Follow up message asking for review after a stay

[Ashley Wolfe]

Well, we did it!  We had our first guests come and go in our little cabin on the lake!  I worked my fingers to the bone getting it ready for them, restrained myself and only checked in with them once during their stay, and now its been 48 hours after checkout.  I want to send them a quick email thanking them for their stay and asking them to leave a review since we have none on any platform for our cabin.

Do you have a form that you use for this type of message?  Would you kindly share?  Thanks!

[Julie McCoy]

Congratulations!  I'm glad it sounds like everything went smoothly :)  Checking on them once during their stay was definitely the right thing to do - you want them to feel like you're still available to them, and yet by doing it only once you give them space to enjoy their stay without feeling obligated to contact you.

I send this message to all my guests 48 hours after check-out:

Hi --first_name--,

I'm so glad you chose my cabin for your Smoky Mountain getaway! I hope you enjoyed your stay and had a safe journey. I've done my best to make your stay excellent, and if you can think of any ways I can improve, please reply to let me know.

If you've already submitted a review, thank you! If you haven't left one yet, I'd really appreciate it if you would - a five-star review is really important! If you feel like that reflects your experience, I hope you'll take a few minutes to tell others.

Thank you again!

Julie

A couple of exceptions to this: if I have any reason to doubt that I'll receive a good review, I won't send it.  And if I know they've already left a review, I also won't send it.  This is obviously a form message; you can be a bit more personal with your contact since they were your very first guests!  I'd encourage you to say something along the lines of "You were my very first guests at my [cabin/cottage/whatever]!  I've worked very hard to give you a 5-star experience, and it would be a huge help if you could write a positive review.  And if there's anything I can do to improve, please message me and let me know so I can provide the best experience possible to future guests."

I make sure to use the term 5-star somewhere because unfortunately some well-meaning people think 4 stars is still a good review, so I try to head that off at the pass (it works pretty well!).  And I also try to encourage constructive criticism *in the form of a message, not a public review* - again, I don't want to be heavy-handed about it but the language provides a hint (this works pretty well, too!).  

When I *do* get criticism, I typically respond by thanking the guest and assuring them I'll consider/implement a solution (or something vaguer if it's something I have no intention of doing, such as adding on to my cabin so there would be a bigger closet, as one guests suggested, LOL!)

Anyway, congratulations, here's to many more happy guests!