Guests who book a room online can create an account on your booking pages. They sign in with Google, Facebook, or their email and a password they choose, and keep their bookings with you in one place. Accounts belong to your business only: a guest who also stays at another hotel using Business Sensor has a separate account there.
Signing up is quick: there is no confirmation email to click. The guest is signed in straight away.
Sales → Guest Accounts shows every account and the customer that belongs to it.
Before you start
- You need the Customers permission to open Guest Accounts.
- Guests find Sign in at the top of your room pages, and Create an account / Sign in on their booking page after they pay. Booking never requires an account: guests can still book without one.
- Guests get password-reset emails from your business name. Your company profile should have your name filled in.
Each account has its own customer
When a guest creates an account, a new customer is made for it. That customer belongs to the account and is found by the account itself, never by the email or phone number the guest typed.
- A signed-in guest who books a room books as their account's customer.
- A guest who books without signing in always gets a new customer and guest record for that booking, paid by them. Nothing is matched by phone or email, so a typed number can never put a booking or a deposit on someone else's account.
Because nothing is matched, a guest who books several times without an account appears as several customers. When they arrive, the front desk can see likely earlier stays on the booking (see Advance bookings).
What a guest sees on their account
Under My account a guest sees:
- Online bookings made while signed in to their account.
- Online bookings they saved to their account. On the booking's own page, a signed-in guest clicks Save to my account. Guests who create an account or sign in from a booking's page have that booking saved automatically. The booking's private link is the proof it is theirs.
- Bookings they added by reference. Under Add a booking you made without signing in, the guest enters the booking code and the email they booked with. The booking's link is emailed to that address, and opening it while signed in adds the booking. Receiving that email is the proof. A reference and an email alone aren't enough, because other people can know both.
- Their stays with you: front-desk stays paid for by their account's own customer.
A guest never sees bookings or stays because of an email or phone number, and never sees stays a company pays for.
Signing in with Google or Facebook
The sign-in and sign-up pages show Continue with Google and Continue with Facebook buttons. Guests don't need a password for these.
- Google confirms the guest's email. If an account with the same email already exists, Google is added to it. If that account was opened with a password and never proved the email, the password is removed and all its devices are signed out first. This protects the real owner of the email from someone who signed up with their address.
- Facebook doesn't tell us whether the email is confirmed. If an account with that email already exists, the guest is asked to sign in with their password instead, so nobody can get into someone else's account through Facebook.
- If a guest's Facebook account doesn't share an email address, they are asked to sign up with their email instead.
- A guest who signed up with Google or Facebook and later wants a password uses Forgot password? to set one.
Steps
See who has an account
- Go to Sales → Guest Accounts.
- Search by name, email or phone.
Close an account
- Find the account and click Close account.
- The guest can no longer sign in, and every device they were signed in on is signed out straight away. Their bookings and customer record are untouched.
- Click Re-open to let them back in. This also clears a lock from too many wrong passwords.
Tips
- Guests manage their own password: Forgot password? on the sign-in page emails them a link that works for one hour. Staff never see or set guest passwords.
- After five wrong passwords an account is locked for 15 minutes. That protects guests from someone guessing their password.
- Changing or resetting a password signs the guest out on every other device.
Common problems
- A guest says someone already has an account with their email → they click Forgot password?. The reset link goes to their email, and resetting signs everyone else out of that account.
- A booking isn't on the guest's account → it was made without signing in. On My account, the guest uses Add a booking you made without signing in (reference + the email they booked with) and opens the emailed link while signed in. Or they open the booking's link while signed in and click Save to my account.
- "We couldn't find a booking with that reference and email" → the email they typed isn't the one on the booking, or the reference is wrong. Check the booking in Advance Bookings and tell them the email it was made with.
- The page says the link was sent, but it never arrives → it went to the address on the booking (shown masked on the page). Ask them to check spam, or that inbox.
- A guest's front-desk stay isn't on their account → only stays paid by their account's own customer appear. A stay registered at the desk under another customer, or paid by a company, doesn't.
- A guest can't sign in → they may have been locked out after wrong passwords (wait 15 minutes or click Re-open), or the account was closed.
- No Google or Facebook button → that sign-in isn't set up on your server yet. Ask your administrator.
- "An account with this email already exists" after Facebook → the guest signs in with their password (or resets it). That is deliberate protection.