Sending messages to guests is regulated to protect recipients. Much like how SPAM email messages are regulated, so are text messages. To ensure compliance and message delivery to your guests, follow these guidelines.
Registration
In order to send messages to guests, your property must have a brand and campaign registered with The Campaign Registry (TCR). Our onboarding team will work with you to ensure that your property has a brand and campaign registered in accordance with A2P 10DLC guidelines.
A2P 10DLC (US Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code) refers to sending SMS messages from an application, like ThinkMessenger, to a mobile phone. A2P compliance is important because it helps to protect consumers from spam and unwanted messages. By following A2P regulations, carriers ensure business messages are delivered to the intended recipients and avoid blocking messages.
To complete registration with TCR, we need to collect some information from you about your business. The information includes:
Business Type (Corporation, partnership, LLC, etc.)
Business Registration Identifier (US EIN or other Tax Identifier)
Legal Business Name and Address as it appears on your tax filings
Business Title of primary contact (Owner/Innkeeper, GM, etc.)
Job Position - select from a fixed list (Director, GM, VP, CEO, CFO, General Counsel, Other)
Company Type (private, public, non-profit, etc.)
Campaign approval can take up to 3 weeks, during which time you will be unable to send messages via ThinkMessenger. Please help us expedite the process by coming to your Consultation/Onboarding meeting prepared with the information above.
Opting In
In order to send messages, guests should give consent. To send transactional messages, you need implied consent. Guests provide implied consent by doing business with you. In order to send marketing messages, guests should provide explicit consent. The approved method used for explicit consent in the online booking engine exposes a disclaimer, informing the guest they will be receiving messages from you, that data rates may apply, and the message frequency varies.
When a guest makes a telephone reservation, we recommend you train your staff to verbally inform your guests to expect messages from the property about their stay.
Opting out
If a guest sends a message with [only] the keyword, the system will automatically opt the guest out or back in. They are not case sensitive.
STOP - This will opt the guest out, and no further messages sent to this guest will be delivered.
START - This will opt the guest back in.
HELP - This will send a message to the guest, letting them know how to use the keywords.
Learn more about how guests opt out here.
We recommend that your first message to guests should...
Let the guest know they can reply STOP anytime to stop receiving messages.
Introduce the business name and that they have an upcoming reservation with you.
Be concise
Glossary of terms:
A2P - Application to Person. It relates to an application, like ThinkMessenger, sending messages to a person, like a guest.
10DLC - 10-digit long code, such as the ThinkMessenger number you use to send texts to your guests.
TCR - The Campaign Registry, the database where Twilio registers sender brands and messaging campaigns.
Brand - This is the property or business that is sending the messages.
Campaign - A messaging "use case" that a property or business registers under a Brand. Brands can have more than one Campaign, for example, a property group with multiple properties.
Sending Links
It's not possible to send linked text like this, as you can with emails. If you need to send a guest to a web page, you will need to send the entire link.
Avoid the "Message filtered" Error
Mobile carriers will block or "filter" messages that meet a threshold by an algorithm. AT&T has shown to be the most aggressive at filtering. The largest contributing factor seems to be links. Some links don't have a problem, and some do. We recommend that if you need to share a link to a photo, document, or file, host it on your own website, and share that link.
Improve message deliverability: Do not send links that have been shortened using shared public URL shorteners, such as free TinyUrl or Bitly links. US carrier policies strongly discourage the use of shared public URL shorteners, due to the frequency of use by spammers, scammers and other bad actors. The use of these public shared shorteners will result in higher risk of filtering, with no recourse if filtering does occur. Branded links like those from ThinkReservations for the upsell portal and digital registration are more acceptable.
Finding the short review link on Google
Make sure you are signed into to a Google account that has access to manage the business on Google.
Search your business on Google
In the search results, click the "Ask for reviews" button.
In the popup, copy the Review link to use with your ThinkMessenger templates.
For example: https://g.page/r/CVvhxNYBLC7BEBM/review
Shortening the link for Tripadvisor
Find your property on Tripadvisor.
Note the URL for your property page and your review page. There will be two sets of numbers, followed by the name of the property and hyphens. The name of the property at the end can be removed.
Remove the extra information at the end, ensuring that you keep both numbers intact, then test. It should redirect again to the full URL.
Use the shorter URL for your ThinkMessenger templates.
For example: https://www.tripadvisor.com/UserReviewEdit-g44460-d78800
Please reach out to support if you have any questions!