Set up custom messaging placeholders to send rental instructions

There are two types of placeholders that you can use in your quick replies and automatic responses:

• Lodgify's prefabricated placeholders, which take information mainly from the booking such as arrival dates, rental name, outstanding amount to pay, etc.
• Messaging placeholders, which allow you to describe instructions about core operational processes such as check-in instructions, Wi-Fi, house rules, etc.

Messaging placeholders are created at a rental level and will be used in your messages to the guests. This will save you valuable time typing out the same information only once and creating specific quick replies for each of your rentals.

🔎 Use case: For example, you can create an automatic response including the detailed information for the check-in process of a rental. By using your check-in operational placeholder in the message, this information will be sent to your guest when the message is planned (2 days before arrival, for example). The message sent to the guest will then automatically include the check-in instructions for this specific rental.

Placeholder creation is a 2-step process. First, the placeholder content is created, then added to the messages.

Read about:

• Which information can be set up in messaging placeholders
• How to set up messaging placeholders
• Add images to messaging placeholder
• Use messaging placeholders in automatic responses

Which information can be set up in messaging placeholders

The information blocks that you can set up in your operational placeholder to send out to the guest are: 

• Check-in instructions
• Check-out instructions
• House directions
• Door instructions
• House rules
• Wi-fi information
• Local guide
• Emergency contact

💡 Note: For the full list of available placeholders and their details, including the Lodgify's prefabricated placeholders, check out this article.

How to set up messaging placeholders

To set up your messaging placeholders, you will need to set them up for each of your rentals individually. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to your left-hand menu and select Rentals.
2. Select the rental where you want to add the information and go to Messaging Placeholders.
    
3. If you have more than one language configured for your website, select the language you want to set up and start filling in information into the different instruction blocks. Then save.
4. If you want to set up your placeholders in multiple languages, you can select additional languages by clicking the flag icon. 
   💡 Note: Languages can be added or removed from a rental by going to the Rentals section, then the Overview tab, and finally Name and Description.
5. Do not forget to click on save at the end.
6. You can then repeat the operation for all the rentals for which you want to add information in the placeholders.
7. After setting up your placeholders, make sure to add them to your Automatic Responses or Custom Automatic Responses; otherwise, they will not be sent to your guests.

Then, every placeholder set in the automatic responses will be replaced by the instructions you added.

Add images to messaging placeholder

To add an image to a placeholder, follow these steps:

1. Upload your image to a free image hosting service, for example Postimg.cc which is free and easy to use.
2. Once uploaded, copy the Direct Link to the image.
3. Take the following line of code and replace the src URL with your own direct link:
   <p><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/abc/abc.png" alt="" width="399" height="303" /></p>
   • The src attribute is where your image link must go.
   • The width and height values are optional, you can remove or adjust them as needed.
   • The alt attribute is optional and can contain a short description of the image (used for accessibility).
4. To insert the image in your placeholder or text block, click the HTML button, then paste the line of code.
5. Do not forget to Save at the bottom of the page once the code has been added.

Use messaging placeholders in automatic responses

To use the information set up in your rental messaging placeholders section in your messages, you simply need to head to your Settings and click Automatic responses or Quick replies.

Once you are in the text editor, you can click on {{Placeholder}}, and select the corresponding placeholder:

For more detailed instructions on editing automatic responses and messages, check out this article. To learn how to create quick replies, have a look at this article. 
💡 Note: For a full list of all available placeholders and their corresponding information, have a look here.