How to Create and Customize Your Confirmation Emails

Overview

With Zaui you can fully customize the confirmation emails that are sent to your customers, as well as pre-and post-tour email correspondence.

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about managing your automated email communication with a focus on confirmation emails.

This article will cover the following topics:

• Types of Notifications
• Getting Started: Creating Your Confirmation Email
• Notification Options
• Immediate Notifications
• Scheduled Notifications
• Using Smart Tags to Customize Email Confirmations
• Preview Your Customizations 
• View Scheduled Notifications/Notifications History

Types of Notifications

Your email settings can be found by going to Settings > Notifications from the navigation bar. 

To the left on the shortcuts panel, you will see a list of the types of notifications currently available in Zaui.

For this article, we will be concerned primarily with confirmation emails (booking and tour notifications) as these are the most heavily used/customized notification type. 

Getting Started: Creating Your Confirmation Email

From the list of Notifications on the shortcuts panel, select the notification type you are creating. From here you will name your notification type. In this case, a Booking Notification has been selected and named Booking Confirmation.

The Notification Name is for internal use, it will not be visible to your customers.

Notification Options

There are two options for each notification type located in the Schedule Type dropdown menu when creating your email confirmation; Immediate Notifications and Scheduled Notifications.

Immediate Notifications are used for Booking confirmations, cancellation, modification and supplier notifications.

Scheduled Notifications are used for Pre-booking reminders and Post-booking follow-ups.

Only Booking, Tour and Invoice type notifications can be scheduled to send at a particular time.

Instructions vary slightly depending on which is selected. We would choose to Send Immediately for a booking confirmation. The instructions for each option are as follows:

Immediate Notification

1. Select either Booking Notification or Tour Notification from the shortcuts panel.
2. Set "Schedule Type" to Send Immediately.
3. Select in what instance this notification will be sent (when a booking is created, modified, cancelled or paid).
4. Enter and Email Subject.
5. Enter a sender email address or use the system-defined sender email (optional).
6. Map the notification to a particular booking portal, several portals, and/or back-office bookings (optional). If nothing is set, the email will trigger for all bookings.
7. Configure whether the recipient(s) will be the customer(s) on the booking and/or the agent.
8. Edit the email body if you do not wish to use the default format (optional).
9. Don't forget to Save.

Scheduled Notification

1. Select either Booking Notification or Tour Notification from the shortcuts panel.
2. Set "Schedule Type" to Send Scheduled.
3. Configure the time either pre-or post-booking that you wish to send an email.
4. Enter and Email Subject.
5. Enter a sender email address or use the system-defined sender email (optional).
6. Map the notification to a particular booking portal, several portals, and/or back-office bookings (optional). If nothing is set, the email will trigger for all bookings.
7. Configure whether the recipient(s) will be the guest(s) on the booking and/or the company providing the tour.
8. Select which activity/activities you wish to enable this notification for.
9. Edit the email body if you do not wish to use the default format (optional).
10. Don't forget to Save.

Using Smart Tags to Customize Email Confirmations

Smart Tags can be inputted in the email subject or body to fill in booking-specific details.

1. Select the placeholder icon   to choose from a list of available Smart Tags. A dropdown menu will appear for you to select from.

For example, for the guest to see the confirmation number of their booking, go to the area you want this to appear in and select the icon

From the menu, select the confirmation number smart tag

The confirmation number smart tag now appears in the confirmation

2. Some Smart Tag options will enter a block of various Smart Tags (Guests, Totals). These blocks cannot be split up. For example, Activity/Product/Package Details must be attached to Guest Details. 

• Zaui will automatically set up the proper HTML syntax for you when you add Smart tag blocks. Without the correct syntax, the smart tags will not populate on your email notifications, so it's helpful to understand how they work. This syntax is: <!-- BEGIN [section]--> and <!-- END [section]-->
• Syntax Example (Guest): <!-- BEGIN GUEST--> Guest Smart Tag content <!-- END GUEST --> or, <!-- BEGIN TOTALS --> Totals Smart Tag content <!-- END TOTALS -->
• Note that whether you choose to use all the smart tags in the block, or just some, the Begin/End tags must remain.
• Select Source to edit the HTML version of the email body/subject.

Preview Your Customizations 

You can enter any booking number and select Preview Notification to view your custom email notification.

If we use the confirmation number smart tag example above here is what the preview looks like without the smart tag:

And with the smart tag saved:

View Scheduled Notifications/Notifications History

From the shortcuts panel, select Notification History to search or view past emails sent. Select Scheduled Notification to view emails that are scheduled to be sent in the future.