Home → Arctic Reservations → Inquiries → Inquiries
11.1. Inquiries
Inquiries are the bridge between the potential guest who is looking for information, and the committed guest who is ready to book an activity.
Let's say you have a potential guest on the phone who is unsure of what dates work best, but you want to make sure you have his or her contact information. Rather than write a sticky note and stick it to the edge of your monitor, you can create an inquiry that will provide a reminder to follow-up with the potential guest and can later can be converted into a reservation or rental.
You can create inquiries from the "Inquiries & Tasks" widget on the dashboard, a "View Person" page, or a "View Trip" page. (Note: if you create an inquiry from a "View Trip" page, the trip will automatically be selected for the inquiry.)
Clicking the "Inquiries" button will bring up a window where you can enter a potential guest's information, and if they are interested in a specific trip, you can note that, or provide other notes and details that might be relevant. Only the "Customer" field is required. (Note: this form is customizable for backend use.)
When creating an inquiry, Arctic will, by default, set a follow up date for 7 days from the date the inquiry is being created. You can adjust the follow up date for the inquiry to a specific date based on conversations with the guest. (Note: if you prefer a different default number of days instead of 7, you can adjust the default on the "Settings" page under the "Inquiries" section.)
Also, when creating inquiries via the backend, you can choose to assign the inquiry to a specific user on your installation. For instance if the inquiry is for a group booking and you have a group booking coordinator in your office, you can assign the inquiry to that person even if they are not the one creating the inquiry. This is a great way to ensure that the appropriate person will follow-up on the inquiry. If you prefer for everyone in your office to know and see an inquiry so that whoever is available can follow-up, then you can assign the inquiry to "No One" which will make it a "global" inquiry that all users will see in their list of "Inquiries & Tasks" on the dashboard. By default, Arctic will assign inquiries being created via the backend to the user creating the inquiry. (Note: If you prefer to have Arctic to assign all inquiries when created to "No One", you can alter the "Assign to Self by Default" setting in the "Inquiries" section of the "Settings" page.)
Now that the potential guest has an inquiry created, he will show up in the "Inquiries & Tasks" widget on dashboard, and also on the "Browse Inquiries" page.
If we click the gear icon in the inquiries and tasks widget, we can view the details of the inquiry, edit the inquiry, or once you have followed-up with the potential guest, you can mark the inquiry as complete.
By viewing the inquiry, you can see the guest's information, email the guest (if you have a marketing email template setup), and most importantly, we can convert the inquiry to a reservation or rental when the guest is ready to book, saving the time of re-entering information.
In the next section, we will discuss how to customize the inquiry form for backend use.