How to manage a lead (via Dashboard & Pipeline)

Relevant articles:

Never miss an opportunity to convert a lead by managing your booking pipeline with a combination of the Dashboard and Pipeline tabs.

The Dashboard tab is where you’ll find your newest leads to help you quickly convert them into guests. Whether you’re set up for instant bookings, booking requests or inquiries - the Dashboard gives you a top-down view of all potential new conversions.

Below is an example of the reservation from Hostfully's direct booking site. In this example, the lead form generates a request for a quote. When the guest submits the request for a quote, it will appear on your Dashboard tab as a new lead.

1. Dashboard

All new, unassigned leads appear as below on the Dashboard tab. The purpose of the leads section in the Dashboard is to draw your attention to new leads that require a response, such as accepting or rejecting a booking request or inquiry, responding with a quote or responding to a message.

The Dashboard also gives you a few helpful hints to improve conversion opportunities:

If the lead is grayed out, then it means that it is “read only” because it has already been assigned. These leads are best managed by the assignee in the Pipeline tab.
If the lead has a red circle, like in the screenshot below, then that means that the prospective guest has selected unavailable days. This is an opportunity to use the “Alternative Options'' from the Pipeline tab.

Now you can take any of the following actions:

"Assign to me" => by clicking assign to me, this lead will be assigned to you and moved to the Pipeline tab so that you may take further action on it from there.
"Edit" lead => by clicking edit, you will be taken to the lead modal where you can view more details about the booking. By reviewing this information, you can decide whether you have enough information to accept or decline the lead. If not, then you may want to send a message to the prospective guest to get more information.
- From the lead modal, you may send a message to the guest by clicking “Send Message”. This will open the Inbox and allow you to start a thread with this guest or respond to any questions the guest may have sent over with the inquiry or booking request.
- From the lead modal, you may also “Save and Open Mailer” to send a quote.
"Ignore" lead => lead will be grayed out, but stay in the Dashboard.

2. Pipeline

The Pipeline tab is where you get a holistic view of your entire booking pipeline. This is where you can quickly see the status of your bookings and streamline your process for managing leads just in time.

There are 5 stages of a lead: Quote | Hold | Booked | Stay | Archived

Quote: can result from a guest requesting a quote, or the booking has dropped out of the booking flow, for example the guest has not completed the payment.
Hold: the reservation is saved for a certain period of time, but is not confirmed yet.
Booked: the reservation is confirmed, but not necessarily fully paid
Stay: the status automatically changes to Stay after the check-in date. This indicates that the stay is active.
Archived: the status will automatically turn to Archived after the check-out date and time.

First stage - Quote

Available options at the Quote Stage:

Send a Quote
Place on Hold
Mark as Booked
Alternative Options
Close Lead

Send a Quote: If the guest requests a quote, then you can quickly respond by clicking “Send a Quote” from the Dashboard. You can either use the default template or customize it to further personalize the quote.

Place on Hold: When you click "Place on Hold" or guests click on the "Request a Hold" link, the lead will move to the second stage - Hold.

Mark as Booked: Move the lead to the third stage - Booked.

Alternative options: Open mailer with your other available options to offer.

Close Lead: lead stays in Pipeline with Closed status, and can be re-opened

Note: for Airbnb inquiry, the only action available is to respond via Hostfully Inbox.

Second stage - Hold

If the hold duration runs out and the lead is still not converted, the lead now has the Expired status.

To customize hold duration, please refer to this help article

Both Hold and Expired statuses come with below options:

Send a Reminder: Open mailer to remind the lead on pending hold
Mark as Booked: Move the lead to the third stage - Booked
Extend Hold: keep the lead in Hold status
Revoke Hold: move the lead back to first stage - Quote
Close Lead: lead stays in Pipeline with Closed status, and can be re-opened

Third stage - Booked

By clicking " Mark as Booked", the lead will move to the third stage.

This stage is important, with available option as below:

Mark as Paid: you can manually mark the booking as fully paid if the guest has paid for the booking outside of the system.
Record a Payment: you can manually record a payment that was processed outside the platform.
Send Balance Payment Request: you can email the guest a payment request email so that they know they need to settle outstanding balances.
Send a Pre-Arrival Form Reminder: you can email the guest a reminder that you need them to fill out the pre-arrival form.
Send Check-in instructions: you can email the guest the check-in instructions.
Cancel Booking: you can cancel the booking.

Fourth stage - Stay

The lead will move to the final stage "Stay" on the date of the check-in.

The green checkmark in the above screenshot means the booking is confirmed. It does not indicate payment status (paid or overdue)
Leads with Duplicate status result from multiple entries of a booking. They are shown on the Pipeline so that you can keep track of multiple guest requests.

For leads with Archived status, it comes in both blue and orange.
Blue means all good, and orange can mean a Security Deposit is not (marked as) refunded yet.
- For more details on how to refund security deposits, please refer to this article on Refunding security deposits.

"You do not have permission to take action on this booking" error

When a lead is grayed out or is not assigned to you and you attempt to take action on that lead, then you may see the"You do not have permission to take action on this booking" error.

To resolve this error, click Edit next to the reservation in Pipeline, select your name from "Assigned to" drop-down list. Click Save.