Smoobu gathers your guest conversations from your connected channels into one inbox and can email guests for you automatically, at the moments you choose. Two pages in the left sidebar share that work, and their names are easy to mix up: Messages and Communication.
Messages is the inbox, Communication is where you build templates
Messages is where conversations happen: you read what guests wrote and you reply. Communication (in the Experience menu) is where you configure what Smoobu sends for you: your message templates, their timing, and your @host.smoobu.com alias. You never see incoming messages in Communication, and you don't write templates in Messages.
Replies come back through your @host.smoobu.com alias
Your account has an alias that ends in @host.smoobu.com; you find it at the top of the Communication page, where you can also change the name in front of it. Every email Smoobu sends to a guest goes out from that alias, and when the guest replies, the reply lands in the right conversation in Messages. If you would rather have guests see your own email address as the sender, you can connect your own email server; your @host.smoobu.com alias then stays in the background and still brings the replies back. Both are covered in Send messages from your own email address.
Where your conversations live
Messages shows one conversation per guest, usually tied to a booking. Each entry in the list carries the guest's name, a small channel badge showing where the booking came from, the property, and the arrival date. A date filter at the top shows the last 30 days by default, so older conversations are not gone, just filtered: widen the date range to see them. The Filters button narrows the list by read or unread state, by channel, and by your property labels.
Open a conversation and you see the messages as chat bubbles, with a booking summary above them: arrival, departure, property, and booking status, plus a shortcut to open or edit the booking. The reply box at the bottom sends your answer; it also lets you add an attachment, put someone in CC or BCC, and start from any template you have saved in Communication instead of a blank message. Each booking's detail page keeps the messages you have sent for that booking and its own Reply to Guest box, so you can also write to a guest straight from the booking.
Conversations with Booking.com and Airbnb guests travel through Smoobu's direct connection with those channels, so they appear here without any email involved. Replies from guests who booked directly or through your website arrive as email through your @host.smoobu.com alias. Each channel has its own rules about attachments, links, and formatting; see How messaging works with Airbnb and Booking.com.
Which channels send messages through Smoobu
How a guest's messages reach Smoobu depends on how the channel is connected:
- Airbnb and Booking.com are the only channels with messaging through the connection itself: conversations appear in Messages without any email, and your replies go back the same way.
- Vrbo is connected by iCal today, so its guests are reached by email like any other iCal channel. Messaging through the connection will follow once Smoobu's Vrbo API connection is live.
- Other channels connected through their API (Expedia, Agoda, HomeToGo, Nature House and similar) receive messages by email. Depending on the channel, either a messaging alias or the guest's actual email address is imported automatically with each booking, so there is nothing for you to add.
- Channels connected by iCal import no guest email. The one thing you have to do is add the guest's email address to the booking in Smoobu yourself; messages then go to that address.
- Booking requests are answered in the channel itself, for every channel: Smoobu does not import them. Once the Vrbo API connection is live, pre-booking inquiries from Vrbo will import into Smoobu, but an inquiry is not a booking request, which you still answer on Vrbo.
When automated messages go out
Every automated message is a template with a trigger. Smoobu fires templates on six events: Booking notification (a new booking arrives), Arrival, Departure, Booking cancellation, Online check-in completion, and Orders (a guest buys something from your Guest Guide). Arrival and departure messages can be shifted up to 10 days before or after their event and get an hour of the day to send in. The other four cannot be shifted and have no hour setting: they go out as soon as their event happens, for example the moment the booking arrives.
One checkbox matters more than the rest: Send email even if trigger is in the past. It covers last-minute bookings. Say your check-in instructions are set to go out 4 days before arrival, and a guest books 1 day before: the sending moment already lies in the past. With the checkbox ticked, Smoobu sends the message immediately when the booking arrives. Without it, that send is skipped. For bookings made on the day of arrival itself, a message can still go out at an unexpected moment or not at all; if a same-day guest is waiting for arrival details, send them manually from the booking.
Common questions
Do automated messages go to the guest's private email address?
For guests who booked on Booking.com or Airbnb, no. Those channels are connected directly, so Smoobu sends the message to the channel's own messaging address for that booking, and the channel delivers it to the guest inside their Booking.com or Airbnb account. If you add an email address to such a guest's contact details, Smoobu sends the automated messages to that address instead and stops sending them through the channel, so leave it empty unless that is what you want.
For guests from a channel connected by iCal, such as Vrbo, and for direct and website bookings, messages go to the email address on the booking. For an iCal booking that is the address you add to the booking yourself. To reach a Booking.com or Airbnb guest at a private email address without changing the booking, write to them from your own email program.
A guest replied, but I can't find the answer in Smoobu
First check whether your @host.smoobu.com alias is set up; without it, replies go to your personal inbox instead of Smoobu (Send messages from your own email address). Also check the date filter in Messages: it shows the last 30 days by default. For other causes, see Guest messages aren't arriving in Smoobu.
Related articles
- Set up automated messages to your guests
- Send messages from your own email address
- How messaging works with Airbnb and Booking.com
- Turn off or pause automated messages
- Guest messages aren't arriving in Smoobu
Still stuck?
If this didn't answer your question, the Smoobu team is happy to help. In Smoobu, open the Help menu to open a ticket or book a call slot, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner for a quick question during business hours.
Comments
6 comments
When replying to a message in the portal, the subject line should include "marketing name" (same as on the website) of the property instead of the main name which appears internally.
Hi Agne,
When you say 'replying to a message in the portal', do you mean in your Smoobu session? Our intention is to display the internal name within your Smoobu session and the marketing name on your Smoobu website and Guest App.
Let me know if this helps!
Hi Marriane,
I mean when I want to send a message to a guest directly from Smoobu, the default subject of the empty template contains the internal name. I think it should contain the marketing name, because that subject is seen by the guest.
I see what you mean. We're not quite there yet but it will surely be adjusted in the future. Thanks for the feedback!
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