As a tourism operator, you’ve done a great deal of work to land your customers. You’ve probably put lots of time and energy into your customer experience, with online bookings, verified reviews, and maybe even ads–and with all that effort, hopefully the bookings have followed.
Once your customer has booked, you have an opportunity to enhance your customer’s journey by setting up personalized booking confirmation emails. Confirmation emails have high open and click-through rates, so educating, exciting and even upselling are all easily achievable.
If you haven’t set up personalized booking confirmations, you’re missing out on a critical marketing and communication piece. Personalizing your booking confirmations will increase customer retention, help set expectations, and excite and inspire your customers. If you’re not sure what to write, don’t worry–we have some ideas (and templates) for you!
The Benefits of Personalized Booking Confirmation Emails
Customers like to receive booking confirmations because, most obviously, the booking confirmation provides assurance that they’re properly booked. It’s important to make sure the emails are presented to your customer in a relevant, timely, informative and engaging manner. Here are 6 reasons why customizing booking notifications for your tours is a great idea:
- Helps Set Customer Expectations: Booking confirmations are a great opportunity to educate your customers and highlight expectations. For example, if tipping is customary, you can include information about tipping. Or, if photos are not permitted to during certain portions of the tour, you can convey that restriction prior to arrival.
- Builds a Passionate Audience: When you’re passionate about the tours you offer, you’re inviting your customer to share in your passion. Sharing your impassioned perspective in your booking notifications can also get the customer excited for their tour.
- Improves Brand Awareness: Brand awareness is great for attracting repeat customers and generating word of mouth. Not only do you want your customers to experience an outstanding tour, but you also want them to remember your brand! Taking the extra time to brand your notifications with your company logo or a banner image will help you leave a memorable impression on your customer.
- Builds Trust: Booking notifications can help put your customer at ease. While some things may seem obvious to you, they may not be so obvious to a customer. If you’ve been at this a long time, your tour may not seem intimidating to you, however that may not be the case for a wary first timer. When creating your notifications, it’s never a bad idea to put yourself in your customers’ shoes.
- Adds Value: Showing care to your customers after they’ve paid demonstrates that you’re invested in their experience. Done right, booking confirmation emails can help strengthen the bond between you and your customers, showing them you genuinely care about them. Beyond confirming the trip and payment info, use booking notifications to provide value that extends beyond your event. For example, educating your customer before the tour about the local geography or providing a discounted photo coupon can improve the overall customer experience.
What to Include In Your Booking Confirmation Emails
Now that you know why you should personalize your booking notifications, let’s review the components that should be included in your booking confirmations:
- Make it timely: While you may have a lot to share, keep in mind that your customers are busy people. Get them the information they need when they need it by queuing your messages to send in a timely fashion.
- Make it informative: With the right information, you can help your customer understand their unknowns. Giving your customers access to resources to answer their questions or get in touch with someone can certainly provide peace of mind. Consider ending booking confirmation emails with an invitation to learn more. This leaves the message open ended and invites the customer to engage. A link to your FAQ and company contact info is a simple way to achieve this.
- Make it exciting: Building excitement is never a bad idea. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and stir up that first-time customer excitement. What would get you hyped up for your tour? Include it in your emails.
- Make it relevant: Personalizing your booking confirmation emails and making them relevant to your customer will go a long way in enhancing the customer experience. For example, a company offering flatwater kayaking and zipline tours may want to send different lead-up information depending on which type of tour was booked. A company running surf tours may wish to educate their future guests on different types of surfboards. Winery tours could educate on harvest season, harvesting processes and more.
- Make it specific: Your booking confirmation emails should contain the following specifics: Pickup time, parking info, transfer details, a Google pin of where they should wait to be picked up, and information on what to bring, along with any other critical details required to prep for your activities.
- Make it useful: What information will help your customers get the most out of their experience? A few topics that might help set expectations include weather, tipping, disorderly conduct, when and where restroom facilities are located on the tour, and so on.
Of course, it’s always a great idea to reiterate your cancellation policies, and to end with a call to action like a link to your FAQ and your contact info.
Booking Confirmation Email Templates
Still not sure where to start? Here are three booking confirmations you can put to use in your tourism business. Personalize them to your tours, and you can use them to improve your customer experience right now.
CUSTOMER BOOKING CONFIRMATION TEMPLATE
Why it’s important: This booking confirmation email serves several purposes. Beyond confirming their booking, it also provides an opportunity to get the customer excited for their upcoming adventures and provide next steps.
Hi!
Thanks for booking with us! We’re looking forward to seeing you. Our team has been busy preparing for your arrival. You can find your invoice below, along with our cancellation and refund policy. As your tour date approaches, we might send pertinent information that will help you get the most out of your day with us. We’ll also send a follow up email after the tour to learn more about how your experience with us was. We’re looking forward to seeing you!
Have more questions? Visit our FAQ here.
Need to make changes? Check out our Cancellation Policy here.
BOOKING CONFIRMATION EMAIL | REMINDER TEMPLATE
Why it’s important: Setting up a reminder booking email confirmation will help reiterate important details the customer may have missed the first time. This should be sent out 24-28 hours prior to their scheduled departure time. In this email, take an opportunity to confirm the details, provide driving directions, and provide a value add. It’s always a good idea to close with company contact info and a link to your FAQ.
Here at Rezgo, we recently added a feature that lets you send notifications a set number of hours ( 1,2,4,8) before your event instead of days. Watch the how-to video here.
Hi!
We're looking forward to seeing you! Now that it’s been a couple of days since you booked, we’ve included pertinent info that you may find helpful to review before arriving. You'll find details of your reservation and payment details enclosed below. Let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to hosting you!
Need to make changes? Check out our Cancellation Policy here.
FOLLOW-UP EMAIL OR REVIEW REQUEST TEMPLATE
Why it’s important: An email sent a day or two after the tour is a great way to learn more about your customer’s experience with you. The tour will still be fresh in their minds, but they’ll have had time to process the experience. For positive feedback, include a link to your verified reviews, as well as TripAdvisor or Google Reviews, if needed. Always provide an alternative method of contact for those who had a less-than-stellar experience.
Hi!
Thanks for joining us! We hope you had a fantastic time and enjoyed your day with us. Have a great time? Feel free to leave us a review on TripAdvisor or Google. Didn’t have a great time? We’d love to hear about it. Please reach out to us at _____@_____.com.
Hope to see you again!
Booking confirmation emails and their content are a critical part of the customer journey. They are among the most essential methods for building brand awareness, trust and engagement. When properly executed, these emails can inspire, comfort and excite your guests. Have fun with your notifications–and don’t forget to add your own flare.
Written By | Val Pleym
