Guest communication is one of your top priorities as a vacation rental host, as failure to respond quickly to messages can result in lost bookings and negative reviews.
But communicating with guests is time-consuming and overwhelming, especially if you list properties on several channels. You have to log in to each channel to check your messages and constantly check your Whatsapp conversations and emails as well. Top tips to streamline communication processes By implementing efficient communication strategies, such as automated messages, you can significantly reduce the time spent on these tasks and ensure prompt responses across all channels
Now, with our Smart Guest Communication, it’s a breeze. We provide a unified inbox where you can access all your conversations in one place, respond to guests quickly and never forget a message.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to improve your guest experience with Smart Guest Communication.
Want to make guest communication effortless? Manage all communication from a unified inbox, list your properties on multiple channels, build a website and more. Start your 14-day free trial today!
The benefits of communicating with your guests
There are many reasons why excellent guest communication is vital for hosts.
Maintaining good communication with guests will:
- Convert more guests — When potential guests reach out, a quick response might convince them to book. If you leave them waiting, they might go to a competitor instead.
- Improve your listings — Some booking platforms, such as Airbnb, show your message response rate and average response time on your listing and profile. A good score means guests are more likely to book your property.
- Resolve problems faster — If guests contact you about a leak, broken appliance, or other problem, you must respond quickly to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
- Get more 5-star reviews — Communicating with guests before, during and after their stay improves the overall experience and increases your chances of getting excellent reviews.
Provide 5-Star Guest Communication with Powerhost’s unified inbox
Our customers told us they spend 34.1% of their time responding to guest messages. That’s more than they spend on cleaning, updating listing sites or accounting!
Since guest messaging takes up so much time, it’s not surprising that guest communication was one of the top 5 things most-requested features for vacation rental tools.
We built Smart Guest Communication to simplify guest communication and help you manage all your conversations with ease. You’ll spend less time answering messages and never worry about missing a message.
Next, we’ll explain everything you can do to make guest communication effortless.
Access all your chats in one place
Guest communication is time-consuming for hosts because you log in to each channel separately to check all your messages. Then, there’s Whatsapp conversations and emails.
Managing guest communication this way is also unreliable. You’re constantly worried about missing a message and losing a customer.
Smart Guest Communication brings all your guest messages into a single unified inbox. Instead of going back and forth to answer messages, you can do it all in one place.
From the unified inbox you’ll see all your ongoing conversations and messages, and can type and send your response from the platform.
This will save you time that you can spend on other things, and also make it much easier to respond to all your messages quickly.
Send automated messages
You can set up automated messages with Smart Guest Communicatin. Prior to arrival, guests will receive welcome messages containing useful information about your property and neighborhood as well arrival instructions and check-in information.
Customized Quick Replies to save time
You probably spend time answering similar questions repeatedly.
With Quick Replies, you don’t have to type out the same answers again and again. Instead you can automatically generate a response to frequently asked questions.
You can then edit those responses to personalise them for each guest.
This will save you time and also make sure your guests get the information they need quickly.
Send guest reviews
One way to get more good reviews is to review your guests quickly.
You can leave guest reviews for some platforms with Smart Guest Communication, and even set up automated reviews for Airbnb. This means you’ll automatically post a good review of your guests after they check out.
When guests see you’ve left them a good review they’re more likely to leave you one in return.
Pre-approve Airbnb bookings
Airbnb has a pre-approval tool, where you can let your guests know if your property is available for dates they have inquired about. Guests can then make the booking without needing another response from you.
Pre-approval can speed up the booking process and make it easier for guests. You’ll be able to pre-approve Airbnb bookings from within your inbox.
Speak to guests in their language
What happens when guests from abroad want to book your vacation rental, but you don’t speak the same language?
Instead of copying and pasting your messages into translation apps, you can translate messages in real-time.
Smart Guest Communication has a built-in translator so you can communicate with guests in their language and provide a great experience.
Ready to simplify your guest communication and increase your guests’ satisfaction?