Importance of communicating with your guests
Orchestrating a trip can prove to be quite strenuous, especially if you are traveling somewhere you’ve never been before. Organizing your accommodations can sometimes be the most challenging aspect of the entire process. Deciding where to stay might be straightforward, but booking the right place can often become a headache. Communication with your host can be a mixed bag: they might be highly responsive, completely unresponsive, or even disappear after you’ve made the booking.
As a host of a vacation home, short-term rental, or even when having friends stay over, it is your responsibility to ensure that your guests are well taken care of and that any inquiries are addressed promptly. Effective communication is crucial; when questions go unanswered, guests are often left to resolve issues on their own. This can lead to frustration and, depending on the nature of the issue, potentially result in property damage or dissatisfaction. Ensuring that you are readily available to answer questions and provide support is essential for maintaining a positive guest experience and protecting your property.
Being a property manager or a vacation home operator, you may find that guests routinely ask the same questions, making your answers and the whole experience feel monotonous. This monotony mixed with the sheer number of guests, may end up making you overwhelmed and just respond to the most pressing questions. Part of being a good host is being there for your guests and being able to answer even the most rudimentary questions. If you are feeling that you receive too many messages/texts/emails from guests or are having trouble finding messages among them all, you’re not alone.
Enso Connect conducted some exploratory research targeting hosts and guests alike in part to determine what aspects of short term rentals and short term stays are a pain point. What we found is that communication was the prominent pain point among both guests and hosts. Having questions answered on time was especially important for guests, and being able to answer every question was seemingly quite difficult for very busy hosts. When trying to streamline your communication with guests, there are tools out there that can help you.
New software for hosts can help with streamlining communication with unified inboxes, automated messages, message templates, and scheduled messages. If you find that you like to give every guest a personalized touch when communicating, you don’t have to use the automated features but instead take advantage of the unified inbox. Where previously old messages could be lost in the sea of other messages, you can easily see what messages are unanswered and who they’re from. If you are looking to fully simplify your communication, automated messages and the other features mentioned above, can easily cut down time spent messaging guests the same message you’ve sent before.
As guest communication is such a crucial aspect of the short let environment, being able to stay ahead and be able to reach out to everyone is something that guests will appreciate. Determining whether or not you need communication software may seem like an arduous process, but if you’re having trouble, reach out to us at contact@ensoconnect.com for more information.
