Vacation Rental Software | Turno Guide for New Hosts

Why You Need Property Management Software

Uplisting — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 17:45:42 +0000

Automation and API Make Tasks Painless

Automation has achieved something of a buzzword status when it comes to software and technology, but there’s a reason why it’s so popular — and why it’s such a benefit to property owners.

Automation can take some of your job’s most repetitive and manual parts and do them quickly and consistently.

Say you want to update the availability of a particular property. Normally, you would have to update each and every booking channel by hand — including your own website. This could take an entire afternoon, depending on how many properties you’re updating and how many platforms you’re on.

With automation, you only need to update once. Your change automatically gets pushed out to every single booking channel, which allows you to perform multiple updates in a single sitting.

A PMS can also automate a process and make it run without human intervention, such as cleaning a property in between bookings. As soon as a guest checks out, the PMS can immediately schedule a cleaning crew to do a changeover — all without you lifting a finger.

All this is possible thanks to the platform’s API — a piece of software that allows different apps to talk and send each other instructions. It’s like having an extra set of hands!

Create a Quality Guest Experience

As you probably know by now, a good “guest experience” doesn’t just cover their stay at your property. It also includes every interaction they have with you, whether that’s online or offline.

This means having an attractive website. It means a smooth and painless booking experience. It even means regular and helpful communication with your guests.

Remember the automation we mentioned? You can send out automated messages to guests at designated points of their stay — right after they book, before they arrive, and on the day of their departure. This is super useful if you want to send them important reminders.

Guests will know where they need to go, when they need to get there, and what they’ll need to do (and not do) once they arrive. You remove all confusion and uncertainty from this part of their stay so that they can focus on enjoying themselves.

Yes, you can certainly accomplish this on your own, but a lot of things could happen. You could get busy or forgetful, or you might mistakenly send the wrong details to the wrong person. It’s just added responsibility that you don’t need to take on.

More Efficient Operations

A short-term vacation rental business covers more than just listing properties and booking guests. If you’re going to be successful, you need to get good at every aspect of managing a property’s operations, from clean-up to marketing to team performance.

By leveraging the capabilities of a property management software platform, you’ll be able to:

Increase housekeeping efficiency: Automate cleaning tasks and use an online calendar to manage job schedules. Communicate with crews online and make it easy for them to track jobs and update you when they’re complete.
Keep all your data in one place: No more swimming through paperwork. All of your business data can be kept in a single virtual space, where it can easily be searched, updated, and referenced at any point. And if you do happen to need a hard copy, no problem — just export and print.
Improve customer data management: Do you want to know what else you can do with all that data? Learn more about your customers! Dig deeper into who your best guests are, how much they’re earning you, and what you can do to attract more like them.
Enhance employee productivity and engagement: By automating your booking process and other aspects of your operations, you’ll be able to pull employees (and yourself) away from time-consuming, low-value tasks. They’ll have time for the more important work, and have a greater impact on the success of the business.

Increase Revenue Growth

Guest bookings may be your main source of revenue, but they’re not the only way you can increase your bottom line.

A PMS excels at introducing operational efficiency and improving guest experiences in ways that will dramatically improve your short-term rental profit margins.

Get Listed on the Biggest Booking Platforms

Many of the best property management platforms have existing partnerships with the biggest booking platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, which make it easy to get your properties in front of thousands of potential travelers. Posting on multiple platforms is a snap and, thanks to automation, very easy to keep up-to-date.

Accept Direct Bookings

Third-party booking sites are great for getting in front of guests, but this advertising comes at a pretty steep price. Their fees can take a significant chunk out of your profits.

Fortunately, you always have the option of creating your own independently-hosted website and accepting direct bookings. A PMS like Uplisting can help you accomplish that thanks to a no-code interface that is easy to set up and get running — with no commission fees.

Strong Data Security

In today’s privacy-focused society, it’s ever more important for you to protect your and your customer’s data from malicious hackers and identity thieves. But what if you don’t have a dedicated IT team — or even a security-savvy employee?

That’s all right. You don’t need an IT budget to protect your data because a PMS will protect your data for you. Many of the top-shelf property management platforms have the equipment, software, certifications, and expertise required to protect crucial data from bad actors.

Of course, you and your staff still need to behave responsibly when it comes to being secure, but your PMS partner can take care of data protection on their side.

What Most Hosts Encounter Without a PMS

Over the course of speaking with hundreds of hosts across different regions, maturity levels, and company sizes, we’ve discovered some common challenges that property managers encounter when they don’t leverage a PMS. Learn more about these pain points below.

Managing a Rental Business Dominates Your Schedule

Short-term property rental is a multi-faceted business with many moving parts. It can be challenging to run smoothly, even while employing full-time staff. Without any sort of management software to assist, it can easily take hours to perform a single task.

Take managing your different booking apps and listings, for example. You’ve got properties listed on Airbnb, Flipkey, Booking.com, and Vrbo just to name a few. Any single update you make to one of your listings has to be applied across every single one of those digital platforms.

Basically, you’re doing the same task multiple times.

The same can be said for juggling resources like cleaning crews. Which job are they on? Have you told them about their next job? How many jobs do they have pending? Coordinating all of this by hand is a nightmare (and may even lead to nightmares).

Manually Updating Bookings Leads to Errors

A single booking by itself doesn’t contain that much information: customer details, property details, and the booking schedule are generally the extent. So it’s not a huge lift to update your records and calendar by hand.

It’s a different story when you multiply that by all of your other properties. Updating your records and consolidating all of those bookings into a single updated spreadsheet (even a digital one) becomes a juggling act — and you may eventually fumble.

Double-booking a property is the most common mistake. This happens when you record a booking for a property in one spreadsheet or document, but neglect to do the same to another.

This can easily happen during peak seasons or when dealing with needy or fickle travelers. You’re preoccupied and in a rush, and bouncing between different platforms, apps, and documents doesn’t help. The additional complications just add to the chaos and lead to more mistakes.

Mental and Physical Fatigue

As we already mentioned, manually listing your properties on multiple channels can take a physical and mental toll. If you repeat this inefficient cycle day in and day out, you’re not going to get better at it. On the contrary: it’ll just get worse.

Tension and fatigue are going to build up at the same rate as your backlog of tasks. Your day will become more unorganized, and your tasks and priorities will become more scattered. You may end up feeling lost and unsure of what to do next and feel increased frustration as a result.

Any mistakes you make during this period or additional workplace crises will only increase your stress levels. Without intervention or assistance, you might even burn out. And who wants that?

Inefficiency Inertia

Many property owners and managers are trapped in something we call “inefficiency inertia.”

This is when you know that a process is obsolete and inefficient, but you stick with it anyway even though there are better options.

There are a few reasons why you might decide to stick it out: maybe you’re already used to the old way and think it will be more effort to learn the new system. Maybe you’re skeptical of the new system and don’t believe it will do the job properly. Or maybe you think upgrading to a technological solution will be prohibitively expensive.

Whatever the reason, you recognize that it’s time to find a streamlined process that improves your operations, but you can’t or don’t move past your current state.

Save the Headache and Grow Your Airbnb Business With a PMS

If you’re looking to increase your productivity — and your revenue — then a property management software platform may be just what you need.

Any hosting inefficiencies you’re already working through will become much worse as you get more properties, more inquiries, and more channels to manage. You’ll become even more burdened with managing your business and sink deeper into the quicksand of disorganization.

And this is how things will be — unless you make a change.

Luckily, with some elbow grease and help from automation and management software, you can grow your business and build an Airbnb empire.

The post Why You Need Property Management Software appeared first on Turno.

Sending Automated Messages on Airbnb: 6 Best Practices

Hospitable — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 23:21:01 +0000

Best Practice 1: Respond Immediately

The average guest spends 2-3 minutes scanning a listing to decide whether or not to book a stay. So, responding to their questions within 24 hours isn’t enough — you may miss your opportunity to convert your lead into a booking before they start looking elsewhere. You need to respond instantly.

Use automation software that responds to guest messages to generate human-like responses to inquiries. This can save you dozens of hours each week while also ramping up your booking rates.

Guests that get responses before they’ve moved on to the next listing are more likely to book your rental as you’ve quickly answered their inquiries and started building a rapport with them.

Best Practice 2: Personalize Your Communication

Make your communication more personalized so your prospective guests don’t feel like they’re speaking to a robot. Many software tools allow you to use tags for your guests’ names and other information, giving the impression someone has taken the time to read their message and personally respond to their inquiries.

As you answer their questions, tailor your upsells based on their queries and make sure your tone is polite and welcoming throughout the entire interaction. Guests expect to feel welcome from the start. A cold response to their inquiries may deter them from booking your rental.

Find software that allows you to create responses that match the way you prefer to converse with your guests and your tone. You can apply shortcodes, conditions, and triggers using templates to customize your automated responses for content, tone of voice, and language. Make the inquiry process feel authentic for guests who are none the wiser.

Best Practice 3: Use Canned Responses

Create canned responses for frequently asked questions. This saves you valuable time and brain work while improving your response time within that crucial 2-3 minute window. Use a system that can take response automation a step further by allowing you to embed your property, reservation, and guest details in your responses when you want to, automatically.

This allows you to personalize the interaction with your potential guests even in your sleep! An automation platform can expertly use tags to identify your customer by name and give specific details when responding to them.

Guests will be delighted to receive a warm, personalized response — especially if they’re making queries at unsociable hours.

You can set up your desired response timeframe for each inquiry or let an automation platform hold the responses so you can review them before they’re sent. This allows you to further personalize your responses if needed.

Best Practice 4: Manage Your Reviews

Request reviews after your guest has completed their stay. Your reviews directly impact your booking rates, as 90% of consumers scan them before making a purchasing decision. But it also follows that a bad review can have a lasting negative impact.

We all try to avoid it, but there may be times when you encounter a guest who doesn’t have a good experience. You’ll be able to determine early on if they’re unhappy if you’re communicating with them throughout their stay. Some signs that they aren’t enjoying your property could include them complaining about its conditions, not adhering to the house rules, or flat-out being rude when they communicate with you.

Some providers allow you to automatically delay bad reviews if you want to. Since Airbnb provides guests with a 14-day limit for leaving their reviews, you can save pending reviews for guests you think have had an unsatisfying stay.

This delays the review to the last minute, making it too late for your guest to leave their review.

Best Practice 5: Remarket to Previous Guests

Encourage previous guests to book again by remarketing to them via the OTA and your email funnel. But do not do this immediately after their stay. Instead, target your previous guests closer to the time they’re likely to book a vacation.

Your guests won’t be ready to book another vacation a week after their stay, so sending them marketing emails and messages through your booking platform will more than likely land you in their spam folder.

Instead, send out your marketing messages at least 60 days before the one-year anniversary of the last time they visited your property. This is just around the time guests usually start planning their next vacation.

For example, use an automated messaging platform that can send your previous guest a personalized message highlighting an exclusive offer. This guest will be targeted by your marketing strategy and feel as though their business is valued since you took the time to personally reach out to them with an offer.

Best Practice 6: Fill Gap Days in Your Calendar

When available, offer your guest a discounted rate on gap days in your calendar if they choose to stay an extra night. This allows you to generate income with minimal effort while providing additional value to your guests — a more affordable stay and an extra night.

Some tools offer a calendar management feature that protects you from double bookings across multiple booking sites, but you can also use it to fill those gap days with an automated message to your current guest. The application will check for availability, verify which guest is currently staying at your property, and then generate the discounted offer message and send it to them.

Depending on your guest’s response, the platform will help them schedule the extra night and alert the booking sites of the discounted stay rate.

Automate Your Guest Communication to Save Time

Automated Airbnb messaging removes the labor-intensive process of manually responding to your guests. It also dramatically improves the response time, which directly impacts your booking rates.

To ensure your automated guest communication runs smoothly:

Respond immediately to consumer inquiries to avoid them bouncing from your listing within minutes
Personalize your responses with a friendly tone and key information
Use canned responses to speed up your response time
Use predetermined strategies to prevent bad reviews
Strategically remarket to previous guests to promote return bookings
Fill gap days using a calendar management system

Short-term rental automation platforms like Hospitable run your short-term rental on autopilot while offering all the personalized guest communication best practices mentioned above.

The post Sending Automated Messages on Airbnb: 6 Best Practices appeared first on Turno.

How to Select the Best Smart Lock for Airbnb

RemoteLock — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 01:46:47 +0000

Lever or Deadbolt?

Whether your smart lock employs a deadbolt or lever mechanism depends on personal preference and the use case for each rental property.

Deadbolts require a more precise installation process to ensure that the extending deadbolt aligns perfectly with the door’s strike plate. Levers use a spring latch and are typically more forgiving with minor strike-plate alignment issues.

Most often, your decision between a smart deadbolt or lever is determined by the existing lock you are replacing. If your existing door has a separate lever and deadbolt, the easiest change will be to upgrade the deadbolt lock and leave the existing lever lock in place.

Wi-Fi or Z-Wave?

Wi-Fi and Z-Wave are two of the most popular connection technologies for smart locks on the market today. Smart locks employing Wi-Fi connect directly to the internet just like other common devices do (smartphones, computers, streaming devices, etc.).

Wireless means just what you think — no wires or cables needed to connect to the internet. Your internet router(s) broadcasts a Wi-Fi signal around your property, and the Wi-Fi-enabled smart locks directly connect to this signal.

On the other hand, Z-Wave smart locks require a gateway to connect to your Wi-Fi network. These types of locks come with a hub that works as a bridge from the smart lock to your Wi-Fi network.

Z-Wave works on a completely different radio frequency that won’t interfere with your Wi-Fi signal. Z-Wave is known as a mesh technology because the more Z-Wave products you have, the stronger the network.

Some vacation rental owners opt for Wi-Fi smart locks for their wireless simplicity. Other owners who are incorporating smart-home technology (lights, sensors, thermostats, etc.) like the mesh technology of Z-Wave.

Just remember: With Z-Wave, guests may have a tendency to unplug the hub and break the connection to the lock unless you give them explicit instructions and they actually read and remember them.

Offline Locks

What if your property is in a remote location or the Wi-Fi is just not reliable? Smart locks employing algorithmic PIN codes like ReadyPIN are a good solution. For example, by using a cloud-based access control software, you simply create the access schedule you need and the software creates a PIN code specific to the lock and the desired schedule.

When the PIN is entered into the lock, the lock verifies the code via its built-in algorithm to allow access based on the schedule embedded in the PIN. Because the PIN code itself is encrypted with all the access permissions needed, ReadyPIN-enabled smart locks do not ever need to connect online to validate the access credential.

Now, you can bring remote access control capabilities to any door, with or without a Wi-Fi network connection.

PIN Codes

As an Airbnb host, you’ll manage a lot of guests over the course of a year. Make sure your chosen smart lock can store a reasonable amount of PIN codes. Some locks have limited storage for codes, as low as 10 PINs, while others store thousands at a time.

Just remember, if the storage is limited, you’ll need to be more diligent about removing old guest codes unless you are using a software platform like RemoteLock which can queue the codes until just before each reservation.

Weather & Fire Ratings

Not every smart lock is built for all weather conditions. Those vacation rental hosts with properties in coastal or mountain climates should consider smart locks with the appropriate weather-resistance rating.

Look at each lock’s IP (International Protection or Ingress Protection) ratings, which define the levels of sealing effectiveness of electrical enclosures against foreign bodies like water or dirt.

Lastly, if you’re installing a lock within a building with certain fire codes or standards, you may need to conform to a lock grade or fire rating.

Software: The Smarts in Your Smart Lock

Just remember, smart locks are “smart” because they connect to the cloud and employ software to give you remote control functions and more. Without this software, your smart lock is not much better than a traditional lock. Choose wisely and with an eye toward the future.

You may have just one rental property now, but growing your business is very possible given the strength of the hot vacation rental market.

Unlike many software solutions today that are tied to proprietary hardware, RemoteLock offers universal access control or software that works with many of the most popular brands of smart locks. This ensures you can pick a lock that’s optimal for your application today (price, brand, aesthetics, etc.), and also have the flexibility in place to adapt to whatever the future brings.

For more details on choosing the right keyless entry security system, investigate popular groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. You’ll find dozens of peer-operated groups on either of these popular networking sites in which owners ask questions about managing rentals and members contribute their knowledge.

You can also reach out to an access control expert like those at RemoteLock, who’ve worked with tens of thousands of vacation rental hosts to choose the right access control solution, including smart lock recommendations.

The post How to Select the Best Smart Lock for Airbnb appeared first on Turno.

The Importance of Rental Property Accounting Software

Ximplifi — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 00:47:07 +0000

What Do Your Apps Have to Do With Accounting?

As a vacation rental manager, you will rely heavily on technology to list properties, book reservations, and maintain physical amenities. At any touchpoint where you either receive or remit payment, you are capturing financial data that is relevant to you and possibly the government.

To keep track of all these different sources of financial reporting data, you need a way to bring it all into one place where the funds can then be sorted, reconciled, and redistributed to the proper accounts.

This is where API integration comes in. APIs, or application programming interfaces, provide the basis for how different apps talk to one another and share information. API integration is important because it allows data to sync automatically between two systems, thus eliminating the need for a person to manually export, record, and track each dataset.

That said, even sophisticated apps can’t always integrate directly, but that’s where third-party integrations like VRPlatform can help. By providing a digital bridge between the PMS and accounting software, this tool automatically records transactions triggered by a reservation and directs funds to the right accounts.

Vacation rental apps that integrate help create a single connected system, which is a critical first step to being able to automate accounting processes like posting and updating guest invoices, posting batch deposits, management commissions, and more.

The Different Types of Vacation Rental Management Apps

If you go exploring the app market for vacation rental software, you will come across many different services, but there are a few in particular that you should be familiar with and understand the features included.

Each one of these technologies solves an important and time-consuming piece of the puzzle for vacation rental management. If there is a breakdown in how these apps work together, you will end up with islands of data and holes in your workflows that now have to be done manually.

Property Management System (PMS)

This is the software suite where all your property listings and reservations are centralized. There are more than 250 different property management software apps available, but some of the ones we recommend are Guesty, Hostaway, Hostfully, and Track.

Each one offers its own mix of customization, functionality, and customer support.

Accounting Software

This is the “brain” for all your business financial data. Using an Airbnb accounting tool allows you to pull in data that your PMS can’t, so you can track how much profit your business is actually generating once all the payments have been posted.

QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Xero are all examples of accounting solutions used by vacation rental managers.

Merchant Processors

These apps manage credit card transactions by processing online payments and delivering the funds to your financial institution. These include services like Stripe, Braintree, and Authorize.net.

Channels

Channels are your customer touchpoints. They include property listing sites like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and hundreds of others. Your property management system should be able to integrate with your channels and aggregate booking information from all these different sites.

Property Care

Lastly, property care and maintenance apps allow you to manage the physical amenities of each property with cleaning, repair, inspection, and inventory services. Apps like Programma di affiliazione per gli host make it easy to ensure each stay is impeccable.

Other Apps To Consider For Your Vacation Rental Business

Beyond the operations of managing rental properties, as your business grows, you may have additional costs that need to be factored into your management earnings, such as employee benefits and payroll, mortgage or rent payments, and other company expenses.

Below are some additional areas of your business to consider when you build your vacation rental technology stack.

Online document storage: Online document storage software gives you the ability to attach receipts or communications to your transactions, saving you time down the road if you ever need to reopen a case. Two examples are Hubdoc and Receipt Bank.
Employee payroll, time-tracking, and benefits: These apps help you care for the heart of your customer experience: your team. Rippling and Gusto are two examples.
Expense tracking and reimbursement: How do employees get paid back for reimbursable expenses? Apps like Expensify are designed to make it easy for employees to submit receipts and set up approvals based on your rules.
Accounts payable: Paying vendors is never as easy as it seems it should be. Some payments are made online or in-person, and receipts could be a piece of paper or an email. Apps like Bill.com help businesses capture invoices, consolidate funds owed to outside vendors (accounts payable), and post payments in an organized fashion.
Lodge/sales tax: Finally, for vacation rental managers who take on the responsibility of filing taxes associated with their properties, MyLodgeTax by Avalara is a service designed to automate processes from licensing to filing.

All of these functions are essential to any growing business and can be done with or without technology — but we recommend with. Each function also involves transferring funds either into or out of your business, a sign that any apps involved need to integrate with your accounting software.

Integrating these systems and automating processes through them will not only help you save hours every day by doing fewer manual accounting tasks, but it will also pay dividends in the long run by allowing you to see the bigger picture and proactively find new opportunities for your business.

Choose the Best Vacation Rental Management Apps for You

From property management systems and listing sites to maintenance, accounting, and more, the desktop and mobile app market for vacation rental companies today is much more sophisticated than what it was just a few years ago.

This can be both a blessing and a curse. With so many niche options to select from at the start, it can be easy to suffer from “analysis paralysis.” You’re ready to go out and find the apps that you need, but what should you be looking for?

Ultimately, you need to assess what’s most important for your business and work within your budget. You will have different criteria for selecting an accounting software than a payroll system, but as we’ve emphasized here, you should especially look for apps that support integration with other related systems.

This opens the door for automation that can help you save time, reduce errors, and see updates in real-time as transactions are processed and tasks are completed.

The post The Importance of Rental Property Accounting Software appeared first on Turno.

How to Scale Your Airbnb Business With Automation

Beyondbnb — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:41:02 +0000

What Does It Mean to Scale an Airbnb Business?

Scaling a short-term rental business involves mastering the day-to-day tasks that come with hosting one Airbnb property — and then applying these skills and techniques to multiple rentals with the utmost efficiency.

When scaling a vacation rental business, one primary goal is to increase profits while minimizing time spent organizing turnover schedules, communicating with cleaners, and accommodating guests at all hours. It’s easy to get caught up in these daily operations, however, whether you have one property or 20.

In addition to the endless to-dos, running a successful short-term rental business also requires providing an exceptional experience for guests. So, how do you simplify time-consuming operations while still offering a top-notch stay for your guests?

One way is to move beyond manual routines to achieve an automated, high-performing vacation rental business. Keep reading to learn how the Founder and CEO of Beyondbnb, Ryland Nelson, mastered the nuts and bolts of scaling his many vacation rental-related responsibilities.

How Beyondbnb Founder and CEO Went From 1 to 100+ Properties

Imagine operating numerous successful Airbnb rentals, ultimately generating more and more revenue with each passing year. It may sound unrealistic and daunting, but the truth is, it’s achievable with less effort than you’d expect. And it’s exactly what Ryland of Beyondbnb did over time.

Ryland started working in the property management industry during his high school years before pursuing an education in Tourism Management at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. After his schooling, Ryland developed an online booking website for local hosts within his community of Fernie, British Columbia. And this was before Airbnb even existed.

In 2010, Ryland became one of the earliest adopters of Airbnb when he started renting out a room in his condo. As his short-term rental business took off, he began operating numerous properties as an Airbnb Superhost.

Given his software development knowledge and his experience successfully scaling a vacation rental venture, other hosts started turning to him for advice. Because of this demand for hosting mentorship, Ryland established Ferniebnb. This business helped short-term rental hosts leverage their resources to improve efficiency, reduce frustrations, and manage more Airbnb listings.

Ryland’s top advice to hosts striving to scale their rental business:

“Make sure you have your systems in place. Don’t try to do everything yourself. That is the definition of scalability. Don’t try to do all your own cleaning. Get everything done by other people as much as possible so you can focus on growing your business. If you are finding that you’re having to do everything yourself, it’s not going to be scalable.”

Ryland eventually established Beyondbnb to help short-term rental managers and owners increase revenue as they grow. Beyondbnb’s innovative solution provides rental management services that include inventory replenishment, guest communications, cleaning and laundry, pricing, and maintenance coordination.

From managing one single Airbnb in 2010 to managing over 100 listings, Ryland’s secret is to implement process automation early on. He considers this the key to maximizing bookings and mastering running a successful vacation rental.

“Having all of your systems in place and running smoothly is key. Even if you have two or three properties, it needs to be well set up.”

– Ryland Nelson

Using Automation to Scale Your STR Empire

Nowadays, almost everything can be automated — including the ins and outs of running a short-term rental business.

When you automate your hosting tasks, you’ll be able to focus on acquiring new customers, prioritize financial freedom, and have confidence that your business is running smoothly.

Discover some of the most significant automation tools you can use to scale your short-term rental business.

Pricing Automation

Setting a great vacation rental pricing strategy requires a lot of experience or, at least, attention to detail.

You have to take into account that pricing fluctuates depending on several factors. For example, you can price your property higher on the weekend rather than on weekdays. Additionally, you might want to offer discounts to incentivize people to book more days and fill gaps in your calendar.

It is critical that you set rates just right — not too high, and not too low — so you don’t fail to take advantage of earning more revenue.

To get your rates right without missing out on bookings, you can utilize pricing automation tools to help you make lucrative business decisions. Vacation rental pricing software can set a specialized pricing plan based on your listing and other various factors. This ensures that you don’t overestimate or lowball your nightly rate.

Some of our favorite pricing tools for short-term rentals include Rented, PriceLabs, and Beyond.

Guest Communication Automation

Staying in contact and having excellent communication with your guests play a crucial part in your success as a host. That said, sending responses to guests is one of the most time-consuming hosting tasks.

Luckily, you can automate guest communication, helping you establish better relationships with guests while saving time. Top guest communication automation software includes Hospitable, Hostfully, and Host Tools.

By automating guest communication, you can proactively connect with guests before, during, and after their stay. This is done by using automated templates and triggered messaging. This method enables you to schedule personalized and unique messages to guarantee guests receive them at relevant times.

Best yet, it allows you to interact with guests when you’re physically unavailable to do so or if you’re in a different time zone.

Turnover Automation

Whether you clean your own property or hire a professional cleaning service, ensuring a spotless and disinfected property for each set of guests can be demanding. Scheduling and facilitating the cleaning process even just for a single property requires full attention and effort.

Automating your turnover cleaning process can help you achieve a top-notch vacation rental turnover experience without draining your energy. Tools like Programma di affiliazione per gli host help hosts put their cleaning on autopilot. This way, they won’t have to manually carry out cleaning procedures or worry about unreliable cleaners or last-minute cancellations.

Multiply Your Bookings and Revenue

To effectively scale your vacation rental management business, you need to implement automation tactics that will help you multiply your bookings and ultimately increase your revenue.

Streamlining your daily operations through automation can eliminate the common stress of performing repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your short-term rental venture. Once you automate your hosting routine, you will be able to scale faster and more effectively.

The post How to Scale Your Airbnb Business With Automation appeared first on Turno.

12 Features of the Best Property Management Software

Uplisting — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 19:31:13 +0000

1. Channel Manager

This is probably the only feature we would consider a must-have.

A PMS should make it easier for you to list, maintain, and update listings across different short-term rental channels. It should also help simplify the process of accepting and managing bookings from said channels as well.

2. Automated Guest Messaging

When comparing automated guest messaging functionality between PMS platforms, a flexible solution is generally best. What that means is you should be able to build an email sequence that matches your own preferred booking process.

How soon after booking should the message be sent? How many reminders will you send the guest before they arrive, and what will you remind them about? Will you require a security deposit? Should the automation also handle the identity verification process?

A flexible guest messaging module will be more likely to scale to your needs as your business grows and your process evolves.

3. Direct Booking Website

There are no-code website builders out there like Wix and Squarespace, but they’re not built with short-term rental properties in mind. If anything, vacation rentals are more of an afterthought for these general-purpose platforms.

That’s why it’s ideal for you to create direct booking websites from a PMS. Not only can you create a tasteful website that presents your property (or properties) in their best light, but it will be built specifically to accommodate additional features that your business will need, such as guest payment plans, direct booking options, and instant connections to Airbnb.

Not all PMS platforms can create a direct booking website, so if this is important to you, make sure you check that box before signing.

4. Unified Inbox

One of the most challenging aspects of listing on multiple platforms is having to check each of the inboxes every single day. There’s a lot of risk of miscommunication, and it becomes difficult to keep track of who said what and where.

You may want to ask your property management software vendor whether or not their product has a unified inbox. A unified inbox connects with all of the different booking platforms and centralizes all of the messages so that you can see all of your guest communications in one place.

Not only is this a huge time saver — but it also helps prevent double booking and reduces guest miscommunications.

5. Integrations

As complete as some property management software claim to be, they will never be able to do everything that your business needs. That’s why it’s important to assess whether or not your PMS of choice can integrate with other apps, and how well.

Here are a few examples of useful apps with which to integrate:

PriceLabs is a dynamic pricing solution that helps you find the right rate for your properties at any given point during the year
BookingTrust is accounting software designed specifically for the short-term rental industry
August is a smart locks app that helps automate guest access
Minut monitors noise and occupancy levels
Safely is an insurtech guest screening solution

If your PMS can expand its capabilities through integrations, your business can become more efficient and scalable.

6. Multi-Calendar

We’ve already covered the value of seeing all of your messages from the different booking platforms in one place. Now, let’s take it a step further and incorporate all of your different booking calendars.

How much of a life-saver would that feature be?

That said, a poorly executed muti-calendar can be just as bad as not having one at all. For best results, this feature needs specific functions that make it easier to read and manage. Things like:

Color-coding and other display options to help you differentiate between booking platforms and actions to be taken
Tags and filters to help you easily sort and find the information you need
Instant calendar updates so that blocking a date in one calendar updates all the other platforms at the same time

These functions should be considered basic features when reviewing multi-calendars. If a PMS doesn’t have these, then you should look elsewhere.

7. Security Deposits

Security deposits on platforms like Airbnb are a tricky issue. It’s not a matter of whether or not they allow it (they do) but how these security deposits are handled.

In a nutshell, Airbnb’s security deposit policies put you, the property owner, at a disadvantage by not actually taking the deposit money from the guest — it’s just a hold amount on their card.

Why is this relevant? Because some property management software platforms allow you to choose between different security deposit arrangements. You can either accept deposits the Airbnb way, or you can do it the traditional way, where the guest sends you cash to keep as security.

8. eSign Rental Agreements

While we’re on the topic of protecting your property, rental agreements play a crucial role in both protecting yourself from liability and screening potential guests.

Paper rental agreements are a thing of the past, and very few short-term rental property owners ever use them anymore. Now, agreements can be sent using electronic documents, but doing so via email usually ends up turning into a game of cat and mouse, as you try to get guests to sign well before they arrive on your doorstep.

That’s where a good property management platform can assist.

Check to see if your PMS can help you streamline the rental agreement process through automated messaging and digital signatures. Also, try asking whether or not the PMS will be able to enforce the process in such a way that the booking won’t proceed without the guest’s signature.

9. Guest Identity Verification

Cautious property owners will want to verify their guests’ identities prior to their stay as a means of protecting against stolen identities and impersonations.

Screening guests can certainly be handled through other means, doing it within the PMS that is already handling the rest of the booking process is much more convenient, for both you and your guest.

10. Cleaning Scheduler

Arranging cleaning schedules with external contractors is always a challenge, but with the right features, a PMS can help make this less of a burden.

Some property management tools come equipped with a cleaning scheduler that can help you coordinate turnover tasks with your cleaning service — but this is only really helpful if you already have primary and backup cleaners you know and trust.

To find new professional cleaners in your area and automate the scheduling process, Turno can help. The platform will assign the cleaning task as soon as the guest checks out. It can then let the cleaners notify you whenever they’ve completed the project. Best yet, Turno integrates with all the top property management systems on the market.

11. Professional Check-In/Check-Out Capabilities

This section doesn’t discuss a specific feature that a PMS should have, but rather the net effect of all its capabilities put together.

What do we mean? Well, one of the things that traditional hotels do well is they create a consistent and scalable check-in/check-out process. This process was refined over time across thousands of hotel chains to help move guests in and out with little to no fuss. If your own short-term rental business is to grow, you need to build toward the same.

Since you lack a physical front desk (and a desk agent), you need to upgrade your online lobby to compete.

This means making sure your PMS can help create smooth, repeatable, and above all stress-free check-in and check-out experiences. Features like centralized calendars, digital rental agreements, online guest verification, automated messaging, and more all help contribute to positive guest relations.

12. Revenue Management

As with the professional check-in/check-out capabilities we mentioned above, any property management software worth its code will give you at least some methods to improve and manage your revenue.

Direct booking, guest payment plans, and integrations with major banks, accounting software, and digital payment processors all help you manage the flow of cash. You can further connect your PMS with dynamic pricing apps and other similar tools.

The net result? You get total visibility into how much each of your properties is earning, and you have the ability to push and pull various levers to adjust your profit margins.

Take the Legwork Out of Hosting

Using a PMS to handle the tedious and manual tasks that come with vacation rental hosting, frees up your time to start acquiring additional properties, spend more time with your family, or travel the world.

Not to mention, this type of automation software will also enhance guests’ experiences by making check-in and check-out a breeze, ensuring they’re welcomed into a clean property, and facilitating consistent communication between them and you.

The post 12 Features of the Best Property Management Software appeared first on Turno.

How to Automate Airbnb Cleaning

The Turno Team — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 04:07:00 +0000

What Is Vacation Rental Cleaning Automation?

You can spend thousands on fancy vacation rental cleaning robots and gadgets so that your property essentially cleans itself. Or, for a more accessible option, you can hire experienced cleaning professionals to handle your turnovers all at the touch of a button.

Cleaning automation software like Turno streamlines the process of cleaning an Airbnb property. This saves you time and money by freeing you up to handle other tasks.

With this platform, you can find trusted cleaners in your area or work with professionals you already know and love. You’ll receive automatic notifications when the cleaner starts and finishes the turnover and if they have any questions along the way. You can even automatically schedule each cleaning and pay your cleaning crew.

Once you have your cleaning process down to an automated science, you can focus on Airbnb business growth strategies and more.

6 Easy Steps to Automate Airbnb Cleaning

Below, learn how you can use automation software to make your vacation rental cleaning easier than ever.

1. Hire a Professional Cleaner

There are several ways in which you can find a cleaning professional in your area. For example, you can utilize online tools such as:

Craigslist
Facebook Groups
Google

The problem with these methods, however, is that you may not know whether or not the cleaner is reliable or does a thorough job until it’s too late. Instead, you can use a dedicated cleaner marketplace like Turno to find an experienced and vetted cleaning professional in your area.

Turno connects you to local cleaners and allows you to assess their rates and reviews before selecting one to perform a cleaning job. Once the cleaning project is done, you can submit your own rating and review for the cleaner and decide whether you’d like to continue working with them in the future or try someone new. Software like ours simplifies automating your Airbnb cleaning.

Looking for a professional vacation rental cleaner?

Get Instant Quotes

2. Share Your Booking Calendar

Perhaps you use your Google Calendar to track your bookings. Or maybe you’ve been in the game for a while and use a project management system. No matter where you keep track of your guest bookings, you can share this calendar with your cleaner so they’ll know exactly when to be at your property for each turnover without all the back-and-forth texting, emailing, or calling.

Platforms like Turno can automatically sync with your booking calendars on Airbnb, Vrbo, and other OTAs. This means that whenever someone makes a reservation at your rental, it will automatically populate on your unified Turno calendar. You can share this calendar with your cleaner to ensure everyone is on the same page.

3. Create a Checklist

Cleaning a vacation rental differs from a regular cleaning. There are countless overlooked cleaning spots in an Airbnb, such as baseboards and ceiling fans, that must be wiped down to ensure a spotless and dust-free property.

How can you make sure that your rental is cleaned to your — and, ultimately, your guests’ — standards? Checklists. An Airbnb cleaning checklist is an essential tool to help you make sure that every nook and cranny of your vacation home is squeaky clean and sanitized.

If you use Turno for scheduling, you can also take advantage of the checklist feature. It allows you to create your own custom checklist or choose from a vast collection of checklists made by experienced vacation rental hosts. You can share your checklist with your cleaners, and they won’t be able to complete the cleaning project until every item is checked off.

4. Keep Track of Inventory

Similar to the checklist feature on Turno, the platform also offers an inventory tracking system. That way, you can always be confident that your property is well-stocked with the essentials.

Simply determine how many items you want available at your property at any given time. For example, you may always want to have at least three rolls of toilet paper stocked. Then, your cleaner can let you know when an item is running low.

This system is beneficial because it’ll save you from having to make extra trips to your property to check inventory yourself.

5. Schedule Recurring Deep Cleanings

A vacation rental cleaning is already fairly thorough, but there will also be times when your property needs a deep cleaning. Say you have your busy season in the summer. You may choose to schedule your deep cleaning after these back-to-back guest stays.

A turnover automation platform like Turno allows you to schedule incremental deep cleanings to keep your property in the best possible condition. You’ll be able to continue with your normal day-to-day operations while your deep cleanings are automatically scheduled and performed without you having to lift a finger.

Ensure your rental is always guest-ready with Turno.

Find a Cleaner

6. Send Payments Instantly

Did you know that short-term rental hosts spend around 40 hours per year sending payments to their cleaning staff?

Automation tools help you instantly compensate your cleaners once they complete a turnover. Taking the manual work out of paying your cleaners will cross one more thing off your to-do list and free up your valuable time.

Try Software to Automate Airbnb Cleaning

Automating your vacation rental cleaning routine allows you or your professional Airbnb cleaning company to complete each turnover efficiently and to a high standard. Consistent cleanings allow your guests to enjoy a welcoming and comfortable environment and allow you to rack up those 5-star reviews.

The post How to Automate Airbnb Cleaning appeared first on Turno.

Simplify Your Business With a Vacation Rental Channel Manager

Hostaway — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 20:33:13 +0000

What Is Channel Management?

Channel management is the sheer act of choosing which channels and at which rates you want to make your properties available.

Even if you only rent out your property on one online travel agency (OTA), you are, in fact, managing a channel. This is because you are making conscious decisions about which channel to use and which price and marketing strategy to use there.

Software can help streamline every aspect of this.

When to Use Channel Management for Vacation Rentals

Remember what the key driver for a booking website is? Conversion.

Every site that you list your property on wants it to convert. How else would they make money? However, it can only convert well if it has a lot of availability and, ideally, low prices.

But listing on many channels has its own risks. For example, getting double-booked is highly undesirable.

When consumers search for rentals, they are primarily influenced by the factors that will increase their chances of booking: availability, rates, pictures, descriptions, amenities, property type, and reviews. Travelers are getting pickier and may only search for specific amenities such as beachfront or pet-friendly.

This is where technology — namely, a channel manager or property management software (PMS) — can help. These tools help ensure you market your property to the right people.

What to Look for When Choosing a Channel Manager

When looking for channel manager software, it’s worth noting that a PMS often comes with a built-in channel manager. Software that only does channel management will push your rates and availability to certain channels, while a PMS allows you to generate reports and owner statements, schedule cleanings, and communicate with your guests.

Regardless of whether you’re looking for a PMS or channel manager, below are several things to take into consideration as you’re making your selection.

Strong Channel Connections

Ensure that the channel manager in question is a preferred or elite partner of the OTAs you use or are planning to use. This will give you access to the best technology, maximize the availability of features, and get you more bookings.

Check out Airbnb’s Preferred Partners, Vrbo’s Elite Partners, and Booking.com’s Premier Partners for lists of popular channel management choices.

Reporting and Finance Management

Any decent PMS will let you create financial reports for yourself, your business partners, and your accounts. But the data is seldom accurate when it comes to resolutions, alterations, and manual changes.

Ensure you have a system that contains the correct financial data and allows you to present it in various formats.

Also, if you start managing properties on behalf of others, be sure the owner statements can be easily generated and are accurate while allowing for manual items to be added or adjusted.

Management of Cleaning and Maintenance

A strong task management system is the core of every property manager, big or small.

Your PMS should be able to account for sick days and additional cleanings. Bonus points if it’s usable on a mobile app so that you can upload photos and cleaning checklists.

Guest Communication Automation

A unified inbox that supports OTA message platforms, emails, text messages, and WhatsApp messages is critical. Having a good guest portal for verifying identities and signing rental agreements can bring an extra revenue stream through upselling.

Custom Website Builder

Any good PMS will have an advanced and customizable website builder that truly makes your site stand out from the rest. Be sure it can be customized and embedded on your existing website, uses dynamic pricing, and supports promotional coupons. You’ll need them.

Payment Processing

Once you diversify your revenue stream, processing your own payments gives you more control. That said, in order to continue scaling your business, you need a system that automates your payment processing.

No Hidden Fees

Be sure to read and understand all the terms before you sign a contract. Many systems can have hidden fees in the fine print, so be sure you know what you’re signing.

Features for Scaling Your Business

Choose a PMS with at least 100 partners in their marketplace. This will help ensure you’re able to incorporate new technology or business models, such as using smart home technology or crypto payments, when the consumer or your business needs it.

Additionally, an open API (application programming interface) lets you develop your own tools should you need to. Flexible user management allows you to manage the access levels of your team members as you grow.

Use a Channel Manager to Centralize Your Vacation Rental Listings

It’s worth exploring which channels to market your properties on, but a lot of attention and focus is needed to wisely invest the time and energy in the right places to get the optimal return. A channel manager can help you with a lot of the work.

The post Simplify Your Business With a Vacation Rental Channel Manager appeared first on Turno.

Choose the Right Airbnb Automation Software for Your STR

The Turno Team — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:56:51 +0000

Pricing Automation Software

The purpose of pricing automation software is to take the guesswork out of dynamic pricing for your short-term rental property. This type of tool will give you helpful market insights while automatically setting your nightly rate based on numerous external and customizable factors.

Some of the top pricing automation platforms are detailed below.

Wheelhouse

Wheelhouse is a dynamic pricing tool designed for new hosts, vacation rental owners, and seasoned property managers.

The platform offers custom pricing recommendations to help you begin crafting your pricing strategy. You can then preview the potential impact of this strategy and make adjustments as you see fit.

Settings you can configure on the platform include:

Minimum price
Maximum price
Seasonality adjustments
Last-minute discounts

As your short-term rental business grows, Wheelhouse makes it easy to track your progress and make continuous improvements.

Beyond Pricing

Beyond Pricing offers demand-driven pricing insights for short-term rentals, allowing new and seasoned hosts to maximize their revenue without the tedious guesswork that comes with determining nightly rates.

This tool is unique in that it provides a health score for your property, meaning you can see how your rental is pacing relative to the competition.

PriceLabs

Why do thousands of short-term rental owners and property managers use PriceLabs?

One reason is that they integrate with over 50 channel managers and PMS’. This means that it’s quick and seamless to begin automating your pricing with PriceLabs, no matter what other software you use.

Also, the flexible and customizable tool is available globally and has no geographic limitations. You can get top pricing insights anywhere in the world.

Scheduling and Booking Automation Software

Running a vacation rental requires scheduling mastery. Not only do you have to organize bookings across multiple OTAs, but you also have to schedule cleaning services in between each guest stay, property maintenance, and more.

Turn to some of the most popular booking and scheduling automation tools to simplify these processes.

Programma di affiliazione per gli host

Many new Airbnb hosts choose to do their own turnover cleaning, but as you scale, this becomes a huge time suck. To save time and energy — so you can focus on other aspects of your business — consider hiring a professional Airbnb cleaning team.

Turno specializes in scheduling automation for vacation rental cleaning. With the easy-to-use Host App, owners and property managers can sync their rental calendars and ensure a professional cleaner is scheduled in between each and every guest stay.

You can use the Marketplace to find experienced, professional cleaners in your area, or you can invite to the platform a cleaner you already know and trust. Regardless, with Turno, you’ll never miss a vacation rental cleaning again.

Zeevou

In addition to automating your cleaning, you’ll also want to consider automating your booking processing. This is where Zeevou comes in.

This hospitality business community offers world-class training and support, as well as easy automation tools to ensure a seamless booking process. Their 5-Step Booking Confirmation Process ensures that booking is simple, payments are secure, and guests are vetted.

Booking Automation

Booking Automation is for hosts who feel like their bookings come with too much manual work. With this tool, you can instantly publish listings on all major OTAs while consolidating your bookings to one single calendar. This will help you maximize your potential earnings while preventing double bookings.

Booking Automation also helps you get direct bookings right to your website. And if you don’t have a website, this platform makes it easy to build one.

Check-In and Check-Out Automation Software

When you’re the host of just one property, it may not be too much of a hassle to meet guests on-site whenever they’re checking in or out. As you scale your vacation rental business, however, making numerous trips to your Airbnb properties each week can eat up time that could be better spent elsewhere.

Learn about time-saving check-in and check-out automation tools below.

Host Tools

Automated messaging ensures a hands-off check-in and check-out process. The Host Tools automated messaging feature sends the right messages to the right people at the right time.

The feature is fully customizable, so you can make sure your guests are in the loop and on the same page when they arrive at your property and after they leave. Save hours of time spent facilitating guest check-in and check-out so you can focus on growing your business.

RemoteLock

Not only can you automate your check-in and check-out communication. You can also utilize smart technology to allow guests to enter your property without you having to be there in person.

RemoteLock is a universal access control software that works with your smart lock to provide safe keyless entry to your vacation rental property. You can create access schedules for your guests and cleaners, and they can use a unique, self-expiring code to enter your property when you choose.

The technology works with any Airbnb smart lock hardware, so you can develop a custom solution that fits your needs and budget.

KeyNest

KeyNest is a key exchange tool that allows guests to access your property without you having to be there in person to let them in. All you have to do is leave your property key at one of the 4,000+ KeyNest stores worldwide, provide your guests with a unique collection code, and they can pick up the key from the store’s shopkeeper while you go about your day.

The platform will notify you whenever your keys are picked up and dropped off, so you never have to worry about where your keys are.

Guest Communication Automation Software

Numerous automation tools exist for guest communication to help reduce the volume of tasks that hosts encounter on a daily basis. Find out more about these software options below.

Hospitable

As you begin hosting, you’ll likely find that you receive numerous questions from guests about everything from the Wi-Fi password to airport directions. Hospitable offers guest experience messaging to help you take care of guests’ needs automatically.

You can choose from various templates and customizations to answer guest messages with ease and in no time at all. And you can automate these conversations in your own voice — so you won’t sound like a robot.

RueBaRue

Awarded the 2021 VRMB Keystone Award for Best Vacation Rental Property Management Software for Guidebook and Guest Apps, there’s no doubt that RueBaRue is one of the top guest communication tools on the market.

Their communication automation software helps with:

Digital Guestbooks
Guest SMS Messaging and SMS Automation
Guest Reviews and Surveys
Local Area Guides
More

Enhance guests’ stays and simplify your host responsibilities with this automated guest communication tool.

Guesty

If you feel like as a vacation rental host you’re always on call, Guesty can help with that. Their auto-messaging feature allows hosts to message guests through email, SMS, or a booking platform at any stage — from pre-booking to after check-out.

With Guesty, not only can you receive all of your messages from various booking platforms in one single inbox, but you can also save hours of your time automating the routine messages you send out at every guest’s stay. Their automation capabilities ensure you save time, build credibility, maximize profitability, and reduce the risk of human error.

Reviews Automation Software

Host reviews, whether positive or negative, are very important to guests. Future travelers use reviews as selection criteria when booking a particular property. Not only that but booking platforms like Airbnb favor listings with numerous positive reviews. In other words, the more 5-star reviews you have, the higher your property will appear in search results.

So, how do you get more positive reviews? One way is to review your Airbnb guests after their stay, and you can easily streamline this process through automation tools.

Uplisting

With Uplisting, you can review each guest instantaneously after their stay — without lifting a finger. You can automatically send gleaming reviews after a positive guest stay, and in case of a poor guest experience, you can easily customize an unfavorable review.

iGMS

The iGMS review automation feature helps hosts receive up to 50% more reservations. As stated, more guest reviews mean higher rankings on booking platforms.

iGMS makes it quick and simple to write guest reviews and, in turn, get more reviews back. What’s best? You can submit your reviews right through their platform without having to be logged into your various booking sites.

Hostfully

With Hostfully, you can create message templates that are automatically triggered after some period of time following a guest check-out. You can customize the amount of time you want to pass before publishing the automatic review in case you’d like to leave a manual review.

The feature allows you to create multiple templates so that they’re sent out randomly and you avoid sending out the same review each time.

Make Airbnb Management Easy By Automating Your Airbnb

In addition to automation software, there are numerous other products that can make your job as a host easier and more efficient. Not to mention, they’ll also enhance the guest experience for those who book with you.

The post Choose the Right Airbnb Automation Software for Your STR appeared first on Turno.

How Hosts Can Automate Airbnb Reviews

The Turno Team — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:40:14 +0000

Is Automating Reviews Even Possible?

Automating reviews is absolutely possible. To help you scale your Airbnb business, there are many vacation rental software options that can ease operations. This includes the automation of writing and submitting guest reviews.

All the time you’re spending writing reviews is time you could be spending focusing on growing your business.

To help you submit personable and efficient reviews, it’s vital to use an automating system that will allow you to set up and manage multiple templates. Ultimately, this will help build trust, improve guest experience, and save time.

How to Automate Vacation Rental Reviews

The best way to automate vacation rental reviews is to use automation software. If you’re not ready or unable to invest in this type of software right now, there are easy ways you can streamline your review process. Follow the steps below to get started.

Create message templates that are based on the reviews you usually write to your guests. If you are uncertain about what you can write, simply check out other reviews hosts have posted on Airbnb.
Set a reminder on your calendar to synchronize the check-out times of your guests and the time you have to post reviews. That way, you don’t miss out on doing it within the 14-day review period.
Copy, paste, and submit the text in your templates. Make sure to fill in the guest name in the shortcodes where appropriate.

Airbnb Review Guidelines

1. Reviews Should Follow Airbnb’s Policy

Airbnb Content Policy states that reviews should not contain the following:

Advertising or commercial content, including company logos, links, or company names
Spam, unwanted, or disruptive contact
Sexually explicit, violent, threatening, or harassing content
Discriminatory content
Impersonation of another person or entity, including an Airbnb employee
Content that violates someone’s intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or other rights
Content that reveals someone’s private information or the location of a listing

2. Reviews Should Be Unbiased

Reviews should not attempt to incentivize other individuals to post positive reviews and exploit compensation. Second accounts that are used to leave a review for yourself are not also allowed.

3. Reviews Should Be Relevant

Reviews that include the following are not acceptable:

Remarks about a person’s social, political, or religious views
Profanity, slurs, and inferences about a person’s character or personality
Any commentary that does not relate to the listing, host, or guest you are rating

Top Review Automation Software

Short-term rental review automation software can help you simplify your processes for building review templates, receiving notifications, and submitting reviews. Below, learn more about some of the top software to make automating your vacation rental reviews a breeze.

1. iGMS

iGMS is an all-in-one Airbnb automation tool. Their auto-review feature allows for effective automated messaging and reviewing. The feature also uses gender-neutral terms to avoid gender bias and can delay a review to give you the chance to check any issues at the property after check-out.

2. Hospitable

Hospitable is also a great automation tool to centralize most of the mundane tasks an Airbnb host faces every day. Their review automation software allows you to customize your review templates. It will also randomize them as they’re submitted so they sound natural.

3. Guesty

Guesty offers end-to-end solutions that simplify hosting operations, helping hosts focus on growing their business. Guesty’s review automation allows you to delay, pause, and customize ratings and even use your own templates. If you don’t have a template set, Guesty will create one for you.

4. Hostaway

Hostaway’s automation capabilities allow you to automatically submit and respond to reviews on a centralized platform. Hostaway provides template-based automatic positive reviews as well as negative reviews. Their automatic negative review function can be sent out 20 seconds before the review window closes to avoid guest retaliation.

5. Uplisting

Uplisting’s review automation software has a double-blind functionality. This means that guests will get a notification when they receive a review from you. But in order to read it, they must leave one for you too. If not, there is a 14-day waiting period.

Start Automating Your STR Business Now

There are many hosts who miss the opportunity to increase bookings and avoid bad guests because they don’t respond to reviews or write guest reviews.

It can be very repetitive to manually reply to and review your guests. As you scale your business, it can seem impossible to keep up with the workload.

By automating Airbnb guest reviews, you can still create personalized guest experiences through authentic review templates and get reviews in return. This process will help your listing get traction and make guests feel confident about booking your property.

The post How Hosts Can Automate Airbnb Reviews appeared first on Turno.