Respond to Customer Messages

When a customer sends a message about their booking, it appears in the Conversations panel on the Customer Portal page. This guide covers how to find the message, read it, and send a reply.

When to use this

• A customer has a question about their upcoming booking (directions, what to bring, group size changes).
• You need to proactively reach out to a customer about their reservation (weather advisory, schedule change, special instructions).
• A customer reports an issue and you need to follow up.

Steps

Reading and replying to an incoming message

1. Navigate to Customer Portal from the sidebar menu.
2. The Conversations panel on the left lists all chat threads for your current location, sorted by most recent message.
3. Click a thread to open it. The right panel loads the full message history.
4. Read the customer's messages (shown on the left side of the chat area with the customer's name above them).
5. Type your reply in the text input at the bottom of the chat panel.
6. Press Enter to send, or click the Send button. To insert a line break without sending, press Shift + Enter.

Your message appears immediately in the conversation, attributed to your name (the name on your team member account).

Starting a conversation from a booking

You can also initiate a chat thread from any booking, even if the customer hasn't messaged first.

1. Open the booking you want to message about (from the calendar, bookings list, or search).
2. The system creates a chat thread linked to that booking.
3. Type and send your message.
4. The customer will see your message the next time they visit the booking portal.

Message details

What the customer sees

• Your message content.
• Your name (first and last name from your team member profile) or "Support" if no name is set.
• The timestamp of each message.

What you see

• The customer's name (from their customer profile or booking record).
• The full message content.
• Timestamps for every message.
• Messages are grouped by date with labels like "Today", "Yesterday", or the full date.

Content handling

• Messages are trimmed of leading and trailing whitespace before sending.
• HTML in messages is encoded for security -- customers cannot send formatted HTML, and neither can operators.
• Empty or whitespace-only messages are rejected.
• Message previews in the thread list are truncated to 80 characters.

Polling and real-time updates

The dashboard polls for new messages every 7.5 seconds while the Customer Portal page is open. When new messages arrive:

• They are appended to the current conversation automatically.
• The thread list on the left updates with the latest preview and timestamp.
• If the new message is from the customer, the thread is automatically marked as read.

You do not need to refresh the page to see new messages.

Tips

• Check booking context quickly. The chat header shows the confirmation code, activity name, date, time, and duration. Click View Booking to open the full booking details in a side panel without leaving the chat.
• Link to CRM. If the customer has a CRM profile, their name in the chat header is a clickable link that opens their customer profile in a new tab.
• Keep messages concise. Customers see messages in a mobile-friendly portal, so shorter replies work better than long paragraphs.

Related guides

• View Chat History -- find and review past conversations.
• Manage Unread Messages -- track which threads need attention.