How do I respond to an enquiry?
When a visitor to TakeABreak.com.au makes an enquiry about booking accommodation at your property, you will receive an email (SMS and fax options also available) advising you of their enquiry. You can then choose whether or not to offer them accommodation.

It is a condition of listing your property on the TakeABreak.com.au website that all accommodation enquiries must be responded to, if only to state the lack of availability of accommodation or to apologise for failure to respond in a timely fashion.

1. Enquiry arrives - Select your response
You will get notification of the booking enquiry by email. Do not reply to this email. The enquiry email shows details of the enquiry such as dates, number of persons, enquirer's name and address as well as any additional questions or comments. It then offers you the following response options:

Available - to confirm availability and pricing
Not Available - if you cannot accommodate this request
Offer alternative dates - if you can offer similar dates but not exactly those requested
Request more information - if you need to ask questions to finalise your quote
Respond by phone - if you prefer to call the enquirer
Duplicate enquiry, no need to respond - if the enquiry is a duplicate or for some other reason it is not appropriate to respond

Click on the link next to the appropriate response for this enquiry.

If the link doesn't open a new web page you can copy the link from the email and paste it into the address area on your browser and hit enter or click 'Go'.

If you don't have the email you can log in to your TakeABreak account, click on the property name and then click on the "pending requests" tab.

2. Complete your response
Depending on which response you selected, a different screen will appear to assist you with finalising the response.

If you selected Respond by phone you will now see the enquirer's phone and other contact details so you can call them straight away.

If you selected another response the system will open a response template which already includes most of the basics of your response. You then simply need to fill in the blanks.

For the other responses you will need to include some additional information specific to the enquiry.

You can then add any additional text to your response in the white Enter your comments section that forms the middle section of your email response. This could include any extra charges (eg linen, breakfast if optional, etc), answering any specific questions the enquirer asked, or adding any additional comments you wish to personalise your response to the enquirer's specific requirements and dates.

Once you've completed the response template, you can just click send. You will get a copy of the email you have sent to the enquirer, and you can see on the screen exactly what it will say.

You must select one of the options in the email otherwise we will not know you have responded. In this case you will receive a reminder email and your listing may be temporarily suspended.

3. Arrange payment with guest or follow-up enquiry response
You can now correspond directly with the enquirer to finalise your booking, or send a Request deposit email from the link that appears in your confirmation email. You may wish to follow up by phone if you have not had a response to your email within 24 hours (sometimes email is blocked by spam filters or the email address may be incorrect).

Any transaction entered into between you and the TakeABreak.com.au enquirer is at your own discretion and is your responsibility.

How do I tailor my response templates?
The TakeABreak system will automatically use the standard response templates. However, you can add your own templates for some or all response types (available, not available, etc). You can even set up more than one template for each response type and choose which one to use when responding.

To set up custom response templates

1. Click here and log in to your TakeABreak account or go to http://www.takeabreak.com.au/ologin.htm.
2. Click on the yellow Response templates tab.
3. Select a standard response from the drop-down list as a template for your tailored response.
4. Click 'New'.
5. Enter an individual description for your tailored response.
6. Select which property this particular response will be used for. (To select more than one property hold down the SHIFT key as you click each property using your mouse).
7. The box titled Header text includes a suggested introduction to your response. The information between the $$ $$ is information related to the specific enquiry. These fields are called ‘tokens’. Specific instructions for completing this box are provided on-screen in the blue area.
8. After the standard text you can add any other information relevant to their enquiry.
9. Scroll down to the box titled Footer text.
This box includes similar suggested text and tokens.
10. Update the standard response information and add any other information relevant to their enquiry.
11. Scroll down to the Attachment box.
You an attach your terms and conditions, or a PDF document with detailed property information. If you don’t want to add an attachment, go to step 13.
12. To add an attachment, click 'Browse'.
A dialogue box will appear listing the files on your computer.
13. Find and double click on the file you wish to attach.
If you want to attach more than one attachment you will need to attach them one at a time.
14. Click 'Upload.
15. Scroll down and click on Preview to see how your response will look to the enquirer.
16. If you are satisfied with the response go back to the template and click OK.

The template will be saved for you to select when responding to future enquiries.

How do I view and edit bookings or enquiries?
Click on 'availability and enquiries' to view, edit and add owner bookings, or to confirm tentative bookings. To see the details for a booking or enquiry, click on the booking reference.

1. Click here and log in to your TakeABreak account or go to http://www.takeabreak.com.au/ologin.htm.
2. Select your property.
3. Click on the purple Calendar and enquiries tab.
Your calendar will be displayed as will any enquiries you have received.
4. Locate the enquiry or booking you wish to view or edit and, click on the booking reference number.

What are response times?
When you create your property listing you can identify an expected response time  to any enquiry. The default response time in 24 hours but you can change this under the 'Details' tab of your property listing..

If you do not respond within the response time that you have specified, our system will send you a reminder email. If you still do not respond, your property listing will be temporarily suspended and an apology for the failure to respond will be sent by us to the enquirer.

Your average response time will be shown on your property listing so it's in your interest to respond as quickly as practical. Sometimes enquiries are made very late at night and obviously these will need to wait until the next morning to answer.

Please note that if your property listing is suspended this is not meant to be a penalty. We understand there can be many reasons which lead to a failure to respond. We are simply taking the listing offline until we hear from you to let us know you'll be able to respond to future enquiries. This is to prevent further potential guests making enquiries which can't be answered in a timely fashion.

Email bounces
Sometimes when you email a response to the enquirer, the email will "bounce". This means the email is not delivered to the enquirer. When this happens the system will email you to let you know.

Usual reasons for a bounce are typos or non-working email addresses. In these cases your best action is to phone the enquirer (our bounce email will include their phone number for your convenience).

Please note that due to the nature of the Internet there will be cases where the email doesn't get through that are not detected by our system.