One of the most important aspects of short-term property management is communicating with potential and existing guests. It’s also one of the most time consuming.
To help property managers stay on top of this critical task, which can directly impact their booking rates and reviews, without getting buried under emails and texts, Guesty developed a sophisticated auto-messaging tool as part of our vacation rental software. This feature sends out pre-written messages at specific intervals throughout the booking process.
So what messages should you be setting up in order to automate your Airbnb operations, save yourself time and keep your guests happy and informed? Here’s a list of the top X most effective, time-saving automated messages you can implement into your operations:
1) Check-in instructions
You want your guests to know what to do when they arrive at your property…and you also want to let them know you haven’t forgotten about their upcoming arrival. Instead of taking the time to write out your check-in instructions for each guest, craft a detailed and helpful automated message to be sent out to all your guests a specified number of days in advance of their reservation.
2) A friendly follow-up
Guests feel better when they know their hosts are invested in their experience. A few hours post check-in, it might be nice for them to receive a brief message from you, asking if their stay is going smoothly and if they have everything they need. With auto-messaging in place, you won’t even have to remember to send this out and can rest assured all your guests will feel valued without any effort on your part.
3) Check-out instructions
As their stay comes to an end, provide your guests with all the information they need to properly check-out of your rental. Throw in some warm farewell wishes and make sure to express how much you hoped they enjoyed their experience at your property.
4) Review reminder
Just as essential as giving your guests a 5-star stay is encouraging them to leave 5-star reviews on your OTA profile or direct booking website. Reviews are one of the primary resources travelers use to make decisions about their accommodations so the more positive feedback that is published about your rental, the more bookings you are likely to earn. Setting up a friendly reminder to review your property to be sent out a few days following check-out is an effective and effortless way to collect more reviews from guests.
You Make The Rules
Worried automated messages will sound impersonal? Guesty’s Airbnb and vacation rental automation for hosts allows you to command the software to include reservation-specific details, like the guest and listing name, in each message. It also enables you to set up a variety of conditions around the sending of messages. For example, you can arrange for specific messages to only be sent out to guests staying a minimum number of days.
With Guesty’s auto-messaging feature, you make the rules. And, more importantly, you get to save yourself time without sacrificing the quality of your guests’ experience.
Zahava has been writing for Guesty since March of 2017. She's enjoying learning all there is to know about short-term property management and relaying solutions to Guesty's readers, helping to make the demanding jobs of property managers just a little bit simpler.
