From day to day, I can guarantee that you’ve communicated with at least one person, whether it’s your mother asking about how to log in to Netflix or your spouse wondering what you are doing for dinner. Communication is key for decision-making and accurately conveying a message in a timely manner. The same principle applies when communicating with potential guests for your rental.
The key difference here is that communication needs to be both quick and precise. Imagine a guest arriving at your rental on a cold winter day, struggling with entry instructions— they’re likely eager for a swift and clear response. In such scenarios, delays or vague instructions can lead to frustration and a negative first impression.
Efficient communication not only helps in providing a seamless guest experience but also plays a critical role in securing bookings. By ensuring that your responses are prompt and informative, you demonstrate professionalism and enhance the likelihood of positive reviews and repeat stays. Leveraging automated messaging systems or real-time chat solutions can significantly improve your ability to manage guest inquiries effectively, ensuring that every interaction is handled with the speed and accuracy that today’s travelers expect.
Communicating with your guests
These replies and guest communication as a whole can be incredibly time consuming and can even cause a fair bit of stress, so it’s imperative that you improve this area of your rental process. Whether you message guests on Airbnb, Email, Text, WhatsApp, the sentiment is the same: how can this be simplified? Well for starters, we have to figure out what area of guest communication takes the most of your time. This one is pretty obvious — actually messaging the guest. But wait, how can you save time in this area? Simple. It all comes down to thinking about a Property Management Software (PMS), and most PMS include some sort of guest communication simplification.
The first step is to identify which aspects of guest communication consume the most of your time. It’s quite clear that the actual act of messaging the guest is a major time sink. But how can you streamline this process and save time?
The solution lies in leveraging a Property Management Software (PMS). Most modern PMS solutions come equipped with features designed to simplify guest communication. These systems can automate routine messages, such as booking confirmations, check-in instructions, and responses to frequently asked questions. By integrating these features, you can ensure that communication is both timely and consistent, without requiring constant manual input.
Leveraging such features as scheduled messages or message templates can help you save time when talking to the people staying in your property! These are just the tip of the iceberg. A select few PMS actually include intelligent auto replies or even an AI chatbot so that even if you didn’t schedule a message, your guest will still get the answer they’re looking for (like what the WiFi password is).
So a PMS can take care of scheduling and even responding to messages, but what happens if you message a guest on Airbnb and Email? Well, a good PMS has a unified inbox, so any communication you have with your guests appears all in one place. Gone are the days of searching for the missing Email or Text Message, when everything is in one place you can be sure of what you’ve sent, and that you haven’t skipped a beat.
As you can see a PMS can actually prove to be very useful once you get the hang of it. If you are curious about what other things a PMS can offer you, or how guest communication can be simplified with the use of one, feel free to email us at contact@ensoconnect.com. Here at Enso Connect we want to make sure that every host and guest finishes every rental with that ‘great stay’ feeling.
