aaa Hospitable and Turno Partnership https://turno.com/author/hospitable/ Thu, 30 May 2024 20:08:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://turno.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/cropped-turno-favicon-32x32.png Hospitable and Turno Partnership https://turno.com/author/hospitable/ 32 32 Managing Your Vacation Rental as a Side Hustle https://turno.com/managing-vacation-rental-side-hustle/ Tue, 27 Feb 2024 19:59:10 +0000 https://turno.com/?p=35341 If you are looking for a potential side hustle, renting out your property to travelers for short periods can be a good option. It can be a great way to earn extra income on top of your full-time job, even if you don't have much extra time.
In this post, we'll share some tips and strategies for managing your vacation rental as a side hustle without trading much of your time for money.

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It’s Easy to Get Started as a First-Timer

If you have no business experience, the easiest way to start with your first vacation rental is to list your unoccupied property on major booking sites. Each OTA has its advantages and disadvantages, so listing your vacation rental on multiple platforms is always better. This way, you can easily reach more travelers who can become your potential guests.

Although learning how to make money with vacation rentals takes some time and effort, if you organize everything right, you can successfully manage your property in your spare time and ensure a steady flow of income.

Can you make good money from your vacation rental? It depends on many factors, but the short answer is yes. If you own a home or apartment in an area that attracts many tourists and offers plenty of opportunities for leisure activities, using it as a short-term rental can generate serious money.

Operating a vacation rental can be both rewarding and profitable if you are willing to put in the required work to set up solid business processes. It can be an ideal side hustle that fits perfectly into your life if you’re already working full-time.

How to Manage Your Vacation Rental as a Side Hustle

When managing your vacation rental, the most important thing is ensuring all your guests get everything they expect when staying at your place. You also need to ensure that your guests enjoy their stay and check out satisfied with their experience (and, hopefully, willing to come back in the future).

Some property owners hire a property manager to help them with hosting and ensure everything runs smoothly. But you can also self-manage your property and use technology to streamline operational tasks.

Hire Someone to Help You

Managing a short-term rental can be rather effort-intensive for a property owner, especially during a high season, and requires consistent work. One of the possible solutions to avoid the constant hassle and create a work-life balance is to hire someone to manage your vacation rental for you.

A property manager will handle all the day-to-day tasks of running a vacation rental, including setting competitive rates, keeping your booking calendar up-to-date, communicating with guests, cleaning, maintenance, and other responsibilities. It’s up to you to decide what tasks you want to delegate to them.

A good property manager can make running a short-term rental much easier and free up your time so you can focus on your career or your family. But you’ll need to pay for their services, and this can significantly reduce the profitability of your vacation rental property.

Another disadvantage of entrusting someone to handle everything for you is that you may feel you’re losing control over your vacation rental, which can be risky. Some property management companies may provide excellent service, while others may not live up to your expectations.

If you hire a bad one, they can create more problems than they solve. That’s why if you hire a property manager, ensure they have experience in your market, and you are comfortable with them as a person.

airbnb property manager looking at checklist in notebook as cleaning crew works in the background

Automate as much as you can

If you don’t think hiring a property manager is the right choice for you, you can manage your vacation rental on your own and outsource the tasks you don’t have time for while balancing a full-time job.

Managing your own property will allow you to avoid management fees, have full control over the process, and add a personal touch to a positive customer experience. In this case, automation and tech are crucial to help you run your side business in the long run. Automating and outsourcing different aspects of running a short-term rental will earn you more money by doing less work.

Using advanced software tools, you can make your side business flourish with minimal effort and take care of your daily tasks when convenient. You won’t have to pioneer this approach. For example, 67% of Hospitable hosts manage their vacation rentals on the go, accessing their accounts using smartphones or tablets versus desktops.

Automate Cleaning and Maintenance

Wherever they go, guests expect to stay in a welcoming and comfortable space that is clean and well-maintained. That’s why it makes sense to outsource and automate cleaning and maintenance. You should partner with reliable vacation rental cleaners who can efficiently handle the turnover process and ensure your home is as pristine as possible after every guest’s stay.

Turnover software can help you automate the cleaning process between guests. For example, with Turno, you can easily find trusted local cleaners. If you enter details about your property, such as square footage, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, etc., you can compare bids from top-rated cleaners in your area and communicate with them using Turno Chat.

After you sync your booking calendar with Turno, the platform will automatically schedule cleaning projects based on check-in and check-out dates and share them with your cleaners, sending instant notifications. You can create cleaning checklists and share them with your cleaners to show them what they should focus on. Cleaners can upload photos of completed tasks to their assigned checklist for hosts to see.

The platform will allow you to automate payments to your cleaners and save over 40 hours of your precious time each year. It can also help you keep track of your inventory and get notifications when specific essentials are out of stock or running low and need to be refilled. Cleaners can send hosts reports about property damage and other problems in real-time so that hosts can address the issues and coordinate repairs.

Hospitable in app dashboard

Use Software to Manage Your Primary Hosting Responsibilities

There are other aspects of running a short-term rental that you may want to automate using technology and software tools to reduce your workload and address specific problems. Your tech stack should include vacation rental software with comprehensive, advanced features.

It’s a cost-effective alternative to hiring an external team of property managers to help manage your short-term rental. Vacation rental management software can help you automate many routine tasks to make your life easier:

●       Manage multiple listings on different platforms in one place

●       Synchronize your calendars across multiple platforms so you can get instant protection from double bookings

●       Ensure fast and clear communication with your guests via automated messages

●       Manage guest reviews

●       Smartly adjust your prices through integrations with dynamic pricing tools

●       Ensure a smooth self-check-in process for your guests through integrations with smart locks

●       Develop a direct booking website that will appear in Google Vacation Rentals and bring you an extra flow of leads without high third-party fees.

Running a short-term rental can be a lucrative side hustle. Although it requires active, regular effort, vacation rental software tools can help you do all your tasks more efficiently and conveniently. They can remove the hassle from every part of the process and put your vacation rental management on autopilot.

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Sending Automated Messages on Airbnb: 6 Best Practices https://turno.com/sending-automated-messages-on-airbnb/ Fri, 05 Aug 2022 23:21:01 +0000 https://turnoverbnb.com/?p=9029 If you don't successfully deal with guest queries, you risk receiving bad reviews, which can tank your booking rates and directly impact your earnings. An Airbnb automated guest communication system that allows you to personalize the experience with canned responses and review management saves you time and labor while improving your review scores and increasing your revenue.

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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. 

man smiling while looking at phone

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. 

vacation rental kitchen

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.

minimalistic kitchen layout

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.

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Airbnb Messages to Send to Guests During Their Stay https://turno.com/airbnb-messages-to-send-to-guests-during-their-stay/ Sat, 30 Jul 2022 01:37:07 +0000 https://turnoverbnb.com/?p=8982 Your guests have already checked in, so there’s no need to keep in contact with them, right? Not so fast. Failing to communicate with your guests during their stay means you don’t have the chance to address issues, which can then be recounted in negative reviews. Use the following in-stay communication strategies to enhance the guest experience, rack up five-star reviews, and bring in more direct bookings.

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How to Communicate With Guests During Their Stay

Guests appreciate attentive hosts, and attentive hosts make a point of finding a healthy balance between reaching out to guests during their stay and allowing them to enjoy their vacation in peace. It’s this balance that will set you apart as a host and have guests recommending you to their friends and visiting year after year. 

There are multiple times you should be reaching out to guests after they check in and before they check out. 

The following guidelines will show you exactly how to manage in-stay communication to create the best guest experience possible. 

Check In With Guests on the First Morning After Arrival

Your guests just checked in, and you want to let them enjoy their vacation — after all, it has only just started. But checking in with guests the morning after they arrive to gauge their first impressions of your property is incredibly important. 

Some guests may not think to reach out directly to you if they had a small problem with the property when they arrived. Maybe there was a dirty towel on the floor or a stain on the counter. Get this information from your guests instead of letting them complain about it in a bad review

This allows you to apologize for whatever they complained about and offer solutions or fixes if necessary and helps to develop a positive rapport with your guest while showing you care.  

Make Emergency Contacts Clear

Always be sure to let your guests know how they can reach you and in what instances they should get in touch with you in an emergency. It’s important to set those guidelines and boundaries, as what appears to be an emergency to a guest may seem more like a minor inconvenience to you. 

Sharing emergency contacts with guests is especially important if you don’t live in the area. Be sure your guests know who to reach in case something happens and you aren’t able to respond to the situation yourself. 

Check In With Guests Throughout Their Stay

If a guest is just staying with you for a weekend or so, it’s not necessary to check in with them various times throughout their stay (this would be the vacation rental equivalent of a waiter passing by your table to ask “How is everything?” ten times over the course of an hour-long meal). 

However, if your guest is staying with you for more than a week, send messages at least once a week to make sure everything is going well and they’re still pleased with your property.

Just like the message you send on the morning after check-in, touching base with guests throughout long stays helps you to reduce the risk of negative reviews by addressing these issues as they occur.

This is also an opportunity to offer upsells, like additional cleaning services and replacement linens, to guests who are staying for an extended period of time. 

Upsell Additional Services

Aside from the occasional message to touch base, there are some other compelling reasons to keep in touch with guests during their stay: upsells. If you advertise all your upsells in your listing or a pre-check-in message, there’s no way your guests are going to remember or take advantage of them. 

You should personalize your upsells so they’re relevant to your guest (you should have gotten to know your guest during the pre-stay communication phase). 

If your guests are a young couple with children, offer babysitting or other child-friendly services. Perhaps your guests flew in from out of town. Offer them the option to hire transportation services to take them to the airport when they leave. 

You can also offer general upsells, like late check-out and extended stays. Offering guests the option to stay an extra day at a discounted price is a great way to fill in gaps in your booking calendar, which helps you bring in more revenue while giving guests the chance to enjoy their vacation for even longer. 

The key here is to find a good balance between accommodating and overbearing. Make your guests aware of upsells that could be of interest to them without overwhelming or annoying them. A good way to do this is by sending all relevant upsells in one or two concise and informative messages instead of sharing them over the span of their stay. 

Send a Thank You Message the Night Before Check-Out

Your final communication with a guest before they check out should be the night before they leave. Send your guests a message the night prior to check-out to thank them for their stay. 

You can also use this as an opportunity to remind them of check-out times and inform them of anything they need to do before they leave (Do they need to take out the trash? Where should they leave the keys?). 

Finally, be sure to ask how their stay went. This is your last opportunity to smooth out any issues they may have had instead of being surprised when you find them in a review. 

Keep in Touch With Your Guests During Their Stay — They Will Thank You for It

In-stay communication doesn’t only keep Airbnb guests happy. It ups your chances of a glowing 5-star review and direct bookings in the future.

With the right balance between being attentive and allowing your guests to enjoy their stay, you’ll be able to market upsells and address problems before they end up in a negative review. All the more reason to make in-stay communication a priority for your short-term rental business.

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Airbnb Welcome Letters and Other Pre-Stay Communication https://turno.com/create-a-beautiful-welcome-message/ Wed, 20 Jul 2022 08:05:00 +0000 https://turnoverbnb.com/?p=2602 Communicating with guests before they book is your first opportunity to make a good impression. Pre-booking communication includes everything from your listing to guest inquiries, and it also gives you a chance to get to know your potential guests. The following pre-stay communication recommendations will help you to increase bookings and enhance your guests’ experience before they even step foot on your property.

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How to Communicate With Guests Before They Book

For many hosts, guest communication begins at the moment of check-in. However, pre-stay communication plays a key role in your relationship with guests, both potential and confirmed. 

A poor approach to pre-stay communication can mean losing out on bookings because of incomplete listings or unanswered questions. 

If you don’t speak with potential Airbnb guests before they book, you won’t be able to personalize their stay or identify potentially problematic guests you may not want to host. Plus, you need to be sharing important information with guests between booking and check-in that will set you apart as an attentive and thoughtful host. 

airbnb welcome letter

4 Pre-Stay Communication Tips 

The tips below will help you maintain helpful and consistent communication to turn inquiries into bookings. 

1. Ensure That Your Listing Description Is Complete

Every guest communication starts with your listing. This is probably the first time that a potential guest ever sees you, so you should be thorough and design your listing with your ideal guest in mind. 

  • Do you want families to stay with you? Point out why your property is so family-friendly.
  • Is your vacation rental geared towards couples? Highlight the romantic experiences in the area. 

Your Airbnb listing should be fluid, meaning that it is a dynamic description you should update as you gain more insights into what guests think of your property. While you want to be as thorough as possible when first creating your listing, you should also go through your reviews on a regular basis, discover what guests praise most often, and highlight that in your listing.

But never oversell or exaggerate in your listing. Being honest and realistic about your property is key to securing good ratings: When you falsely advertise your offering, guests lose trust. Plus, overselling is a surefire way to get a bad review, as you’re setting unrealistic expectations from the start. 

On the flip side, being up-front about what your property can and can’t offer is the best way to demonstrate your integrity to a potential guest. 

2. Respond to Inquiries Immediately

The average Airbnb user spends less than 12 minutes on the site. However, they visit about six listings during their visit, meaning potential guests will only spend about two minutes on your listing. 

Needless to say, it’s not enough to respond to inquiries within 24 hours — all inquiries should be answered within minutes before guests have the chance to find another listing and book with them instead of you. 

If you don’t want to be glued to your phone at all hours of the day, use a tool like Hospitable for automated replies so you can respond instantly to each guest inquiry without having to do any of the legwork. 

woman on her phone

To cut down on guest inquiries, and so you know you’re not missing any potential bookings, keep stock of the questions you most often get asked and work the answers into your listing. Remember, your listing is always a work in progress and should constantly be updated and improved. 

3. Give Potential Guests Access to FAQs

Even if you write a thorough listing that covers FAQs, many guests skim it, and they don’t hesitate to reach out directly to you when they want a question answered. Remember, you should be able to respond to these questions on the fly. 

That’s why you should work to create a set of questions and canned answers that can be copied and pasted quickly. You can also automate FAQ answers with a software that can recognize commonly asked questions and then automate responses.

You can also use these responses as a chance to sell your property. If a potential guest asks about the WIFI and you offer an exceptionally speedy connection, be sure to highlight that. 

For example, instead of responding “Yes, the Wi-Fi is good,” say something like “Our Wi-Fi connection is lightning fast. It will allow you to browse social media and stream your favorite shows while your kids are playing video games with no connection delays.” But again, be honest and avoid embellishing aspects of your property that fall short.  

4. Learn More About Your Guests

Vetting potential guests before they book isn’t an option if you have Instant Book activated. But if your listings are Request to Book, the final pre-booking communication stage is to learn more about the potential guests staying at your short-term rental. Discover important details about the people who want to stay at your property by asking simple questions like “What brings you to town?”. 

By doing this, you’ll discover if they are a good fit for your rental property. For example, perhaps you offer a family-oriented experience but the potential guest is planning a bachelor party. 

You’ll also be able to provide guests with a personalized experience: If you know their motives for traveling, you can offer them relevant upsells and recommendations. So, if your guest tells you they’re a young family, promote your partnership with local childcare services or kid-friendly tour providers.   

To continue, learning more about your guests helps you avoid bad stays. Does your guest live in town and is just renting your property for the night? Maybe they’re planning to throw a party, which is likely an issue for you. 

Plus, this gives you the opportunity to discover if there could be future booking opportunities with a guest. Is their office headquarters in town and will other colleagues be frequently visiting? Take this chance to collect information about potential future stays. 

How to Communicate With Guests Between Booking and Check-In

Now that you’ve scored a booking, it’s time to cultivate the guest relationship before they even check in. You can do that by setting expectations, collecting contact details, sharing a personalized guidebook, and sending a check-in message. 

Set Expectations on When Your Guests Will Hear From You

As soon as you send a booking confirmation or “thank you for booking” message, you should let your guests know when they’ll hear from you next. A simple message like “I’ll be reaching out a week before your stay with check-in information” will suffice. 

It’s counterproductive to send all of the information your guests will need in one long message on the same day they make their reservation. Tell your guests when you’ll be contacting them, and send information in smaller, more digestible segments. 

Ask for Your Guests’ Contact Details

Be sure to collect your guests’ emails and even phone numbers when they first book to better be in contact during their stay. Not everyone checks Airbnb messages while they’re on vacation, so having the right contact information is key to making sure you can reach guests if needed. 

vacation rental host using guest screening app

This is also an opportunity to collect emails to send marketing messages later on to encourage direct bookings and share promotions. However, be sure that you’re transparent and get consent before using any personal contact information for marketing purposes. 

Send a Guidebook a Few Days Before Check-In

If you want to take the guest experience to the next level, it’s all in the details. One great way to do this is by sharing a curated guidebook a few days before their stay begins. 

Send your guests a PDF with all the helpful information they could need to begin preparing for their trip. This can include packing lists, house rules, things to do in the area, and restaurant recommendations. This not only enhances their stay but also helps position you as an attentive and thoughtful Airbnb host.  

Send a Welcome Message on the Morning of Check-In

Your final pre-check-in communication should be a guest welcome letter on the morning of check-in. There are plenty of Airbnb welcome letter templates online that you can use for inspiration.

Depending on what time check-in is, send this message early enough for them to see it a few hours before heading to your property but late enough for it not to wake them up. 

Your message should include a reminder of the check-in time, detailed check-in instructions, and anything else guests should know when they arrive at your property. This is also an opportunity to offer early check-in if there’s no turnover that day. 

Get More Bookings and Build Trust With the Right Pre-Stay Communication

As you can see, guest communication begins long before a potential guest even sends you a message. 

From your property listing all the way to the message sent on the morning of check-in, pre-stay guest communication sets the tone for the entire guest experience, which is why you need to prioritize it as much as you would in-stay or post-stay communication.

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Airbnb Checkout Messages and Other Post-Stay Communication https://turno.com/creating-the-perfect-checkout-message/ Wed, 20 Jul 2022 06:31:00 +0000 https://turnoverbnb.com/?p=2717 Guest communication doesn’t end when your guest checks out. In fact, post-stay messages play a critical role in the guest communication process. Aside from making sure you get a review, which is obviously a key goal of post-stay communication, keep in touch with guests after they leave to guide them to your direct booking website and encourage them to recommend your properties with referral promotions.

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How to Communicate With Guests After Check-Out

Post-stay communication is your opportunity to build guest loyalty and increase the chances of your guest, their friends, and their family booking with you in the future.

With post-stay communication, timing is everything. Aside from thanking your guest for their stay right after they leave, you’ll want to ask for a review, guide them to your direct booking website, and also strategically time referral promotions.

With the following tips, manage your Airbnb checkout messages like a seasoned professional and watch the direct bookings roll in.

young woman sitting at a kitchen table looking at her smartphone

Ask for Reviews at the Right Time (And Don’t Be Afraid To Follow Up)

Reviews are one of the main reasons to refine your post-stay communication approach.

The words of an individual reviewer can influence a potential guest’s choice of whether to book with you far more than your listing or your website. Knowing how and when to ask for reviews is the best way to harness this incredibly important factor in a potential guest’s decision-making process.

Be quick to publish your review right after a guest checks out. As you know, the guest receives a notification to leave a review as soon as you publish yours. While they would ideally write theirs the moment they receive the message, we all know it doesn’t always happen that way.

That’s why you need to be comfortable following up with guests as many times as necessary to get a review. Many guests do not realize how important reviews are to the success of a vacation rental business, so don’t be afraid to tell them. Explain how much reviews help you get more bookings and improve your properties.

If you list on Airbnb, for example, guests only have 14 days to leave a review, so make them aware of that deadline. People are busy (especially when they just return home after vacation), so don’t take it personally if they keep forgetting, but do emphasize that leaving a review only takes a few minutes and would mean a lot to you and your business.

Perhaps you had a guest that wouldn’t stop complaining and was clearly displeased with their experience at your property. If you sense a guest is going to leave a bad review, publish your review at the last minute. This gives them less time to write their review and decreases the chances of them doing so.

You can use guest messaging software to automatically manage your reviews and send reminders to guests.

Get rid of the heavy lifting on what can sometimes be a tedious task. Many software options can even help you automatically delay reviews when you sense a negative review coming on.

Guide Guests to Your Direct Booking Website

Getting guests to book directly on your website is short-term rental industry gold. While a guest may have found you on a booking portal like Airbnb or Vrbo, let them know they should head to your website if they want to book with you in the future.

The key here is to ask your guest for their email address before their stay (which is one of our recommendations for pre-stay guest communication). That way, you can send them marketing messages and encourage them to book directly on your website the next time they come to town.

You can even offer discounts on future bookings to encourage guests to book again with you. Just be sure you have the proper consent to use a guest’s email address for marketing purposes before doing so.

Time Your Emails Well

With post-stay communication, nailing your timing is the best way to get more direct bookings. We’ve already seen how you can time guest communication to increase the chances of getting a good review, but what is the best timing strategy for getting direct bookings?

Don’t send a guest a booking reminder or discount a month after their stay when they probably don’t need to use it. Instead, reach out to them 60 days before the one-year anniversary of their stay, which is when the booking window for that period opens.

Here are some examples of post-stay emails that can be conveniently timed to increase the chances of a guest booking with you again:

  • If a couple booked with you to celebrate their anniversary, follow up with them about 10 months after their stay and offer a special package, which can include a booking discount and coupons for a local restaurant.
  • Send an email detailing discounts or perks to a guest who booked with you to attend a convention or annual business event a couple of months before it takes place.
  • For a guest that booked with you to attend a music festival or another local event, send them an email when the concert lineup or event details come out, and then again when the booking period opens (about two months before their stay).

People get a lot of emails, so while your direct booking discount email may get lost in a guest’s congested inbox, they’re sure to notice an Airbnb message notification on their phone. You can inform them in the Airbnb message that you sent them an email with a special promotion if they book with you the next time they visit your local area.

Consider automating these Airbnb messages so you can be sure your message gets to them months after their stay without having to set a reminder for yourself to reach out.

Offer Discounts for Referrals

OK, you got a former guest to book with you again, and on your direct booking website no less. That’s amazing! Take it a step further and get their family and friends to book with you as well.

Offering family and friend referral discounts is an excellent way to multiply your bookings (and profits). Send a referral discount in a post-stay promotional email, but don’t wait until months after check-out to do so.

During the first few days after a guest has left your property, their experience is fresh in their mind. So once their review is published, thank them for staying with you and leaving their review, and share your referral discount with them.

How you want to structure your referral discount is up to you, so decide whether you want to offer the Airbnb discount just to referred friends and family or the referring guest as well. What’s important here is that you’ll be upping your direct bookings and creating loyal customers.

family eating together on vacation

Increase 5-Star Reviews, Direct Bookings, and Guest Referrals

With the right approach, post-stay communication can make a huge difference on your reviews, direct bookings, and referrals. Starting before a guest books until months after they check out, guest communication should be a key part of your operational procedures.

And remember, you can use automation tools to make post-stay communication a breeze. What’s important is that you make it a priority to keep reaching out to guests long after their fantastic stay.

The post Airbnb Checkout Messages and Other Post-Stay Communication appeared first on Turno.

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