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28.10. Email Handling for Booking Agent Activities
Depending on how an email is sent and the information contained in the "Who Pays" field for the agent associated with the booking, Arctic will handle the emails in a few different ways. To be sure you understand the nuances of how Arctic handles booking agent communications, we have listed the various scenarios below for online order confirmations, emails sent via the backend as well as how triggered emails will be handled. So without further ado, here is what you need to know regarding emails for booking agent activities.
Online Order Confirmations:
When you create your agent groups, you have the opportunity to tell Arctic whether you want both the customer and the agent to receive an email confirmation or if you only want the agent to receive the email confirmation. (If an agent is not assigned to an agent group, Arctic will, by default, send both the customer and the agent an email confirmation.) These settings are only relevant to the online confirmation emails sent for guest-facing site orders using the order confirmation email template.
If you set the confirmation emails on an agent group to be sent to both the agent and the customer, Arctic will send the order confirmation email template you have set up to both the agent and their guest. This setting is also used, by default, for agents who are not assigned an agent group. In either case, the email will be formatted based on the information in the "Who Pays" field specified for the agent.
If the agent is set as the "Who Pays", Arctic will not attach a copy of the invoice and any invoice related placeholders in your order confirmation email template will not work. This is to ensure that the guest does not receive any information showing what the agent paid for their booking and is based on the principle that this information should only be shared between you and the booking agent, and that the agent is responsible for billing their guest directly.
If the customer is set as the "Who Pays", Arctic will attach a copy of the invoice and any invoice placeholders in your order confirmation email template will populate as normal. Remember, the guest's invoice will not show the commission. Commissions are "hidden fees" that will not show on invoices sent to guests and are only viewable via the backend from the "View Invoice" page. The principle here is that it is safe to share invoice information with both the agent and the guest as the charges are not effected by the agent's commission.
If the agent group was set to only send the confirmation to the agent, the invoice will be attached and any placeholders in your order confirmation email template will populate as normal and, of course, the only recipient will be the agent. It will then be up to the agent to pass on the relevant information to their guest.
Note: Agents using referral links will not receive confirmation emails for the bookings made using the referral links. The confirmation emails will only go to the guest who booked. If the agent has an agent account created they will be able to see the bookings the guest made when they access their agent account.
Manually Sent Confirmation Emails:
When sending email confirmations for booking agent activities via the backend, if the confirmation you use is in the "Invoice" category, the recipient will be determined by the "Who Pays" field for the agent associated with the booking. For instance, if the agent is set as the "Who Pays", the confirmation will be addressed to the agent. If the customer is set as the "Who Pays", the confirmation will be addressed to the guest. If you also want to send a copy of the confirmation in these instances to the agent, you will have to manually add the agent as a recipient of the email.
To do this on the "Email" page, click the green "Add Person" button next to either the "To", "CC" or "BCC" options depending on how you want the agent to be sent the email.
If you want the agent to be listed as just another primary recipient, you can add them to the "To" section. If you want the agent to be copied on the email and you want the guest to know the agent also received a copy of their confirmation, you can add them to the "CC" section. Or if you want the agent to be copied on the email but you do not want the guest to know the agent also received a copy of their confirmation, you can add them to the "BCC" section.
Remember, anytime an "Invoice" category email template is sent via the backend, a copy of the invoice is always attached unless it is specifically deselected. With this in mind, we do not recommend adding the guest as an additional recipient to "Invoice" category email confirmations where the agent is the "Who Pays".
If the agent is the "Who Pays" but your agent wants you to communicate the guest's reservation details directly to them, you may want to set up an alternate confirmation email template in the "Reservation Details" category. This will allow you to easily provide the guest with their reservation related information but still keep the billing side of things private between you and the agent since the agent will handle billing the guest directly. For more information on creating email templates, see the "Creating Email Templates Part 2: Creating a New Email Template" section in the "Email Chapter" of the support documentation.
Email Triggers:
Triggered emails are governed as follows for booking agent activities, all trip or reservation related triggers, i.e. "After Reservation", "Before Trip", "Before Trip Missing Details", "After Trip" triggers, etc., are always sent to the guest. Any invoice related triggers, i.e. "After Payment Due", "After Scheduled Payment", etc., will be sent to whomever is paying, i.e. the agent or the customer.