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Hello everyone,  

I’m Olivia, from the Product team at Mews. As we approach the launch of our new Guest Portal, I wanted to share some tips and best practices to help you review your current set-up and ensure you‘re ready to provide the best digital journey for your guests. By refining your set-up, you will save time for your staff and unlock extra revenue opportunities. 

 

Set up a seamless self-service experience for guests  

#1 Add an engaging cover image  

  • Make the Guest Portal your own by adding a beautiful ‘Sign-in image’. This will create a welcoming first impression for your guests.  

#2 Customize the check-in form  

  • Define which information you want to collect. Fields can be set as mandatory, optional, or hidden, allowing you to tailor the experience to your needs.  

#3 Ensure Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policies are set-up  

  • These documents are mandatory for guests to be able to sign their registration card digitally.   

#4 Upload clear house rules and instructions  

  • This will help guide your guests through their self-service journey before their arrival and on-property.  

#5 Add images for all space categories  

  • Let guests visualize what to expect by adding images for all the space categories.  

#6 Sign-up for a Digital Key 30-day free trial  

  • If your locks are compatible, sign up for a trial to offer a fully staff-less arrival process. See more details. 

Drive more guests to Engage with the Guest Portal  

#7 Review and customize your emails  

  • Include guest portal links in your Confirmation emails to get guests started right away.   

  • Activate the Before Start email to send then a reminder to check-in online before arrival.  

  • Customize your emails with your branding, images, and tone to drive higher engagement and in turn more online check-ins. See examples for other properties.  

#8 Use SMS reminders  

  • Remind guests to check-in by using the SMS add-on.  

  • Properties using SMS reminders have seen a 20% increase in completed online check-ins, leading to more upsell revenue as guests buy extras ahead of time. 

 

Unlock Extra Revenue Opportunities  

# 9 Promote products and make it visual  

  • Guests will be more inclined to add extras closer to arrival, the perfect moment to promote your products.   

#10 Offer room upgrades  

  • Encourage guests to make their stay a little more special by upgrading to a higher priced space when you have availability.   

 

We’re excited to launch the New Guest Portal soon, and we’re eager to hear from you. Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below. 

Will this new online incheck system has the option to leave out the request for creditcard? 
As most people here in NL don’t have one so online incheck with the mandatory page to leave your CC details doesn’t really work here.

I am a little concerned with the address details you are showing very prominently in the home screen now.

We have several houses, each ordered in a bookable service, in a single Mews environment.
Each of these houses has a different address.

Will you provide us with an option to save an address per bookable serve, and display this in the app?
Or, in case not, will there be an option to not display the address to the guests?

I wouldn’t want to have our guests showing up at our office, instead of their booked apartments, every day.

@Kuster not just yet but this is lined up for our team to pick-up next as we know this mandatory CC does not work for every situation (i.e. some countries where it is less prevalent, not necessary for prepaid rates, confusing for some travel agent bookings, etc.). We want to look into offering more flexibility, i.e. letting the property decide at the rate group level, whether the credit card should be mandatory in OCI or not. So more to come soon on the topic.

@andreas thank you for your feedback. I will follow up with you directly by the end of the week as this is an unusual set-up of the Guest Portal. 

I look forward to improvements.
Things I would like to see from the Guest Portal:
- That the requirements of the Guest Portal are the same as in the MEws Kiosk regarding the need for guest data. This is not yet the case

- When upgrading rooms, only a photo of the room is displayed so far a photo stream e.g. wipe would be much better

-The query for credit card data sometimes irritates guests. We usually already have credit card data before the guest enters the portal, so the new query is irritating.

 

@maxw thanks for the feedback. 

Not sure what you mean about the guest data requirements being different for Online Check-In vs Kiosk but do not hesitate to DM me!

About Room Upgrades, happy to share we’ve added a carousel in the New Portal, so if there are multiple pictures uploaded for the space category, the guest will be able to navigate through them.

And finally skipping card data in the flow, that’s something we want to pick up next. I’ll soon be opening a topic on this on the Community BETA Group so please add your thoughts there when I do!
 

@Olivia.Dingreville like that!

It would be great to allow more granular settings for required guest data fetched. For example on the first level a differntiation between booker, companion and even child would be helpful. On the secondary level the guest data should be defined. In our case for example it would be great to get the car license plate.

@jones.eth thanks for the feedback! Indeed configuring guest data is something we want to continue to refine - i.e. having more flexibility in differentiating main guest vs companion requirements, and as you say child vs adult. I don’t have any updates on this for now, but something that’s on our radar so I’ll add your insight to the idea so we can potentially reach out to you when we progress. 

And happy to share that the option to collect car registration plate is coming soon as part of the portal release! So keep an eye out for the release note & instructions to set-it up!

@Kuster @maxw do not hesitate to share your thoughts on skipping card details in online check-in in this discussion: 

 

@jones.eth thanks for the feedback! Indeed configuring guest data is something we want to continue to refine - i.e. having more flexibility in differentiating main guest vs companion requirements, and as you say child vs adult. I don’t have any updates on this for now, but something that’s on our radar so I’ll add your insight to the idea so we can potentially reach out to you when we progress. 

And happy to share that the option to collect car registration plate is coming soon as part of the portal release! So keep an eye out for the release note & instructions to set-it up!

That sounds great!

Is there a way to send a link to the guest directly to the portal? For example, guests from Booking.com can’t access the Check in online link from their email because the email is converted into normal text.

Also, the credit card should be optional and not a requirement.

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