Hosting somebody is not easy. Every host is allowed a few mistakes. But make sure to fix them if you don’t want your business to suffer. When you’re an Airbnb host, you have several responsibilities at every level.
Along with that, the foremost priority has to be customer satisfaction. So mistakes are acceptable but they become an obstacle to your path to becoming a super host. To keep you off the list of super hosts, even a single mistake is enough. If that’s the truth, why not know about all these mistakes beforehand?
According to Statistics, there are 14000 new hosts joining Airbnb every month in 2021. If you’re planning to host too, here are 3 big mistakes that you must avoid to ensure you remain the customer’s first choice.
Improper listing
The first step towards any Airbnb business is professional listing. The basic step is to list your property and wait. But you’ll only get bookings if this listing is done professionally.
People are trying to look for another home for vacation. If you cannot spare time to look professional, they wouldn’t want to dig deeper into your property. The reason is it is fairly understood that if you aren’t professional to list your property, you wouldn’t be professional enough to provide the services.
Make your listing attractive to persuade customers. If your property description is unattractive or incomplete, within no time the guests will switch to some other property.
It is important to optimize your Airbnb listing. Ensure your property description is creative and includes complete information on the amenities, rules, and regulations, and the price card. Customers prefer transparency. Hence, they’ll always look for properties where everything is clearly written to avoid confusion. Include the photographs and calendar in your listing too.
Hire a professional photographer to help get attractive pictures for your listing. This will help you fight competition.
Hospitality checks
The golden rule is that ‘Customer is the king.’ And as a host, you have to make all the quality checks to provide the best services to your guests. They would have booked a hotel if they wanted something non-personal. They are here to experience a warm and personalized stay. So, meeting their expectations has to be your sole purpose.
Do not try to avoid them or stay distant. Interact and communicate. Ask them if they need anything more. This is one key thing to obtain positive reviews.
Ensure you have made all hospitality checks before their arrival. The customers are very particular about hygiene. Nobody likes to live in a room with dirty amenities and surroundings. Check every amenity provided in the room whenever a guest leaves and before a new guest enters. They shouldn’t be in non-working conditions.
Shampoo, soap, and other toiletries should also be provided. They shouldn’t be half used. There should be no hair in the sink or in the room. If left unchecked, this may give you several negative reviews.
A major point to take care of is bugs and rodents. It is really unhygienic and if found, your customer wouldn’t return to you ever.
Keeping every work for yourself
If you think you can manage all the work alone, then this can be the biggest mistake you’re making. You may think of it as a cost-cutting process but in reality, this will only degrade your quality of services.
Saving money and investing more are two different concepts here. You can earn more by handling every service yourself. But will you be able to deliver the required quality? Will you be able to send a ‘Welcome home’ message at midnight if some guest checks in? Will you be always on your toes to look after your guest? It is not possible, right?
Instead of saving costs here, think of it as investing money. You can take the help of an Airbnb cleaning service and keep the rooms clean at all times.
Make use of automated features to handle bookings, avoid double bookings on multiple platforms, managing your listings, sending messages to customers, and updating the calendars for you. All of this cannot be handled alone. This will save you time and effort and also provide you premium results to drive in more customers.
Mistakes are common but to avoid them is our duty. Keep these three things in mind and be ready to make your guest’s experience worthy.
