Vacation rentals are a highly competitive business domain and making your Airbnb property stand apart is easier said than done.
Even before great products and services, it requires excellent messaging to impress the prospective guests. The way you communicate with the customers gives them a fair idea about the quality of services they can expect even before they book.
Effective communication, therefore, becomes the mainstay of Airbnb marketing. It can get you more bookings and revenues and eventually boost your reputation as well.
Guest communication deserves as much attention as you can give but you cannot expect to win with a mediocre approach. You need to go the extra mile for creating impactful messages. Here are some actionable ways you can utilize strong messaging to enhance guest experiences.
1. Respond promptly to guest inquires
Since consumers have multiple options, they can easily skip you and move to another provider that serves them better.
The only way to entice them is by showering them with attention so that they come and stay. Responding promptly to their inquiries should be your top priority for an effective Airbnb messaging strategy.
Swift responses often translate into a greater number of bookings and positive reviews for your business. Being there to answer queries is as important as giving satisfactory answers. Unless you excel on both the fronts, they have good reasons to move on to your competitors.
2. Personalize your responses
While you must always be ready and available with relevant replies, personalizing the responses is equally important. It makes guests feel important and also adds a human touch to the interactions.
As consumers look for human connections, personalized responses elevate their experiences, and foster strong connections with them. This approach not only makes the guests happy today but also ensures retention in the long run.
Focus on creating empathic messages that address people by names. Also, include individual booking details when responding to current guests.
3. Leverage messaging automation
Prompt and personalized replies can make your business stand apart but managing them is easier said than done.
As your business grows and the number of queries increases, you may be pressed for time. But you wouldn’t want to compromise communication despite the volume and complexity. Fortunately, you can rely on an airbnb messaging service to automate the entire process and cut down your workload.
Automation can help you save loads of time you would otherwise have to spend on manual communication. The best part is that automated templates can sound just as personalized as manually written replies. All you need to do is choose the right automation solution that has smart elements for personalizing your replies.
4. Keep guests informed through entire stages of booking
Lack of proper communication is a killer for Airbnb businesses as it often leaves the customers confused about what to do next. It is important to stay in touch throughout their booking experience.
Offer them important information so that they feel confident even before stepping in. Automation puts you in a good place as it lets you create a schedule for your messages.
You can simply use it for sending across the necessary instructions and recommendations through every stage of the booking process, right from the first inquiry, to reservation, before and after check-in, and more.
5. Be transparent with the house rules
Another aspect of ramping up your messaging strategy for enhanced guest experience is being transparent with the house rules. Essentially, you need to convey them to the prospective guests before they book and come to the property.
Ensure that there is no ambiguity or uncertainty because it can lead to false expectations. Even as you send across the house rules, avoid lengthy not-to-do lists because they sound unwelcome.
Seeing a long list of no-no’s wouldn’t make a great impression on potential guests and they would rather swipe and start looking elsewhere.
6. Know the Airbnb rules and updates
Apart from sharing your house rules with the prospects clearly, you must also know the Airbnb rules well enough.
Being one step ahead of the updates is equally important because these rules keep changing from time to time. This will help you provide quality support to guests and to answer their queries as well.
Keep a track of the terms and conditions of the platform and review them periodically. Following the latest Airbnb news on their company accounts is a good idea while you can also get the latest updates on social media and community forums.
7. Always be there to help the guests
Great communication and messaging should go beyond the check-in. You should be willing to support them throughout the on-property experience as well.
If they report issues, be quick to respond and address them. Be available across all the communication channels though you should prioritize the Airbnb app. It gets you protected under the terms and conditions of Airbnb.
So ask the guests to download the app before they arrive. At the same time, respond to them across other communication channels too.
8. Go the extra mile with post-departure communication
Great guest experience is not just about what you give them through their booking and stay at the property. It is also about effective follow-up, so you shouldn’t miss out on post-departure communication.
When the guests leave, thank them for choosing your place to stay. This is a part of good Airbnb etiquette and you should follow it religiously.
This ensures closure at a positive note, even if the guest had an unpleasant moment during the stay. Request them to post a review because positive ones strengthen your listing and reputation.
Airbnb guest experiences are more than the offerings they get while they are at the vacation rental. Rather, they start long before arrival at the property and extend beyond when they leave.
A robust and personalized messaging strategy is the lifeline of guest experiences as it stays with them from the start to end. If you want to strengthen the reputation and bottom line of your business, creating a strong messaging strategy should be your top priority.
The Ideas Plus Business Editorial team is responsible for this post. For collaborations and partnership requests, kindly send an email to the Editorial Team at ideasplusbusiness[at]gmail[dot]com for the terms and conditions. You can also follow IdeasPlusBusiness.com on Twitter here and like our page on Facebook here.
