It’s the peak of the summer season, and your vacation rental properties are booked up. Your team’s working hard at answering the influx of messages about check-in procedures or the best places to eat in town. Meanwhile, other guests are complaining that the AC isn’t working or that they need a late check-out.
And to make matters worse, you’re managing messages from all the channels your properties are listed on, via email and chat. And with so many platforms to monitor, some messages are getting lost in the confusion. If only there were an easier way to manage all your messages, from all your channels in one place…
If you’re looking for a better way to manage your guest communication, our Unified Inbox is for you! With it, you can bring together all your messages and reservation details from 90+ channels, as well as reviews from Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo, saving you time, whilst ensuring guests are happy with their stay, leading to fully booked properties and higher earnings.
Guest communication: why does it matter and how can it increase your earnings?
Satisfied guests lead to better reviews, more bookings at your vacation rental property, and a significant revenue increase. You may have the best amenities on the market, but if your communication is spotty your guests will be left feeling neglected or with unresolved problems, increasing your chances of receiving a negative review and ruling out any return visits.
Gold standard guest communications are a must-have. Here’s why:
- Build trust and credibility pre-arrival
Fast communications and quick responses reassure guests that your vacation rental will meet their needs. Transparency about property details, check-ins and check-out procedures, and other rules manage expectations and reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings or conflicts. Ultimately, this is more likely to lead to a positive experience… and a positive review.
- Ensure a great guest experience during the stay
Faster replies to guest messages with no missed messages means you can provide a personalized experience to your guests, resolving any doubts and making sure they know you’re on hand to help throughout their visit. And promptly addressing any issues or concerns can turn a potentially negative review into a positive one or at least minimize the impact of a negative review by showing guests you care about their experience and are on hand to help. Heating is broken and there’s a cold snap? Even if you’re unable to get it fixed right away, being transparent with guests about the hold up and finding alternate options can help minimize the damage.
- Higher booking rates and revenue in the long term
A strong reputation for excellent communication and guest experience stands out in a competitive and often saturated market. It helps build good reviews for your properties, as well as recommendations and repeat bookings, all leading to higher rankings on channels, more bookings, and higher earnings.
Why is review management essential to growing your bookings?
Review management involves overseeing and responding to reviews left by your guests, whether positive or negative. Efficient review management may enhance your property’s reputation and drive more bookings.
Based on data from Airbnb, 90% of bookings are influenced by positive reviews and the overall review score, showcasing the critical role reviews play in guest decision-making and booking conversions. Managing your reviews efficiently can save significant resources for you and your team by providing speedier responses, better performance data, and clearly flagging potentially damaging guest feedback.
Here’s why review management is essential:
- It shows guests that you care about them when you provide timely and prompt responses to both positive and negative reviews. Respond within 24 hours to show guests that they are a priority for you and that you value their feedback.
- Analyzing reviews to identify common themes or recurring issues that guests mention helps you understand and identify trends. Use these insights to make operational improvements, enhance guest services, and update property features.
- Accurate management of your performance metrics, such as average rating, number of reviews, or response time helps build an accurate picture of your performance.
How does the Rentals United’s Unified Inbox streamline guest communication and review management?
We’ve seen why guest communications and review management are both essential in your vacation rental business. And Rentals United’s Unified Inbox helps you to do it properly, saving you time and resources and increasing your revenue.
The Unified Inbox brings together all your messages and reservation details from 90+ channels, as well as reviews from Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo.
Instead of logging into multiple platforms, you can simply log into one. Once in, you can reply to guest messages from all channels in the Unified Inbox without jumping back and forth between different platforms. It’s the easiest way to keep up with guest communications, make guests happy, boost bookings, and increase review scores.
The Unified Inbox is free of charge for all plans with Rentals United.
How to use the Rentals United Unified Inbox
- Receive notifications of your newest conversations with your guests and respond to them in a timely manner to show your guests that you value them and build trust.
- Decrease your response time to improve guest satisfaction and ensure repeat bookings.
- Keep all chats in one place, saving money, time, and effort spent by your team in managing multiple channels and guest communications at once.
- Earn more reviews and improve your review score. After your guest’s stay, you can write or reply to a review directly via the Unified Inbox; you can even set up automatic reviews for Airbnb, which which are shared automatically eight days after the guests departure, or sent to you to approve and share in just one-click. Check out how it works.
The Unified Inbox’s main features include:
- Your Reservation Chat, where you can talk with your guests and access booking details while writing messages.
- Attachment capabilities to send or receive photos or documents.
- Advanced filters to quickly find and respond to conversations.
- Airbnb pre-approvals, where you can be proactive and send a pre-approval to potential guests to confirm availability and warmly invite them to book their next stay in your property.
Not a Rentals United customer yet, but interested in our Unified Inbox? Let’s Talk!
Already a Rentals United customer? Here’s how it works:
Inbox
Here you can see all of your conversations, as well as send or receive messages from guests. Each conversation includes information directly from the booking, including:
- Guest name
- Booking dates
- Property name
- Subject (optional)
- Sales channel
- Booking type
Booking details
You can find reservation details as soon as you open the chat. They include information such as booking type, reservation IDs, guest details, check-in and check-out dates, or pricing.
Chat
The chat is where you and your guest can start a conversation. Usually, the guest writes to you first.
Advanced Filters
Quickly find the conversation you need by specifying a set of advanced filters, such as guest details, property location and name, or timeframe.
Attachments
You can also add and receive attachments, such as JPEG, JPG, GIF, and PNG.