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How to use communication to elevate your guest review scores

ByKiera Davidson

We all know how influential guest review scores are to the success of your short-term rental business.

Ensuring seamless communication is present throughout the entire guest journey will help translate into elevated guest review scores. This poses a whole host of benefits for short-term rental hosts, including a potential increase in repeat bookings, freedom from OTAs, as well as long-term wealth to reinvest back into your property. 

Yes, they really can have that much of an impact, so how do you communicate in a way that leads to glowing reviews all short-term rental hosts vie for?

Why is guest communication so important?

It’s easy to get sidetracked on other tasks related to running your holiday let. Some of these include: the presentation of your short-term rental listing, the booking process with your guests, or even, which amenities to select from local artisans. However, without guest communication, the guest experience falls apart one seam at a time.

Why is it so important? Let’s get into it!

Good communication forms the basis of a great experience by showing you care

For many guests, the following scenario is likely a familiar one: they’ve booked their Airbnb, excited for their holiday to get underway. Despite the initial automated messaging providing their booking details, they hear crickets from their hosts. It’s something our CEO here at Touch Stay, Andy McNulty, has encountered and it goes to show that it can happen to anyone:

“Most of my experiences of staying somewhere is that the person I’m staying with doesn’t communicate: it’s once on booking, and then almost at the time that I’m about to show up. But there’s nothing in between. It’s that moment of tumbleweed, that deserted town. It’s such a shame – there’s so many opportunities to communicate.” 

From the initial experience of guests booking your short-term rental, to the moment your guests return home – awash with post-holiday bliss – guest communication is easy to enact: especially when you automate the process. It speaks volumes to the care, value, and appreciation you express to your guests for choosing to stay with you.

Guest communication uncovers valuable trip insights

Did you know your communication with visitors at each stage of their journey in staying with you, will uncover valuable trip insights? Especially during the initial post-booking stage, your guest communications can reveal the purpose of their trip, like a wedding anniversary or a birthday.

These tidbits of information allow you to create a personalised guest experience by tailoring your holiday home to these special occasions.

These touches (for instance, leaving a bottle of champagne for the happy couple celebrating their anniversary, or a fresh bouquet of flowers on your kitchen counter for the birthday girl,) aren’t of great expense to your short-term rental property, yet have a lasting impact on your guests.

Collect enough post-booking information from your guests over time, and you can use this data to reveal patterns in your guests’ behaviour. For example, what their likes and dislikes are, and what type of guests do you typically attract to your short-term rental property? This allows you to cater to your guests’ wants and needs even more.

How to communicate to elevate your guest review scores

So, how exactly can communication elevate your guest review scores? These Touch Stay tactics will help kick your property reviews up a notch.

1. Remind and repeat

While guests are busy packing and planning their itinerary, it’s possible the information and resources you send go in one ear, and out the other. If your guests need to be reminded about your property guidelines, you can fill in the gaps by adopting a ‘remind and repeat’ mantra.

Ensure your communications leading up to their stay with you are friendly but to the point. Don’t be afraid to repeat important information and key features of your property. Guests with too much on their minds will appreciate the reminders as it prepares, informs, and reassures them that everything is taken care of ahead of their holiday.

2. Provide personalised recommendations

Local highlights that guests won’t find anywhere else will have your visitors feeling like the VIPs of the town. Again, by using your post-booking communications to your advantage, you can customise your recommendations for visiting guests.

If your data reveals a hen party has booked into your short-term rental, such recommendations can include:

–        A drag queen mimosa brunch

–        Blushing bride spa packages

–        Bottle service for a retro bar

Make your guests’ stay even more special by providing exclusive discounts and affiliate codes to bars and restaurants, boutiques, shops, and spas. Partnering up with local businesses is mutually beneficial – bringing in more customers for your town while earning you a small kickback for your short-term rental property.

3. Get creative with your guest notifications

Communications can be sent at every stage of the guest journey – for example:

●       Promote your upsells when advising them of what things to book ahead of their stay

●       A simple check-in to make sure your guests have arrived safely

●       Directions and entry information to nearby attractions

●       A message of gratitude on the day of your guests’ departure

●       A gentle nudge to leave a review

What do you say to your guests when wanting to communicate or notify them of pertinent information relating to their stay? Don’t be afraid to show off your creative side as part of your interaction with visitors, or when building out your automated flow of guest communications. 

Breathing new life into your guest communications is as simple as implementing gentle reminders to send throughout your guests’ trip and incorporating them as a component of the complete guest experience.

If you’re looking to elevate your guest review scores and host experience, check out Know Your Guest – available with Touch Stay’s digital guidebook and create your own seamless all-in-one resource for creating a winning guest experience.

This is a guest post written and produced by Touch Stay, December 2022

This article was first published at https://superhog.com/blog-post-guest-review-scores-touchstay/

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Table of contents

Know Your Guest by Superhog provides intelligent guest screening with damage protection, but what exactly is guest screening?Guest screening is the process of proactively assessing the risk posed by each guest, through legal, non-discriminatory, and detailed checks.In the past, this was a heavily manual task, which involved a lot of time and a lot of effort in order to perform a comprehensive check. However, with the professionalization of the industry, there are now plenty of providers out there who offer processes that are automatic and can be built into your booking journey.The vacation and short-term rental industry are in hot demand, meaning guest screening is becoming more and more crucial for property managers and platforms alike.Two main questions that might spring to mind when you hear the term guest screening might be:What does guest screening actually involve? And why is guest screening needed?

What does guest screening involve?

A comprehensive screening process will ask guests to submit their personal information, such as their name, their date of birth, their physical home address, and a copy of their official ID (such as a passport or driving license).

This information will then be processed to determine whether the ID is stolen or fake and whether the provided details match those on the ID.

Additionally, guests provide their mobile phone number and email address, which are then checked to see if the registered owner matches the provided name and when the email account was created (this is to check that it wasn’t created just for this booking).

Following this, a biometric/liveness check usually in the form of a selfie or a short video will be performed to make sure that the guest matches the photo on the provided ID. Here’s a full expert’s guide on guest screening for vacantion rentals.

For an extra layer of protection, property managers or OTAs may choose a screening provider that provides credit/debit card verification, to ensure that the guest has enough funds to pay for the stay.

Having this function will help reduce problems such as chargebacks and protect your business further.

Others may choose to go for a provider that also performs background checks, which involve checking against criminal databases and terrorism watchlists.

To summarise, depending on the depth and profoundness of the guest screening process, guests are requested to share the following personal data:

Name and last name

Date of birth

Mobile phone and email address

Physical home address

Copy of official ID (e.g., passport, driver’s license)

Selfie or video for a biometric/liveness check

Credit card information

Why is guest screening needed?

By investing in an effective screening process, property managers, hosts and platforms will save money in the long run, minimizing incidents of damage by deterring bad guests and protecting their properties from illicit parties and criminal activity.Having a screening process is also useful when it comes to holding guests accountable for their actions.For example, if a guest steals from the property or commits a crime, then you will have all the necessary information to pass on to the relevant authorities. Here is a guide on how to get good guests.Offering an effective screening process to your overall package for your users will also help with acquisition, and will show prospective users that your business takes the safety of its hosts and their properties seriously, increasing the trust and confidence in your business.

Doesn’t the platform I’m using screen guests?

Unfortunately, a lot of platforms in the industry are lacking in this department. Here’s a look at the processes for Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo:

Airbnb now requires all guests from certain countries to verify when they create an account.

Booking.com does not require guests to verify in order to make a booking. The responsibility is placed on hosts and property managers, who are able to set “guest requirements”, such as:

Guests must provide a valid email address 

valid credit card information

and evidence of a good track record on the platform (e.g., have no reports against them or be banned from any properties).

Vrbo encourages guests to obtain Verified Identity badges by asking them to submit their personal information, which includes: their first and last name, email address, mobile phone number, physical address, and date of birth.Vrbo then performs checks to see if the information provided is accurate.

As we can see, these popular platforms don’t require guests to verify as part of the booking process, which is why you can’t and shouldn’t rely on them to keep your properties safe.

Superhog: advanced guest screening with damage protection

Fitting seamlessly into your guest journey through our fully API-based system, Superhog provides property managers, hosts, and platforms with an advanced guest screening process and embedded insurance that keeps their properties and their users safe.Every validated booking is protected by our industry-leading $5,000,000 Host Guarantee (covering guest property damage), and we offer a damage deposit/waiver toolkit, to help protect your business further.Interested to learn more? Book a demo with our expert team to find out how Superhog can help you implement our guest screening process into your new or current booking journey.

FAQ

What are the two main purposes for conducting a guest screening?Usually, homeowners, hosts, and property managers conduct guest screening for two reasons. They either want to prevent fraudulent bookings or save their properties from damage. In both cases, hosts and property managers secure themselves from unnecessary expenses.

How long does it take Airbnb to verify ID?It may take up to 24 hours to get your ID verified. However, Airbnb approves accounts within a few hours. To check your verification status, go to the verification tab of your Profile.

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