Help Guide for FlipKey ISI Guest Reviews

Help Guide
FlipKey and Instant Software have partnered to offer you a seamless guest
review service, focused on maximizing the marketing power of guest
reviews and making the process easy to save you time.
By accessing your reservation history via ISILink, FlipKey makes it easy to
send personalized emails to your guests, inviting them to leave a review of
their rental experience. Simply set-up your account, select your
preferences and within days you will be collecting valuable guest reviews
for each of your rental properties. These guest reviews will help attract
future guests and improve owner relations.
FlipKey features a number of tools that help you manage your guest
reviews, publish review content on your own site and receive placement on
powerful consumer sites, such as TripAdvisor.
This Quick Reference Guide provides easy step-by-step instructions to help you
get the most out of your FlipKey membership. If you have additional questions,
please feel free to email [email protected] or call 877-FLIPKEY and an
Account Manager will contact you as soon as possible.
Contents:
Page 2:
Getting Started
Page 3:
Customize Your Profile & Preferences
Page 4:
Collecting Guest Reviews
Page 6:
Example Guest Review Invitation
Page 7:
Post a Response or Protest a Review
Page 8:
Feature Guest Reviews on Your Web Site
Page 9:
Add / Remove / Edit Property Information
Getting Started
Step 1: Select Guest Reviews in your Instant Software WebLink Account
A) After logging into your WebLink
account select “Guest Reviews”
This will take you to the Property
Selection page where you can
choose the properties you would
like to collect guest reviews for.
Step 2: Select Properties
A) You can easily begin colleting
guest reviews for all your
properties by selecting the
“Check/Uncheck All” box. It is
recommended that you add all
properties.
B) If you would like to select specific
properties you can select /
unselect specific units.
C) Once you have determined which
properties to add to FlipKey, click
‘Save.’
D) You will be taken to a jump page
where you select “Manage FlipKey
Guest Reviews.” By clicking this,
you will taken to your customized
Guest Review Account.
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Customize Your Profile & Preferences
A) Your username and general company information is automatically populated based on the
information you maintain within your ISI account. Choose a primary contact for your
FlipKey account – this will be the first person we contact if necessary for support reasons.
B) Select your Guest Review
Preferences. By selecting
Automatic + Historical FlipKey
will send personalized review
invitations to your past guests
(past two years) and all future
guests after they have
checked out. This is the
recommended option to
maximize the value of your
guest reviews.
C) Fill out the “About Us” form.
Visitors on FlipKey.com read
this information to learn more
about your business and
professional services. Most
managers copy the text
featured on their website to
populate this field, however,
you can customize it to your
liking.
D) Logos are often automatically populated based on your ISI account information. You can
always change your logo by clicking the “Browse” button and selecting a new company
logo you may have stored on your computer.
E) Select your Affiliations. Select “Yes” on if you are a current member of VRMA and/or
Discover Vacation Homes. To learn more about these organizations please visit
www.vrma.com and www.discovervacationhomes.com
F) Enter you Guest Inquiry Contact details. Reservation inquiries via email and phone will be
sent to the contact information you provide. Note: Low Review Notification Email should
be the email address of a marketing manager.
G) Click “Save.” FlipKey will then begin customizing your account. This process requires
downloading all your property pictures and additional account information and can take up
to 10 minutes to complete.
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Collecting Guest Reviews
Auto Enabled (Go to the next page if you selected “Manual” as your Guest Review Preference)
If you enabled “Automatic” invitations, a few days following your guests checkout, FlipKey will
automatically send, on your behalf, a personalized email to your past guests, inviting your
guests to leave a review of their rental experience. FlipKey accesses information from your ISI
software to determine the exact home the guest stayed in and the appropriate guest email for
sending the review invitation. There is no action required on your part – it’s that easy!
Privacy Note: FlipKey only accesses guest email records to initiate review invitations.
FlipKey adheres to a strict privacy policy, which ensures email records are never sold or
accessed for any reason beyond collecting guest reviews. To read more, please visit
http://www.flipkey.com/Pages/privacy_policy/
A) To further personalize your
review invitations select
‘Manage Reviews’ in the
main navigation.
B) To add a personal message
to your review invitation,
select the button
“Personalize Email To Your
Guests.” (e.g. Thanks for
staying with Lower Cape
Escapes. We offer a 5%
discount on future visits for
guests that leave a guest
review. Just mention
‘FlipKey Reviews’ when
making you next
reservation. Hope to see
you next year!)
C) If you would like to send yourself a test guest review invitation, click the “Send Myself a
Test Email” button. If the invitation doesn’t appear in your inbox within a few minutes check
your SPAM filter. FlipKey emails are optimized for inbox delivery, however, some SPAM
filters are very aggressive.
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Manual (Go to the previous page if you selected “Auto” as your Guest Review Preference)
If you enabled ‘Manual” invitations, you must login to your account each time you would like to
invite guests to leave a review. To help you save time, FlipKey makes it easy by loading
guest emails for you. FlipKey accesses information from your ISI software to determine the
exact home the guest stayed in and the appropriate guest email for sending the review
invitation. Read below for more details.
Privacy Note: FlipKey only accesses guest email records to initiate review invitations.
FlipKey adheres to a strict privacy policy, which ensures email records are never sold or
accessed for any reason beyond collecting guest reviews. To read more, please visit
http://www.flipkey.com/Pages/privacy_policy/
A) To avoid manually typing in all guest emails you would like to send review invitations to,
you can quickly ‘load’ emails. Simply select your preferred timeframe.
B) Click “Load”
C) FlipKey will automatically populate each property with emails from guests that stayed with
you during your selected timeframe. You can add/remove emails by clicking “Edit.”
D) Once you have loaded your guests’ emails click “Next.” On the next screen you can then
enter a personal message that will be added to your email invitations. See next page for an
example of a real review invitation sent by FlipKey by Big Bear Vacations.
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Sample Guest Review Email
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Post a Response to a Guest Review or Protest a Review
FlipKey makes it easy to manage your guest review content. Many managers foster greater
consumer confidence by posting responses to the guest reviews they collect. FlipKey also
allows managers to protest inappropriate reviews under certain circumstances.
To view your guest reviews and access the Respond / Protest features:
•
Click on the “Recent Guest Reviews” tab in the main navigation. This will list
your guest reviews in the chorological order they were submitted by users.
or
•
Click on the “Manage Reviews” tab in the main navigation. By clicking on the
magnifying glass icon ( ) you can access guest reviews for a specific property.
A) Click the “Respond” button.
A text window will appear
allowing you to write your
response. Click “Save” when
you are finished.
B) If you would like to protest
the review you can click the
“Protest” link. Protested
reviews will be removed,
however, FlipKey reserves
the right to disable this
feature if inappropriately
used. We recommend not
protesting reviews and
instead posting a response
that states your position.
C) Responses that you write will
be appended to the original
guest review and indicated
with a “Manager Response”
(denoted with the pin icon).
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Feature Guest Reviews on Your Web Site
FlipKey and Instant Software make it easy to add guest reviews to your website. You can
choose from FlipKey’s Extension Widgets or customize the widget to your own look and feel by
using the FlipKey XML feed.
Recommendation: FlipKey’s Extension Tools are free and easy to use, however, it is
recommended you consult with your webmaster to ensure a fast and easy implementation.
Select a FlipKey Extension Widget
A) Click on “Extension Widgets” in
the main navigation.
B) Reputation Widget: Use this
widget on your homepage to
show prospective guests the
aggregate number of reviews and
rating you have collected.
C) Property Widget: Use this
widget to feature guest reviews
on individual property detail
pages.
Note: Once you have selected
the widget or XML feed, contact
your webmaster and he/she can
copy the HTML code to the
proper location on your website.
FlipKey Widgets dynamically display a summarized rating of all your guest reviews. As you
collect more reviews the widgets automatically update – no action is required on your part!
This allows you to offer reviews on your website with little effort and at no charge.
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Add / Remove / Edit Property Information
Property descriptions, photos, rates and availability are all updated automatically through your
ISILink account. After opting-in to FlipKey, FlipKey is able to interface will all the information
you enter into ISILink. This saves you time and ensures FlipKey can provide end-users with
accurate and up-to-date rental property information.
In the event that the information you maintain on ISILink is incomplete or not sufficient, please
contact FlipKey by emailing [email protected]. We will evaluate your account and
provide alternative methods to ensure your rental properties and your management company
are properly represented on FlipKey.
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