How to communicate with guests: pre-stay and post-stay emails

How can pre-stay and post-stay emails improve customer communication? What are the contents that help to “convert” even after booking?

In this blogpost we will talk about the importance of establishing an effective communication system with the customer that starts from pre-stay emails and ends with post-stay emails after guest check-out.

It’s important define what is meant by the term customer journey, or the “journey” that the customer makes from the moment he books a stay in an accommodation facility until the moment he returns home.

It is good to say that pre-stay emails are usually sent to customers within the period of time between the moment the customer makes the reservation and the day before check-in (it also helps you avoid no shows) .

The post-stay emails, however, are sent after the customer has checked out, thanking the customer for choosing their facility and inviting them to leave a review or feedback.

It all started from the customer journey

To establish effective communication with the customer, it is necessary to understand and analyze carefully the right times to send an email.
As already mentioned, a guest’s customer journey begins when they have booked their stay, so a first email can contain useful information such as the location of the hotel, how to get there by public transport or the calendar of events in the city .

We believe that a second pre-stay email can be sent a few days before, also to offer additional services (cross selling) and “tease” the customer on certain extras already before his arrival at the hotel.

What are the advantages of pre-stay and post-stay emails?

What can be the advantages that a hotelier derives from this type of email?
In fact, besides improving the guest experience, there are several advantages that bring such as:

• Improve the experience right away by providing useful information to plan your trip;
• Allow the structure to increase its revenue by offering cross sell services;
• Loyalty to customers, perhaps by offering discount codes for reservations outside in the check-out email.

With a view to automating processes in the structure, whether you are managing a small structure or a large hotel, it is not possible to manually manage the pre and post stay communication, as it takes a long time and can be subject to errors.