my guests) is not the same of what they see on whatever website they booked the place....
3rd
How can I create a notification when any of my housecleaning crew cleans the place??
4th
By any chance have you investigated on importing the AirBnB calendar for automation of the bookings?
They do provide a really good amount of information on their ICAL...
1st:
I noticed a few days a go that the emails are not being sent by my address anymore... Although I understand there has been some problems for others with spam, mine was working good... My emails get relayed mostly by Airbnb anyway...
The reply still working with my address...
I have asked you personally this in the past but I do not remember the answer..
Why not use the "On Behalf"
"From: Bookerville <service@bookerville.com> On Behalf of Amazing Villas <amazing@website.com>"
2nd
As I spoke with you in the past about the email footer, you explained really well the motive and I understood...
Now why are you adding more stuff on the header of the emails???..
I have formatted my emails for what I need... I really don't like and I don't need all the extra stuff there...
Please remove the extra header and links!
Because FlipKey, Airbnb and others add their own fee at the guest expense, what the guest see on their reservation on BookerVille webpage (the new link being sent to my guests) is not the same of what they see on whatever website they booked the place....
3rd
How can I create a notification when any of my housecleaning crew cleans the place??
4th
By any chance have you investigated on importing the AirBnB calendar for automation of the bookings?
They do provide a really good amount of information on their ICAL...
5 Responses:
John Amato, July 11, 2015:
2624luisny, July 11, 2015:
PACVL, July 11, 2015:
John Amato, July 11, 2015:
2624luisny, July 11, 2015:
Reply »
John Amato, July 11, 2015:
2624luisny: let me answer by number:
1) Yes, we did indeed make the switch a few weeks ago so that all outbound emails from Bookerville now have a From: address of service@bookerville.com, and the Reply-To: is set to your (the property manager's) email address. This is to be in compliance with Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), which does the domain-key checking on the From: address.
We adopted DKIM about a week ago, and this was in response to the increasing concern about Bookerville's email deliverability rates. Since we made the switch, we have noticed an improvement, especially in the hotmail.com space, so we are encouraged by this move, but of course we will continue to monitor it.
Your suggestion about "On Behalf of" - we will look into this. We of course can't make any promises, especially since we don't yet know how something like that would affect DKIM.
2) The new wording at the top of these emails is an attempt to prominently, and clearly identify to the recipient who we are, and why they are receiving this transactional email from Bookerville. A significant number of recipients are marking Bookerville-generated emails as spam. Every time they do this, bookerville.com (and perhaps your own domain as well) gets its "spam score" bumped up. As the "spam score" gets higher, a larger portion of our outbound emails won't get delivered (filtered as spam).
One of the strongest recommendations by consultants and other experts in the field of spam and email compliance has been to very clearly and concisely remind the recipient why they are receiving the email, so this is our attempt to do that.
That said, we have temporarily turned this prefix message off until we can assess the exact wording used, and come up with something either more generic (so that it can be relevant and make sense to the recipient in the widest array of contexts), or something more dynamic. Making the prefix message dynamic and/or configurable is a) Very difficult to implement, and b) carries risk that the language/wording chosen by various property managers will not achieve the intended goal, or perhaps in fact might backfire and make the spam situation worse.
3) We are looking into making that a standard feature - so that whenever a cleaner reports a cleaning or inspection, an email can be fired off to you (the property manager). It's going to be a few weeks before we can get that implemented.
4) We are aware that AirBnB will import the Bookerville iCal export URL, and even sync the availability calendars automatically (approximately daily). Have you looked into this?
Another thing you might want to consider is getting on board with BookingPal, our new Channel Manager. BookingPal has rich integration with AirBnB, Booking.com, FlipKey, TripAdvisor, Roomorama, and dozens more listing sites and travel portals. And Bookerville is integrating with BookingPal, so you can not only get full calendar synchronization, but also manage all the property data (features/amenities, taxes, rates, photos, more) from Bookerville, and it will automatically propagate to whichever channels you choose to participate with. If you want to find out more, just submit this simple form: BookingPal
Hope this helps 2624luisny, and let us know your thoughts.
1) Yes, we did indeed make the switch a few weeks ago so that all outbound emails from Bookerville now have a From: address of service@bookerville.com, and the Reply-To: is set to your (the property manager's) email address. This is to be in compliance with Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), which does the domain-key checking on the From: address.
We adopted DKIM about a week ago, and this was in response to the increasing concern about Bookerville's email deliverability rates. Since we made the switch, we have noticed an improvement, especially in the hotmail.com space, so we are encouraged by this move, but of course we will continue to monitor it.
Your suggestion about "On Behalf of" - we will look into this. We of course can't make any promises, especially since we don't yet know how something like that would affect DKIM.
2) The new wording at the top of these emails is an attempt to prominently, and clearly identify to the recipient who we are, and why they are receiving this transactional email from Bookerville. A significant number of recipients are marking Bookerville-generated emails as spam. Every time they do this, bookerville.com (and perhaps your own domain as well) gets its "spam score" bumped up. As the "spam score" gets higher, a larger portion of our outbound emails won't get delivered (filtered as spam).
One of the strongest recommendations by consultants and other experts in the field of spam and email compliance has been to very clearly and concisely remind the recipient why they are receiving the email, so this is our attempt to do that.
That said, we have temporarily turned this prefix message off until we can assess the exact wording used, and come up with something either more generic (so that it can be relevant and make sense to the recipient in the widest array of contexts), or something more dynamic. Making the prefix message dynamic and/or configurable is a) Very difficult to implement, and b) carries risk that the language/wording chosen by various property managers will not achieve the intended goal, or perhaps in fact might backfire and make the spam situation worse.
3) We are looking into making that a standard feature - so that whenever a cleaner reports a cleaning or inspection, an email can be fired off to you (the property manager). It's going to be a few weeks before we can get that implemented.
4) We are aware that AirBnB will import the Bookerville iCal export URL, and even sync the availability calendars automatically (approximately daily). Have you looked into this?
Another thing you might want to consider is getting on board with BookingPal, our new Channel Manager. BookingPal has rich integration with AirBnB, Booking.com, FlipKey, TripAdvisor, Roomorama, and dozens more listing sites and travel portals. And Bookerville is integrating with BookingPal, so you can not only get full calendar synchronization, but also manage all the property data (features/amenities, taxes, rates, photos, more) from Bookerville, and it will automatically propagate to whichever channels you choose to participate with. If you want to find out more, just submit this simple form: BookingPal
Hope this helps 2624luisny, and let us know your thoughts.
2624luisny, July 11, 2015:
I'm using the BookerVille iCal successfully to export my bookings to AirBnB, FlipKey, and sync with my Gmail...
A couple months ago in a period of 12 hours I got 3 reservations for the same unit, Rsv1 and Rsv2 on Airbnb and rsv3 from FlipKey interlapping rsv1 and rsv2...
I could have avoided this situation by immediately entering the reservation on Bookerville... Or if the system was automated, this would never happened...
Thanks for turning off the header message...
Perhaps the same message could be added to the fotter along with the current notice, the link for the reservation could be left there so the guest could see the Bookerville page and add notes to their reservation (with a notification to the manager if they do so), but NOT the link with the payment status... Just name and date from the guest reservation with current notes and the manager contact information is great the way it is...
Luis
A couple months ago in a period of 12 hours I got 3 reservations for the same unit, Rsv1 and Rsv2 on Airbnb and rsv3 from FlipKey interlapping rsv1 and rsv2...
I could have avoided this situation by immediately entering the reservation on Bookerville... Or if the system was automated, this would never happened...
Thanks for turning off the header message...
Perhaps the same message could be added to the fotter along with the current notice, the link for the reservation could be left there so the guest could see the Bookerville page and add notes to their reservation (with a notification to the manager if they do so), but NOT the link with the payment status... Just name and date from the guest reservation with current notes and the manager contact information is great the way it is...
Luis
PACVL, July 11, 2015:
Thanks John for the clarification.
When considering the changes to make I would like to suggest that instead of header that it be footer as BV is already tagging the footer with what I believe to be spam appropriate messaging. If you need to put a header I might also suggest something in a smaller font indicating: "This transactional email was sent as a response to a request or transaction made by [GUEST FULL NAME]. If you feel this is in error please contact [MANAGER FULL NAME] at [MANAGER EMAIL]"
I'd be happy to add that text to the top of my emails but I want it in a smaller font and perhaps a little gray or something similar.
Would love to see a HOUSEKEEPING module tied to text messaging instead of email. IE... Text them the checkouts for the day... they reply when completed... or something similar. Email is cumbersome. I'd like to have my guests text me when they leave so the housekeepers can get a jump start on their cleaning. Particularly in this busy time of the year where back to back turn overs can sometimes be difficult.
When considering the changes to make I would like to suggest that instead of header that it be footer as BV is already tagging the footer with what I believe to be spam appropriate messaging. If you need to put a header I might also suggest something in a smaller font indicating: "This transactional email was sent as a response to a request or transaction made by [GUEST FULL NAME]. If you feel this is in error please contact [MANAGER FULL NAME] at [MANAGER EMAIL]"
I'd be happy to add that text to the top of my emails but I want it in a smaller font and perhaps a little gray or something similar.
Would love to see a HOUSEKEEPING module tied to text messaging instead of email. IE... Text them the checkouts for the day... they reply when completed... or something similar. Email is cumbersome. I'd like to have my guests text me when they leave so the housekeepers can get a jump start on their cleaning. Particularly in this busy time of the year where back to back turn overs can sometimes be difficult.
John Amato, July 11, 2015:
Thank you both, we appreciate the feedback and ideas. Sometime this weekend, I plan to surgically remove the other ideas (not related to email/spam) from this topic and put them into their own topics, just so we can keep organized.
As for putting the wording in the footer - I really don't think that's going to get the job done. For one thing, we've already had some wording in the footer for years, and it has obviously not got the job done as we found ourselves dealing with email delivery issues. The other thing about it is that we all know that no one looks at the microscopic, grey text in the footer of an email, so it probably won't put a dent in the problem of recipients marking these emails as spam. It also probably won't help us in any arbitrations if we have to resort to telling the arbiter to look at the "fine print in the footer."
2624luisny: curious, why don't you want the link to the Make Payment page on the Guest Services page?
As for putting the wording in the footer - I really don't think that's going to get the job done. For one thing, we've already had some wording in the footer for years, and it has obviously not got the job done as we found ourselves dealing with email delivery issues. The other thing about it is that we all know that no one looks at the microscopic, grey text in the footer of an email, so it probably won't put a dent in the problem of recipients marking these emails as spam. It also probably won't help us in any arbitrations if we have to resort to telling the arbiter to look at the "fine print in the footer."
2624luisny: curious, why don't you want the link to the Make Payment page on the Guest Services page?
2624luisny, July 11, 2015:
https://goo.gl/photos/5pgSkLDwjCKZ8eCC6
Take a look on the attached image (link). Two print screen from the owner side and the guest side of airbnb... The other image is how I enter the payment on Bookerville
Airbnb does not actively disclose to the owner their service fee charged from each guest...
On the payment side of the BookerVille I only enter the total payout (to the owner) along with the cleaning fee. The credit card processing fee I enter as discount so the daily rate keep unchanged....
So it will confuse the guest when they see different amounts from the bookerville and Airbnb pages... It could generates some questions like "I already paid the full amount, will I be charged again?", and other like this one.. ..
Take a look on the attached image (link). Two print screen from the owner side and the guest side of airbnb... The other image is how I enter the payment on Bookerville
Airbnb does not actively disclose to the owner their service fee charged from each guest...
On the payment side of the BookerVille I only enter the total payout (to the owner) along with the cleaning fee. The credit card processing fee I enter as discount so the daily rate keep unchanged....
So it will confuse the guest when they see different amounts from the bookerville and Airbnb pages... It could generates some questions like "I already paid the full amount, will I be charged again?", and other like this one.. ..
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