As part of Rental Fox's pre-arrival guest communication process, we take on the responsibility to ensure each of our client's guest has correctly uploaded their ID and a copy of their payment card as a security check. This is a daily recurring task for the Rental Fox management team.


All guests are required to scan identification and credit card for security prior to arrival in order to receive check-in instructions. This is in lieu of a hotel-style check-in as our clients have a self check-in process. Once completed, arrival information is sent to the guest at the time approved by the client (see Guest Notification & Check In/Out Times article). This is done to ensure we match the details provided in the booking process and pick up on any fraud. It also ensures that guests are of minimum age to book the property. Clients reserve the right to cancel any booking where sufficient and suitable identification is unable to be provided.


Process & Procedures - Help Scout


Guests are automatically sent prompts to complete pre check-in after they book (again, see Guest Notification & Check In/Out Times article), in which the guests are asked to upload both a copy of their ID and credit/debit card.

As these are done (a guest doesn't have to upload everything at once), a copy is sent automatically to the corresponding managed service inbox and an automatic workflow closes the ticket and puts it into the 'Duve Security Docs' folder. As these documents are also saved in Duve itself, we shouldn't need to check within Help Scout unless something's been missed etc.

Once all documents have been provided, another email is sent from Duve to the guest with the subject "Details Received Successfully...". This email in Help Scout is automatically tagged with the yellow notification tag 'duve security check', to let Rental Fox know that this guest has provided all security information and is able to be checked inside Duve.


Process & Procedures - Duve


1. As part of Rental Fox's daily Duve managed service tasks, each day we go into each client's Duve account, go into 'Tasks', and check that all arrivals in the upcoming 7 days have completed their pre check-in. This is indicated with a green box 'Done' underneath the Pre Check-In heading:



2. If this hasn't been completed, it may also say 'Partially' (meaning they've submitted one document so far or filled in some but not all information), 1/2/3 sent (meaning emails and reminders to complete have been sent but not clicked on) or Invalid Email (which nearly always means it's an owner booking as they don't get or need these notifications). In the case of the pre check-in not being completed and it's within 7 days of arrival, often sending a personalised reminder (using a canned response) will get the job done. Do this by clicking on the lightning icon to start/open up a chat box and choose the appropriate canned response form to send to the guest.



3. For those that have completed pre check-in, what we're looking for is the word 'OK' under Note (see image above). This means that a Rental Fox staff has checked the ID/security card and the booking is fine. If this is blank, click on the booking (right click and open as a new tab if there are multiple bookings you want to check and make it faster to do each one) and scroll all the way down to 'Documents'. From here you can click on each doc uploaded and review what's been submitted. If all looks ok, then write 'OK' in the client notes box. If something's wrong or you need to double check something, you can write that here as well. This will prompt the Rental Fox team that something needs to be checked. Once done, click save in the top right.



So the final question here would be: if we do this in Duve as a daily check, why do we even need the notification in Help Scout when a guest completes pre check-in? Eventually were going to check it anyway right? The reality is that while 99% of bookings are all ok, we want to be able to weed out any suspicious or underage bookings as EARLY AS POSSIBLE. To this end, ideally we want to be able to 'OK' a booking as soon as we can, so that if there are any issues, we can alert our clients ASAP - not within a week of arrival if we could have known about it a month in advance. As such, the morning Duve check should also include this process:

  • When going into a client's Duve account to do the 7 day check, also have open the client's inbox in Help Scout.
  • Any tickets tagged 'duve security check' (in yellow so easy to see), should be checked in Duve as well. 
  • Click on the ticket, and in the 'Previous Conversations' column on the right, you'll easily see the guests name.
  • Start typing the guests name into the Duve search box at the top of the Duve page and their booking should come up. Click on it (or again, right click to open it up in a new tab to make it easier/quicker).
  • Follow Step 3 in the Duve processes above.
  • Close off the ticket in Help Scout.
  • To save time, this can be a one off process each day, so that you close off any outstanding tickets in Help Scout in the morning, and if any new ones come throughout the day, leave them as pending for you to include in your check the next day (or if you have time, are in Duve etc, you can always do throughout the day if you wanted to).

At the end of the day, the golden rule in Duve is that all bookings have the 'OK' by the day before the guest arrives and the golden rule in Help Scout is that all tickets are tagged 'duve security check' are not closed until they have actually been checked.