Staying in touch with your guests after their reservation ends is a surefire way to increase the number of repeat and direct bookings that you receive. However, capturing verified contact details from your guests can be difficult as their information is often obscured by the platform that they booked through.
Today we’re excited to announce a new feature, Magic Link email verification, which enables you to capture verified personal contact details for every guest that stays with you. This new feature has been rolled out to all YourWelcome customers.
Why do I need to verify guest emails?
By verifying a guest’s email address, you are ensuring that you have the correct means to contact them during their stay.
The verification process is simple; as your guests proceed to check-in, they are sent an email with a button that they tap to verify they can receive emails to that account. They can do this by accessing them via a browser window on the tablet, or by checking their email on another device.
Watch this short video of the process:
What happens if they cannot verify their email? Find the answer to this and other questions in this helpful tutorial.
Combatting Proxy Emails
When you receive a booking from an OTA (Online Travel Agent), you’ll often find that the guest’s real email and contact details have been obscured with a proxy email (e.g. 123456@guest.airbnb.com). These emails re-route communications to the OTA’s internal messaging system – often stripping the messages of useful information such as email addresses, telephone numbers and website links. These emails often come with an enforced time-limit after which you are unable to message the guest any further, even if they have agreed to receive messages from you.
When the tablet detects a proxy email address, the guest is prompted to update their email. The guest submits & verifies an email they can access during their stay – and if they agree to further communication, you’ve now got a verified email address that you can use.
Data Protection and GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on 25th May 2018 and applies not only to EU-based organisations; we’ve introduced new tools to ensure that your business is compliant, and to help you explain (to your guests) how you manage & share data.
Find out more about GDPR in this blog post.
More To Come
YourWelcome’s Magic Link email verification is the latest feature to be released from the YourWelcome team. With plenty more features being rolled out in June, keep an eye on our blog and newsletters for updates as they come. We’re committed to improving our product, so if you have any questions or suggestions about these or any other features of YourWelcome please get in touch.
