Important information to ensure you emails continue to send in 2024
Important information to ensure you emails continue to send in 2024
Starting February 2024, Gmail and other email providers like Yahoo will require certain standards to be in place for senders who send messages to their customer’s accounts:
- Authenticate outgoing email
- Avoid sending unwanted or unsolicited email
- Make it easy for recipients to unsubscribe.
The rules have been partially implemented in the prior months but go into full effect from 1st Feb 2024 and will affect all emails you send whether via Survey Booker or directly via your email provider.
The new rules apply to two different groups, standard senders (those that send fewer than 5,000 emails per day) and bulk senders (those that send more than 5,000 emails per day). There are slightly different requirements depending on the volume you send but in either case, there are certain settings you must have in place so that your emails get delivered and don’t go to the spam folder or get blocked entirely. In either case, there are still certain standards that must be in place.
When you connect your email to Survey Booker, emails are sent to your connected email server to send on to your customers, referrers etc. We don’t send emails on your behalf, from our servers, saying that we are you. Therefore, you need to set up the correct settings for your email to ensure that you are proving to a recipient’s email provider that you are the genuine sender of the email. We can’t set this up for you! We can share some tips on what you need to do though. You must have this in place so your emails don’t just land in the spam folder!
Guidelines for Standard Senders (below 5,000 emails per day)
Keep your spam rates low.
Keeping low spam rates should already be a priority as bad scam scores can quickly affect the deliverability of all your emails.
The new guidelines state that you’ll need to keep your spam rates under 0.30%, and to do this we advise using postmaster tools and aiming instead for the Google-recommended target of below 0.10%. Go above these levels and you’ll risk being blacklisted as a bad sender. It’s best not to bombard customers with follow-ups and if they unsubscribe then stop sending emails.
You can also avoid spam filters by ensuring your content doesn’t appear spammy by revising your email content. Check out our blog post here.
Don’t impersonate Gmail or other providers ‘From:’ headers.
What does this actually mean? If you’ve started your business and you have set up your company email ending in @gmail, @yahoo or @outlook etc you may be tempted to change the ‘from’ header to look like it came from a business address e.g. the ‘from’ is set to show as @mybusiness.com
Google will be enforcing a DMARC enforcement quarantine policy. This means if you don’t follow this rule then your emails will likely end up in spam, if even sent at all.
One good thing to do is set up your emails on your own company domain. It will also look more professional to your customers. Here’s an example of making your ‘from’ header look like something it isn’t!
Set up SPF or DKIM email authentication for your domain.
This authentication is more complex and may require the help of someone who can manage your DNS settings. Some email platforms will have helped to implement this already but for others, you will need to implement these yourself.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can contact your email software provider, domain registrar or web hosting provider as chances are they’ll have straightforward tools and advice to help get you started.
If you use an IT company to support your business, they will also be a useful point of contact when it comes to navigating this change.
Read through additional changes to ensure compliance
There are a few other considerations to check, many of which are existing best practices which are likely already in place via your email software or web hosting provider, but you’ll still need to check. These include:
- Make sure that sending domains and IP addresses have PTR records, which are valid forward and reverse DNS records. The Google guidelines have more information on this further down in their published document.
- Use a TLS connection when transmitting emails, Google has provided more information on this step here.
- Format messages according to Internet message format standards 5321 and 5322.
- Make sure your ‘from’ headers match your domain name.
- Don’t hide any information using HTML or CSS.
- Use ARC if you regularly forward emails to indicate that the message was forwarded.
- Whilst these points are a bit technical, they can help when it comes to asking service providers questions, so be sure to take a look at the guidelines in full from both Gmail and Yahoo.
Guidelines for Bulk Senders (above 5,000 emails per day)
‘Bulk’ senders must wave goodbye to shared domains
If you’re a ‘bulk sender’, which means sending 5k emails or more a month, you can no longer use a shared domain.
A shared domain is simply an address which is shared, for example: those using SendGrid might have an email that when sent, still comes from @sendgrid. Whereas those using a branded domain would appear in the inbox from @yourbusinessname.
You’ve probably seen these emails before, when looking at sender info it may display as ‘sent on behalf of’ or ‘sent via MailChimp’. So from February 2024, if you want your emails to land in the inbox of those using Gmail or Yahoo, you’ll have to set up a branded/company domain.
Set up a DMARC policy on your root domain
What is a DMARC policy? According to Klaviyo, ‘DMARC authentication is a protocol policy that servers use to make sure emails are coming from a legitimate sender. Brands use DMARC policies to protect the domain in their sender email address from unauthorized use by bad actors.’
Much like GDPR policies, your email service provider cannot set these up for you on your behalf, although Mailchimp has a handy tool to help its users through
Make it easier to unsubscribe
You’re going to have to provide at least one way that users can opt-out in one step.
If you don’t provide an easy way to unsubscribe, chances are users receiving unwanted emails will report you as spam. Remember that important spam rate at the start of this article? Spammy senders end up on the naughty step, which affects their deliverability overall and can even lead to blacklisting! So if you’ve not sorted out your unsubscribe flow yet, now is the time to do so.
You should already be doing this – if you have no unsubscribe button, not only is it a negative, frustration-inducing user experience that can harm your company’s reputation, it’s far more likely you’ll be reported as a spammy sender.
Survey Booker requires the use of the Unsubscribe shortcode in the lead nurture emails. We’ll also be adding an unsubscribe option to the email header to provide a more visual way to unsubscribe in the welcome email and lead nurture emails. This will prevent lead nurture emails from sending if the recipient wasn’t interested in your welcome email.
Align your ‘from’ header with your domain.
We already talked about the importance of trying to hide your ‘from’ domain in headers, and the extra step that needs to be taken is matching this header with your domain.
Useful tools
Mail tester: https://www.mail-tester.com/ – Test the spammyness of your emails. You can add the email shown on the link as a contact in Survey Booker and send it a welcome email to test the spammyness of your email and settings.
MXToolbox: https://mxtoolbox.com/dmarc.aspx – check the scammyness of your emails. It will show if you have missing DNS records that you need to add. However, even if you do have records present, you must check that they include the right information.
What do some of the terms we’ve used above mean?
1. Sender Policy Framework (SPF):
SPF is a list of approved senders for your domain (e.g., yourcompany.com). It tells recipients’ inbound email servers (in this case, Gmail and Yahoo Mail) which outbound servers are allowed to send emails on your behalf, helping to prevent your emails from being marked as suspicious.
For example, if you’re sending emails through an ESP like SendGrid, you’d need to add SendGrid’s servers to your list of approved senders.
2. DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM):
DKIM adds an extra layer of security. It attaches a private digital signature to each email, confirming that it was sent by your domain. If the signature does not match with the public record, or if the message has been tampered with, the email will be more likely to be marked as spam.
3. Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC): DMARC is the most secure form of email authentication. It guides Gmail and Yahoo Mail’s servers on how to handle emails that fail SPF and DKIM checks (for example, whether to reject or quarantine them in the spam folder).
To do this, you’ll need to publish a DMARC record for your domain. This will help to ensure that your legitimate emails reach their destination while protecting against spoofing (i.e. someone pretending to be you).
It’s also important to make sure that you don’t use email addresses on Gmail or Yahoo Mail’s domains (e.g. @gmail.com or @yahoo.com) to send bulk emails, as these will end up in the spam folder.
Webinar 8 - Setting up SendGrid for your automated emails and using your new referrer settings
Webinar 8 - Setting up SendGrid for your automated emails and using your new referrer settings
Learn more about using SendGrid for your automated emails and how to get the most out of your new referrer settings:
✅ What is SendGrid and what is it used for? 00:20
✅ Why did we stop sending emails on your behalf? 02:16
✅ Setting up a SendGrid account and API key 04:20
✅ Adding SendGrid settings in Survey Booker 08:53
✅ When SendGrid is used for customer and referral partner emails 10:00
✅ Bulk emailing referral partners with weekly/monthly statements via SendGrid 11:00
✅ Benefits of connecting SendGrid 13:00
Release Note - February 24th 2024
This is an important update to read as there are a whole host of smaller refinements that you can use to further personalise your service as well as some bigger stand-out updates. Please read through all of the smaller refinements to understand what changes are on their way.
This update focuses on small refinements throughout the system to help make using your account faster, easier and more streamlined. This is based on your feedback – we’re always keen to hear what small changes would help make a big difference to your experience.
Email versioning
Custom booking questions
Custom lead nurture times
Document groups
Smaller refinements
Email versioning
Why have we made this update?
When sending automated emails, you may want to send a different welcome email based on the lead source to run promotions by lead source or share different information to stand out against competitors. During jobs, you may also want to provide more job-specific information. For example, when setting the appointment, you want to give different information for a desktop job versus one requiring a site visit. You may also want to send different supporting documents with each report you send out or different turnaround times when confirming appointments went ahead. You can now provide even more personalised updates throughout a job.
Available on: Pro, Large, Enterprise
Email and SMS Settings
- Email versions: create different email template versions by lead source (welcome emails) and job type (all other stages)
- New template layout to list available shortcodes and the order the templates are sent out
- Primary user: When the first user is added to a job they will be set as the “primary” assigned user. This can be changed to another user assigned to the job later on if needed. This setting will be used to set which user’s email address should be used for sending an automated email if more than one user is assigned where you choose to send emails from the assigned user in your settings. It also sets which user’s details add into the email template when using the allocated user shortcodes.
- New shortcodes:
- [Assigned Surveyor] – enters the name of the assigned user on the job that is set as a surveyor
- [Access First Name] – enters the access contact’s first name into the email
- [Access Last Name] – enters the access contact’s last name into the email
Custom booking questions
Why have we made this update?
During the booking process, you may want to ask customers to share additional information. Instead of having to request this via automated or manual emails, you can now ask customers to complete this information via the booking portal. Customers can fill in the extra details you need from them whilst providing information such as access details and more. Customers can save and return later if there is a lot of information you need making it easy to complete it steps where more complex information is needed.
Available on: Large, Enterprise
- Create custom booking questions
- Set which job types they appear for
- Set where the answers display on the job record
- Allow customers to fill in information, save and return later
Custom lead nurture times
Why have we made this update?
So you can personalise your follow-up process further and stand out from competitors. We know you might get a lead from the same source as other firms at the same time. To make your follow-ups look more personal, you can now customise when the lead nurture follow-ups should be sent so they are sent at a different time to others.
Available on: Plans with lead nurture
- Set the number of hours from quote confirmation for the first follow-up between 0-48 hours
- Set the number of days from quote confirmation for the second and third follow-ups between 2-60 days
Document groups
Why have we made this update?
We’ve updated this section to make uploading and managing uploaded documents easier.
Available on: All plans
- View the progress of uploading documents
- Drag and drop documents between document groups
- Bulk tick documents to be deleted
- Preview and/or download uploaded documents
Pay by Bank
Why have we made this update?
Offer customers more ways to pay and benefit from cheaper transaction fees
Available on: All plans
- Using the Stripe feed you can enable Pay by Bank to offer automated bank transfers.
- Activate pay by bank in your Stripe account.
- Customers will have the option of card or bank transfer (confirmation can take between 5 seconds to 2 hours depending on how long the bank transfer takes to process.
Various smaller refinements to make life easier
Job record updates
Updating the job contact: if you need to change the customer email address on a job record and a contact already exists on your account with that email, a pop-up will appear asking if you want to change the contact on the job record to the existing customer record you have on your account using that email address. This will make changing the contact associated with the job faster if you’ve accidentally created a job with the wrong email address and you want to associate it with an existing contact record.
Referral fees – If changing the job type, and the lead source is an introducer, the system will recalculate the referral fee owed for that job type removing the need to update it manually. The fee will also be recalculated if the job fee is updated.
Add project quote – we’ve updated the add project quote page to include fields for the customer and property details. This removes the need to first create a contact or property to your account before adding the project quote. This means you can add the quote more quickly and easily. We also have a big project update being started shortly following a review with different customers.
General updates
Notifications table: custom events now have their own tab in the notifications table instead of being a toggle option on the tasks tab, making it easier to see custom events due.
Quotes/jobs table –
- The “Booking required” stage filter will combine jobs at the accepted, paid and payment skipped status. This will remove the payment made stage so you can more quickly see jobs that need to be booked in.
- A new column is being added for the terms status of a job to show a quick visual as to which jobs have terms completed, which need sending and which aren’t required.
Referrer/surveyor on multiple accounts – a historic security decision meant only customers could be added to multiple surveying firm accounts. We’re updating the settings so that a surveyor email or referrer email can be added to multiple surveying firm accounts (e.g. a surveyor who acts as a consultant for different firms or a referrer who refers to two companies).
Referrer accounts – the view button in the referrer table will show green, amber, red or blue depending on the lead lead submitted date (green for a last lead in the last 30 days, amber for a last lead in the last 31-60 days, red for last lead in the last 61-90 days and blue if no leads have been received).
Referrer plus – when signed terms are received, the group and associated branches/contacts will move to “Live”.
Quote/job export – we’ve added a data limit to exports to help protect accounts from running slow from very large exports. You can still export all your data, however, if this is over the data limit you’ll just need to export your data in different date batches.
Deleting data – when deleting a record (e.g. job or referrer) we’ll delete any related notes, tasks, messages and emails to prevent issues with linked data appearing in notification tables. E.g. a task shows as due but it is related to a record that has since been removed. This will also help support your GDPR requirements.
Calendar tab – the calendar month view will now show an event for users set in the user availability settings as on “annual leave”, “sick” or “unavailable”. The weekly and day views will continue to show the user as greyed out.
Data searches – sometimes data won’t appear if the number of spaces in your search doesn’t match the number of spaces in the system. We’re updating searches so results still return regardless making it easier to search for records.
Terms documents – you can now create your own tags for custom booking questions or custom timeline fields. This data can prefill into a terms template for you. See our terms guide on how to create the tag.
Settings updates
User settings – we are adding two icons to show if an email and/or calendar has been connected for that user so you can see which users have calendars/emails connected and which users need to set it up. We’ll also show the last login time for that user.
User availability – currently, user availability settings are provided for surveyors and users assigned to automated lead allocation (enterprise). We’re updating these settings so you can track when different team members are working, on annual leave or off for other reasons. Shifts can then be published for your team to view at any time via a new “My Shifts” page so they know when they are working and when they are off.
Optional extras – we’re adding the ability to set the order in which your optional extras appear in the customer portal. Currently, they display in the order they’ve been added. This update will allow you to prioritise the order based on how you want customers to see them.
Integrations
Report writing / GoReport – the feed is being updated to send the “report name” through instead of the main customer name (defaulting to the main customer name where a report name hasn’t been set).
Lead generation site integrations – the sending of the welcome email will be changed to send 3-5 minutes after the lead is saved in Survey Booker. This is being done to ensure we save the lead once received from the lead generation site, provide a success response to confirm it saved and then send / process the welcome email afterwards. This will prevent lead generation sites from trying to repost leads when it has already successfully saved in Survey Booker but where the sending of the email is failing or taking too long delaying our success response to the lead gen site. If this takes too long, lead gen sites can sometimes assume the posting of the lead failed before getting our success response.
Enterprise
Automated lead allocation – we’re updating automated lead allocation so it only assigns leads from the time you turn it on (existing leads will now be ignored). This means if you haven’t been using this feature from the start, you can subsequently turn it on, or pause it and restart it and only new leads coming in will be allocated instead of historic data too.
Release Note - November 2023
Exciting new referral partner features to foster stronger partnerships
This update offers a number of new features to help boost your relationship with your referral partners. Each new feature has been designed to help with the whole lifecycle of a referral partner from prospect to actively referring and to help encourage a higher referral rate from your referral partners.
SendGrid integration - IMPORTANT
What is this update?
When notifications are sent to customers they send from your connected email in the SMTP or Office 365 settings. If you don’t connect an email address or it disconnects we currently send your emails from an email we gave you – [email protected].
Going forwards, we won’t do this. But you can connect a SendGrid account as a back up so that if your email disconnects, your customers still receive emails from your email address via this SendGrid integration.
Why have me made it?
The main reason is email deliverability: if we send lots of emails on behalf of surveying firms where there could be invalid email addresses (e.g. as new leads are added) it causes our sender reputation to drop this can affect our notifications reaching you. It also means emails sent from our account may not reach your customers because the sender reputation has been affected by other firms. This update puts you in control of your reputation and means emails sent from here are not affected by other users.
Next is customer experience: instead of emails sending from our Survey Booker email, you can set that this fallback email comes from your own email address which provides a more consistent experience for your customer.
Do I need to set this up?
If you haven’t connected an email and you’ve been using our default email you either need to create a SendGrid account and connect it or connect your email via SMTP or Office 365.
If you have already connected your email via SMTP or Office 365 in the email settings your emails will continue to send this way and you don’t need to take action.
You may still want to set this up so that if your email address disconnects (via SMTP or Office 365), emails can still be sent out until you can reconnect it.
This connection can also be used to send the statement emails to referral partners. When bulk sending emails, you may hit rate-limits set by your email provider (around 30/min). This bulk sending integration will allow you to send large numbers of scheduled statement emails to your referral partners without hitting rate limits.
Available on: All plans
Dashboard overview
Why have we made this update?
In order to give you a quick overview of how many jobs are at each stage of the process, your dashboard now offers quick stats to show how many jobs are in need of progression at each stage. You can still use your stage filters to review things further, but the overview stats give you a quick overview of anything you need to deal with.
Available on: All plans
How it works
- See stats of the total jobs at each stage and assigned specifically to you
- Click through to see a table displaying the relevant job types
- This currently displays an overview for surveys (projects will be added with the new projects updates coming soon)
Custom job archive reasons
Why have we made this update?
We want to offer flexibility when setting reasons for archiving jobs based on your own preferences. You can now edit the archive reasons to suit your needs making it easier to see why you’ve archived different records.
Available on: All plans
New activity log history
Why have we made this update?
In order to help you improve compliance, we’ve added a number of new items to the activity logs so you can see additional changes that have been made on jobs, contact records or referral partner records.
Available on: all plans
Job timeline
- Change in lead source
- Change in customer email address
- Terms status change (e.g. no to yes – if changed manually)
- Show who assigned a user (to help show who made changes)
Contact record
- Change in customer name
- Change in email address
Referral partner records
- Change in introducer owner (account manager)
- Change in status (prospect, live etc)
- Reassigning to a different hierarchy (referral partner plus plans)
- Change in email address
- Change in introducer name/group or branch name
- Change in introduced by field
- When and who made changes to a settings group
Google Analytics 4
Why have we made this update?
Google has deprecated their previous integration. You’ll now be able to use GA4 to track customer usage of your quote forms.
Available on: All plans
Referral partner refinements
1. Referral fee calculation
Referral fees are currently calculated on quote creation provided the correct lead source (referral parnter) has been set.
Following this update, referral fees will be automatically recalculated if the lead source is changed on a job record. E.g. you submit a quote and later add the referral partner, the referral fees will be calculated on changing the source. In our December release we will extend this to changing the job type too.
2. Referral partner job alert settings (Plans with Referral Partner Plus)
An additional setting is being added in the referral partner settings page where you can set if general job update emails should send to the assigned referrer level (e.g. contact level) or if job update emails should send to the assigned level and levels above in the hierarchy too (e.g. branch and group).
3. Job notifications to customers
A new setting is being added so you can set if job notifications should be sent to a customer or not if it’s assigned to a particular lead source. This will help where you have agreements with panel sources and you don’t want certain updates sent such as a quote confirmed email.
General refinements
- Create account page: if the account activation link has expired the page will automatically show a field to request a new link instead of directing the customer to the forgotten password link. This will help make account activation easier and remove any confusion where an activation link has expired. View account activation guide.
- Password reset: we’ve increased the expiry time from 10 minutes to 30 minutes to help with activating accounts but maintaining security by not allowing reset links to stay active for too long.
- General refinements – we’ve made a number of refinements to make loading data faster. These are changes you won’t see but the system will continue to operate efficiently as you add more data.
Webinar 7 - Using your referral features to boost referrer engagement
Webinar 7 - Using your referral features to boost referrer engagement
Learn more about how you can use your new referral partner features to boost engagement and the number of referrals you receive.
We’ll look at using your referral partner settings and records to:
✅ Track referral fees and mark them as paid as well as collect payment preferences
✅ Provide real-time job updates to referral partners
✅ View the new referral partner dashboard
✅ Share statements with partners (subject to plan)
✅ Sending terms to new partners to e-sign (subject to plan)
✅ Q&As
Webinar 6 - Customising your job records
Webinar 6 - Customising your job records to collect the data you need
In this webinar, we take a look at ways you can use Survey Booker to manage your leads more effectively from quote to completion:
✅ What are custom timeline fields
✅ What are custom property fields
✅ How to add new fields
✅ How to set up sections for them to appear in
✅ When the changes take affect
✅ Where else the data collected can be sent and used
Release Note - September 2023
Exciting new referral partner features to foster stronger partnerships
This update offers a number of new features to help boost your relationship with your referral partners. Each new feature has been designed to help with the whole lifecycle of a referral partner from prospect to actively referring and to help encourage a higher referral rate from your referral partners.
Sending terms to referral partners
Why have we made this update?
When formally engaging with a referral partner, you need to be clear about how the relationship will work. How will the referrer send you leads, what (if any) referral fee will be paid and what level of service might be provided such as reporting back to the referral partner and when payments will be made? To help with this, you can now send terms to referral partners to be signed and stored.
Available on: All plans
Terms settings
- Navigate to your terms settings, select “Referral partner terms” from the dropdown and add in terms documents as normal.
- Navigate to your email settings (Settings > Survey settings > Email and SMS settings) and activate the Introducer e-terms email template requesting that the document is signed. This must be turned on for the terms document to be sent on to your referral partner.
Sending terms
Once set up, you can go to any group-level record and press “Send terms”. You can track terms sent out from the “Email” tab > “E-terms log” as you would on a normal job record.
Once signed you can click to view the terms. Further terms can be sent if you change terms in the future with the new and original terms stored.
Marking fees as paid
Why have we made this update?
We know you want to be able to track which fees have been paid and which ones are outstanding more easily. We’ve added in a “fees due” table to help you identify jobs where payment is required and mark them as paid so you can easily see which jobs have payments due.
Available on: All plans
Fees table
Above your introducer table, you will see a “Fees due” button. Click here to view a list of all jobs at the booked/inspected/report stage where a referral fee is due. You can filter the data by referral partner, job stage and more and bulk-select jobs to mark them as paid.
Job records
You can also mark jobs paid directly on the job record using the “Mark as paid” button next to the referral fee. Once marked as paid, the payment date appears next to the referral fee. You can click on this to edit it.
Statements
Why have we made this update?
In order to help create greater transparency on fees owed and job status, there are two statements available via referral partner accounts that can be used to show general referral activity (new leads and jobs in progress) as well as fees owed or paid on completed jobs.
Available on: plans with “additional referral partner features” enabled.
Activity statement
This shows all new leads received in the timeframe, any jobs with a completed date or terms signed date and any jobs at the status of paid, accepted, booked, inspected.
Fee statement
This shows any job with a completed status and includes the fee paid date if applicable.
How it works
Referral partners can access the statements via their accounts. These are available weekly or monthly depending on your settings. We have two email templates that can be used to alert introducers to new statements available in their account. Please visit your referral partner settings pages to set up which levels receive statements (group / branch / contact) and how often they receive them (weekly / monthly).
New settings and fields
Why have we made this update?
To support marking fees as paid, we’ve added new fields for collecting payment details as well as extra fields for collecting key contacts, important information and more. This is all designed to help make managing your referral partners easier and simpler.
Available on: All plans
Overview tab
These new fields are available on the “Overview” tab we’ve added to make finding all the information you need easier. Here you can collect payment details, payment preferences, notes and more.
Settings
The referral partner settings help set which record level you can collect certain data for (e.g. are details for paying referral fees collect at group, branch or contact level).
Email templates
Why have we made this update?
Referral partners can already view a referral status at any time via their account. These new templates are designed to help keep your referral partners up to date in real time with no effort. These are designed to help keep your referral partners in the loop so they know their customers are being looked after at every step of the way.
Available on: All plans
How to set it up:
- Navigate to your referral partner email settings tab (above the referral partner table)
- Edit your templates
- Activate the ones you want to use
- Referral partners can turn off any templates they don’t want to use via their account or you can turn them off for them via their account page.
Referral partner account look, feel and functionality
Why have we made this update?
We first created our referral partner accounts when we first launched. We’ve added lots of functionality to the referrer partner module but with the new features and functionality we wanted to give the referral partner account pages a facelift to make them easier to use and more engaging when referral partners login to review their active referrals and more.
Available on: All plans
How it works:
Create your teams in the user settings.
From your quotes, jobs, tasks, introducers tables and reporting page, use the user filter to select either a team or an individual user.
Release Note - July 2023
Customisation, new integrations and refinements to existing features
This update offers a number of optional features. The vast majority of the updates are background settings updates where no changes are required. However, if you want to take advantage of the new features then keep reading.
The main benefit of this release is the ability to customise your job records further so you can collect the information you need for every job. We’ve also added a couple of integrations and a number of smaller refinements to help make things simpler.
Customise your job records
Why have we made this update?
To help you capture the information you need for each job type you offer, we have added the ability for you to add in fields you need. Whether you want to capture desktop research, compliance points or internal data you can add the fields you need for each job type to make Survey Booker work harder for you.
Available on: All plans
Where can you add custom fields?
In the new settings for custom fields you can set up custom fields to appear on the job record and on your property records. Fields set to appear on your property records also appear on the job record in the property details section.
Part 1: Create all the fields you want and set the job types they should appear for.
Part 2: Then create titled sections and add the fields into the sections you have created.
Which jobs will they appear for?
When you add or remove fields and sections, the changes will only take effect for new records created.
The changes will not apply to historic records. Why is this? In order to protect any data you have added to a job record, we ensure that if a field is renamed or removed then those changes do not apply to existing records so that you don’t lose any important data. Changes will apply to new records so you can add in what you need going forwards!
Where else does the data go?
The data is stored on your job records. But it is sent through on feeds such as GoReport / Report writing apps, Zapier and your data exports.
Report writing integrations
Why have we made this update?
We know that everyone has a different preference on the report writing app they want to use. In order to help you start and submit reports more efficiently, we’ve connected with more report writing apps and released an API to enable you to connect in your own custom app or any systems we don’t have a direct integration with.
Plans: Large plan upwards or available as a bolt-on
How it works:
Connect one or more report writing apps and set which job types should sent to which report writing app. Pair your users and templates to job types and users in Survey Booker to automatically post jobs through to your report writing apps on booking appointments. Alternatively, you can post through the job at any time manually.
Available systems:
Connect your Imfuna or Property Inspect account into Survey Booker.
You can also use our API to connect any other report writing app you use to Survey Booker.
Set up teams
Why have we made this update?
For surveying firms with larger teams, you want to easily see how teams are performing as well as individual users. To save time selecting multiple users on filters, you can now set up teams and quickly select them on filters to more quickly see how they are performing.
How it works:
Create your teams in the user settings.
From your quotes, jobs, tasks, introducers tables and reporting page, use the user filter to select either a team or an individual user.
New email and SMS templates for your access contact
Why have we made this update?
Based on feedback, a common process that needs automating is confirmation of appointments with access contacts. We’ve added two new templates that allow you to confirm an appointment date with the access contact and send a reminder 24 hours before.
How to set it up:
- Navigate to your Email and SMS settings.
- Search for the two new templates.
- Edit as normal and activate them.
- Your templates will send out provided you have an email / phone number added in a valid format.
Other small refinements
Office 365 Calendar
- Reassigning users – if reassigning a surveyor on an appointment, the event will remove from the first user’s calendar and add the event to the new user’s calendar
- Cancelled jobs – the event will remove from the user’s calendar.
- Disconnected calendar – the user will get an email alert to let them know they need to reconnect their calendar to their account.
GoReport
- Cancel or Archive a job in Survey Booker and we will update GoReport by changing status to “Archived” in GoReport.
- Reassign an appointment to another user and we will update the report in GoReport to the new user.
Emails
- When logging replies, the logs will now include any attachments received.
- We’ve added a [Total Tax] shortcode so you can also display the amount of Tax that is part of the quote.
- We’ve moved the email banner settings from your account settings page to your email settings page.
Introducers
- Archive introducers to remove records that you no longer need
- Group referral link – this will now display a branch and contact dropdown to make it easier to share a higher-level link instead of individual ones for each branch or contact. Similarly, the branch referral link will display a contact dropdown.
Terms
- We’ve added an ID of id:total_tax to allow you to display the amount of VAT included in your quotes.
- We’ve moved the terms settings from the accounts settings page to a settings button in the terms settings.
Skipping payment – the add/skip payment button will now ask if you want to skip payment even if your settings don’t allow customers to skip payment. This may help on panel jobs where you get paid later on but you want direct customers to have to pay up front.
User settings – set if regional and regular users are allowed to view the reporting page or not. By default, reporting remains restricted to super users only.
Quote export – the export pop up will save your previous selection to save you ticking the fields you want to export each time you run an export.
Custom tax rates – we’ve added in the ability to set custom tax rates. That way, if you offer some services that are VAT exempt, you can set a different tax rate to suit. By default, the system will charge 20% for all services if you say that you charge VAT.
Manual quote page – we’ve added in the address look-up feature to the address section to make adding jobs faster.
Date format – choose your preferred date format to appear across the system (DD.MM.YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY and more).
GET API – the number of fields returned per page is reduced from 200 records to 100 records. The maximum date range that can be looked up is 3 months. This has been done to further protect and prevent the system from overload.
Tasks table – clicking on a task will open it on the same page instead of in a new tab. Returning back to the task table will reload the table with the relevant filters applied.
Notifications table – you now have an option to view all notifications or filter by your own notifications.
Contact/Property/Company pages – the tables have new column filters to make searching faster and easier.
Projects – the jobs table allows filtering of projects by project stage instead of by quote status making it easier to find the projects you are working on at any status.
Webinar 5 - Managing your leads more effectively
Webinar 5 - Managing your leads more effectively
In this webinar, we take a look at ways you can use Survey Booker to manage your leads more effectively from quote to completion:
✅ Viewing your quotes table
✅ Using filters to see warmer leads
✅ Seeing which leads you’ve not engaged with yet
✅ Making sure you follow up with older leads at the right time
✅ Easily seeing which jobs need updating at any job stage
✅ Hiding columns you don’t need
Release Note - May 2023
Release note - take a look at the big and small changes on their way
This update offers more flexible ways for managing your referral partners to increase engagement and the volume of leads sent through. We’ve also made smaller refinements to streamline the adding and managing of tasks and more.
Connect multiple payment methods via Stripe
Why have we made this update?
Customers want more and more ways to pay. To help support you with this we’ve updated our Stripe feed so that you can now offer your customers multiple ways to pay online.
Available on: All plans
You can now activate multiple payment options for customers including:
- Klarna
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Direct debit
- Pay by Bank
- and more
How to add these options:
- Open your Stripe dashboard
- Go to settings
- Then open “Payment options”
- Click on “Your connected accounts“
In this section, you can turn on the payment options you’d like customers to see at Checkout.
When customers are on the payment page, they’ll see the options to pay that you have selected. An example can be seen in the attached screenshot.
Note: please check billing rates for different payment methods in Stripe. For help setting up payment methods in Stripe, please contact Stripe support.
Custom job types
Why have we made this update?
We offer preset job types to make quickly turning on services easy. However, you may want to add special services you’ve created or use your own naming convention. We’ve added this update so you can add your own services that they are only visible to you and your customers. We’ve also added an “Active” job filter so you can quickly see a list of services you’ve turned on.
Adding your own job type
This is really quick and easy to do.
- Navigate to Settings > Survey settings > Select service.
- Press “Add job type”
- Fill in the name and description
- You can then activate the job type and add in all the associated settings as normal (locations, pricing, terms, user settings, integration settings and more).
If you have the quote form personalisation feature, you can customise the job further on the quote page with custom icons and more.
Email error alert
Why have we made this update?
It’s important emails are reaching your customers. We can only send emails from your connected email if it’s correctly authenticated (a technical term!). If you change your email password and don’t update it in Survey Booker we can’t send emails or find replies. To prevent disruption and customers from not receiving your emails, we’ll email you to let you know your emails are failing to send and you need to login to reconnect.
Notification preferences
If you don’t want to receive error alerts when your email disconnects, please go to Settings > Notification preferences and turn off error alert notifications.
We don’t recommend turning this off if your email is used for sending automated templates so that you can update the connection as quickly as possible.
Call integrations (beta)
Why have we made this update?
Dialling numbers and logging call notes takes time. To help you spend more time on the phone and less time on logging call information, you can connect your call software so that this is handled automatically. You can then spend more time speaking with customers and less time trying to handle the processes around it. You can also look like you know your customers better when they call in.
Note: this is a beta stage release. This means we have developed and tested this feature but it has been released for trial use by customers in the real world. As different providers have different functionality, feedback will be taken to refine the processing further.
How to connect
- We have developed an API that allows you to connect your VoIP software to Survey Booker. Your VoIP provider or web developer can connect your call software in to our API.
- MondaGo should be connecting to our platform shortly who power systems like HiHi and many others.
- We also have an integration with RingCentral
How it works
- Incoming calls to your VoIP software can be used to look up a contact in SB so you can see the customer’s name before you answer.
- You can then post a call log on completing the call to the contact record or a specific job record to automate saving that information.
- For incoming calls where the customer doesn’t exist, you can create a contact on completion and post a call log to their record.
- Outbound calls can be started by clicking on the phone number in Survey Booker.
Other small refinements
API – we’ve added more fields into the survey and introducer modules.
Survey Hub – you can now customise the InstructedBy and LenderReference fields in your settings.
Introducers:
- Introduced by – record who has introduced a referral partner to you on a group level record.
- Added column of “Last completed” job so you can filter introducers by their last completed job date.
- A “Back to table” button has been added on introducer records to make it quicker to go back to the table
- Exports – an option to export branches and contacts has been added to the group record page.
Emails:
- Email composer – we’ve added the folder structure to the templates dropdown in the composer to make it easier to find the right template to send.
- We’ve added new shortcodes to help with emailing introducers:
- [Introducer Owner First Name]
- [Introducer Owner Last Name]
- [Introducer Owner Phone]
- [Introducer Group Name]
- [Introducer Branch Name]
- [Introducer First Name]
- [Introducer Last Name]
- [Introducer Referral Link]
- [Introducer Quote Form Link]
- The existing [Postcode] shortcode has been updated to work in most templates.
- The [Activate Customer Account Button] is now optional in welcome emails.
Quotes/jobs table: we’ve removed cancelled jobs from the results when using stage filters to make it easier to see a shortlist without archiving cancelled records.
Booking calendar: the day of the week has been added alongside the date to make it easier to see what day of the week you are on in the “day” view.
Booking portal:
- Password reset page – we’ve simplified the page so that if a password setting link has expired, it more clearly states to request a new link instead of continuing to display password fields with an alert message that appears.
- Booking flow – if a customer has signed terms before booking via the portal and then logs into pay, we take them to the additional details page instead of the confirm details page so they can enter missing details first instead of seeing the alert on the confirm details page that information is missing. This makes it easier to submit any missing details before moving to the payment page.
Reporting: a minor bug has been fixed on the Graph page where the months can display out of order when only the “Sales” comparisons is selected.
Zapier: two fields have been added to provide the lead source and the additional information field on the job record.