Create and Edit Touchpoints – Akia

What Are Touchpoints?

With Akia's automated scheduled messaging, you can automatically send messages to guests prior to their arrival and automatically follow up after they have checked in.

Example of how a scheduled message will appear to a guest.

How Do I Create a Scheduled Message?

Video Guide

Creating an automated follow up message to the guest if their length of stay is greater than 1 with fallback to email.

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Akia Tip: After you have created a scheduled message, regardless of when in the day you created it, the message will begin sending the following day.

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If you want to edit a scheduled message, do so at least 1 hour before it is originally scheduled to go out. If you edit it within the 1 hour window, the automation may not go out (if you changed the time sent) or may not have the updated verbiage.

Step-By-Step Guide

Click on the lightning bolt header and go to Automation > Journey

The **Automation** tab defaults to the **Journey** section, and clicking on **+ Add Touchpoint** will start the creative flow.

Click + Add Touchpoint and choose what type of action you want to create

We will be covering the Scheduled Time option in this article, but you can learn about the Trigger option here

In the sidebar that appears, you are able to customize when the message sends, who it sends to, and any variants to the message

Name: set a name for the action to easily refer to it when messaging a guest. Learn more about how to manually send scheduled messages to guests here.

Sent At: the time when the message will try and send at.

Daily: the scheduled message will send daily to qualified guests (qualification dependent on the Send To designated below or from conditions in the Action Variants section).

Weekly: the scheduled message will send on the selected days of the week to qualified guests.

Send To: designate which guests the message will send to.

Arrival Date: the message is sent depending on how far the arrival date is in the future or in the past. Commonly used for pre-check-in or welcome messaging.

Departure Date: the message is sent depending on far the departure date is in the future or in the past. Commonly used for review messages.

In-House: the message is sent to all in-house guests. Optionally exclude guests checking in/out on the day.

Options:

Execute immediately if customer imported after scheduled time: if Akia receives the guest’s reservation after the scheduled message was set to go out, it will automatically send the message.

Action Variants: create variations of the message based on certain conditions the guest may qualify for. Learn more here.

Click on the default message under the Action Variants section to write your message.

Scroll down and write your message in the default Text Message field and hit Ok to save

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Akia Tip: Checkmark Notify staff when guest failed to receive message from all selected platforms so that your selected department gets notified and can manually send the scheduled message to the guest.

You will be taken back to the Scheduled Action sidebar and can now see your message preview under the Action Variants section

Click Start to save the scheduled message and have it begin sending to tomorrow’s guests

The **Start** button is in the bottom left-hand corner of the sidebar.

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Akia Tip: Scheduled actions are automatically paused when they are created, so clicking Start is the only way to unpause the message and have it begin sending. Clicking Ok will only save your changes, it will not unpause the message.

How Do I Edit a Scheduled Message?

Updating the time, verbiage, platform, and notification.

Click on Automation to go to the Automation tab

Click on the touchpoint bubble you want to edit

Click on the message in the Action Variants that you wish to edit

Scroll down and edit your message in the Text Message section and hit Ok to save

Follow the links if you want to edit an Email or WhatsApp template.

You’ll be taken back to the previous page, so click Ok once again to save your changes

Other Actions

Instead of “Send Message” in the Configure Actions page, under the Actions header, you can select another action from the ones shown below:

Smart Review

Send a message to guests asking them to rate their stay and direct them to an external review site if they rated high, or ask for feedback if they had a lower rating.

To edit your review link and the positive/negative rating responses, go to the Review Management section in Settings or click “Edit Smart Review Flow”

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If you want to update your Review Link to a Google Review, please follow the steps below:

Steps to add a Google Review Link

Visit Google Place ID

Under Find the ID of a particular place, in the Enter a location field write your company name

Click on your company name that appears in the drop-down list

Your Place ID will appear in the popover and you will just need to copy it

And paste this ID number at the end of this link (after the = sign) https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=

Paste the link (place ID included) into the Review Link field in Akia

Create Task

Automatically create a task for a specific department and user if the guest fits the conditions you previously set. You can also create a task from a template, for more information on how to create task templates, please refer here.

An example might be automatically creating a task for the front desk to follow up with a guest if their agreement hasn’t been signed on the day of check-in.

Text-message Notification

Automatically sends a text message (which can be customized with Message Tokens) to a single phone number if the guest fits the conditions you previously set.

Email Notification

Automatically send an email template to a list of email addresses if the guest fits the conditions you previously set.

This can be useful to remind staff about routine daily/weekly tasks rather than remembering to send one each week.

Team Chat Message

Automatically send a message in an announcement team chat if the guest fits the conditions you previously set.

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Note that you need an announcement team chat in order to create this action.

Upsell

Send the guest a Mini App to purchase either an arrival or departure upsell if it’s available for their reservation. Akia will not send this message if the guest is not eligible.

Generate Mini App

If you don’t want to send a guest their Agreement via text (perhaps wanting to have them fill it out when they arrive) but want to have it generated at a specific time, use this action and select your Agreement.

Escalate Conversation

If the guest meets certain conditions, or sets off a specific reservation trigger (such as the reservation date changed or a cancellation), escalate the guest conversation with your staff so someone can manually reach out.

No Action

Do nothing to the guests that qualify for this Action Variant. This can be very useful to include at the beginning of your Action Variant list to ensure that qualifying guests do not get sent a message. (For example, owners don’t receive a rental agreement or return reservations don’t receive driving instructions.)

Reservation Triggers

Depending on your PMS, you might be able to execute touchpoints based on certain PMS triggers, like a reservation date changed or a booking canceled. Learn more on how to configure reservation triggers here.

Use Cases

Pre-Arrival

This message can be customized to be sent out to the guest on the day of arrival or up to 6 days before arrival. Messages will start to deliver at the specified time and will be paced over the course of 1, 2, or 3 hours.

The message here generally welcomes the guest to the property and lets them know that they can text back if they have any questions or concerns. A Digital Registration Card can be included so guests can sign the reg card before their arrival.

Example message:

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Good {{meta.time_of_day}}, {{customer.honorific}}! We look forward to your arrival today at {{office.name}}. My name is Akia and I will be happy to assist you with any questions or requests you may have during your stay. To expedite the check-in process, please review and sign our registration card prior to or upon your arrival: {{agreement.registration_card}}

Welcome

This message is sent out if a guest is added manually in Akia. For most cases, this might be the same as the pre-arrival message where you welcome the guest and let them know they can text back. You can include Digital Registration Card here as well.

Example message:

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Welcome {{customer.honorific}}! We are so glad to have you stay at {{office.name}}. I will be happy to assist you with any questions or requests you may have during your stay. To expedite the check-in process, please review and sign our registration card prior to or upon your arrival: {{agreement.registration_card}}

Welcome Back

This message will be automatically used instead of the pre-arrival if Akia detects it is a returning guest. This can be the same as the pre-arrival message, but we recommend you spice up the message a little to indicate that you know they are returning guests.

Example message:

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Welcome back {{customer.honorific}}! We are so glad to have you back at {{office.name}}. As always, I will be happy to assist you with any questions or requests you may have during your stay. To expedite the check-in process, please review and sign our registration card prior to or upon your arrival: {{agreement.registration_card}}

Follow Up

This message will be automatically scheduled for guests on the second day of their stay if the guest is staying for more than one night. Optionally, you can enable it to send this message the night of the check-in date if a guest is staying only one night. In-stay surveys can also be included here.

Example message:

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{{customer.honoriffic}}, I just wanted to check in and make sure everything was okay with your first night in the room. Please take our survey to tell us about your stay: {{survey.in_stay}}

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