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 sender address. You never see incoming messages in Communication, and you don't write templates in Messages. When Messages has nothing to show, it points you across: an "Automate your messages" card whose Manage templates link opens Communication.
Replies come back through your @host.smoobu.com address
In Communication, you create a sender address that ends in @host.smoobu.com. Every email Smoobu sends to a guest goes out from that address, and when the guest replies, the reply lands in the right conversation in Messages. Without that address, Smoobu sends from your account's own email address instead, and replies go to your personal inbox: they never appear in Smoobu. Setting the address up takes a minute; see .
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 address. Each channel has its own rules about attachments, links, and formatting; see .
When automated messages go out
Every automated message is a template with a trigger. Smoobu fires templates on five events: Booking notification (a new booking arrives), Arrival, Departure, Booking cancellation, and Online check-in completion. Except for booking notifications, messages can be shifted up to 10 days before or after their event and get an hour of the day to send in. A booking-notification message has no hour setting: it goes out as soon as 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 a channel, no. 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. Changing the email address in the guest's contact details does not reroute automated messages for channel bookings.
For direct and website bookings, messages go to the email address on the booking. To reach a channel guest at a private email address, 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 sender address is set up; without it, replies go to your personal inbox instead of Smoobu (). 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.
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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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