5 Simple Ways to Improve Guest Experience Beyond Design

[Annie Seurer]

Guest experience is one of my favorite STR topics! I co-managed guest experience and feedback at a large fund a learned a lot directly from guests. Before I left, we had an average rating of 4.93 across many markets and channels. I feel it often gets overlooked, but without an outstanding guest experience, your listings may suffer.

Here are a few simple ways to improve guest experience beyond design and an amazing product (which I highly suggest you have!):

🔹 Map Your Touchpoints: Reach out at optimal times, provide pertinent info early, and maintain the right number of touchpoints. Test and refine your communication plan—it pays off!

🔹 Call Your Guests: Yes, call them soon after booking. Introduce yourself & your company, answer questions, and set expectations. People don't like surprises. If you offer extras, plant the seed here!

🔹 Provide an Itinerary: Send a customizable itinerary or a one-pager with top restaurants, sights, and activities. Have extras/ancillary revenue, include them here!

🔹 Respond Quickly: Quick responses on all channels are crucial. Don't miss out by neglecting proper SLAs.

🔹 Get Feedback: Offer a small incentive for 15 minutes of their time post-stay. Guest feedback is gold for your business.

This is a small, non-inclusive list - there is much more you can do to provide a robust, value-driven guest experience. How do you stand out in your communication plan?

[Annie Seurer]

Quote from @Patricia Andriolo-Bull:

In my prior life, I was responsible for customer success for large healthcare systems.  As with any customer relationship, across all verticals, the number one thing is to set appropriate expectations followed by communication.  Your listing should reflect what you actually offer both in photos and descriptions and you should communicate authentically and as frequently as is right for the guest.  Things go wrong all the time, but if a host takes responsibility, sets the right expectations and communicates, 9 times out of 10, you will still have a happy guest. 

Couldn't agree more! We had over 150 feedback calls with Guests and 99%(!!!) of them had some kind of issue (some completely minor where they almost didn't want to mention it to what I would consider catastrophic) yet 100% of them would recommend us to friends and family just based on our communication and customer service.