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426. Hosting Hotline

Welcome to the Hosting Hotline

Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Hello, welcome back. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant and together we are Thanks for Visiting and this is the Hosting Hotline.

Sarah Karakaian: If you want to get your hosting question answered, your business question answered here on the Hosting Hotline, all you have to do is go to hostinghotline.com, ask your question just like Shannon did today and you are going to help so many hosts all over the world really with what is challenging you today and that’s why it’s one of the best.

Most favorite things in it and I do is answering your questions here in the hosting hotline. So again, hostinghotline.Com asks your question.

Listener Question: Direct Booking Sites

Sarah Karakaian: Today, we have Shannon.

Hosting Hotline Caller: Hi, ladies. Thank you so much. I just got done listening to the, is building a direct booking site worth it? And that was super helpful.

Cause I’m getting ready to do that right now. I have hospitable and price labs. I have three STRs and actually four long term rentals. But my question for you, and I was not aware of the 15 percent, [00:02:00] charge versus the split fee. So that was really, interesting to me. I have two questions.

One is around increasing your rates 15 percent. I, I’m guessing I can go into Price Labs and, Set that across the board for my Airbnb listing. I guess I’ll go to their support team and look into that. the other question I have is about I’m new. I’ve only had these properties listed for about two months now, and I’ve had some, great experiences from my guests and they’ve left the homes pristine.

it’s been a great experience, on both sides, but the guests are not leaving me reviews. I’m not sure why, and I’m following up and all of that. just wanted to know if you have any tips on how to get people to, um, you know, leave a review and feedback it without completely bugging them or spamming them.

Sarah Karakaian: Thanks a lot. T

Understanding Airbnb’s 15% Service Fee

Sarah Karakaian: here are two questions in Shannon’s question, the 15%. So we can cover that very [00:03:00] quickly. And then we’ll go into the review ideas and actually, Annette, I didn’t, Annette and I always hash this out before we press record and I didn’t share this with her, but I was talking to another property manager in my area who I’m helping, I’m consulting with, I’m helping their business.

She asked me, Annette, she was asking for, she was showing me some sort of Airbnb invoice. Essentially, you know, an Airbnb sends you that you got a booking and it tells you, it breaks down how the pricing is. And I was showing her one of mine and she goes, wait, why didn’t the, why didn’t the guest pay any Airbnb host fee?

And I was like, Oh, because I’m connected, I’m connected to a PMS. I am forced to pay the entire Airbnb service fee, the 15 percent at least in our market. She is also connected to a property management software. So she’s like, Oh, mine must, that must not apply to my property management software. And I actually went and found an article that her software put out.

I was like, no, no, no, it’s not software specific. Airbnb often doesn’t roll out new things like this to every single [00:04:00] host. And they actually started this simplified pricing is what they call it in 2020. I was not affected by this, Shannon, until October of 2024, without warning, all of a sudden, I was responsible for that entire 15%.

And here is another PMS connected post in my market, different PMS, but it doesn’t matter like and she’s not yet having to pay this full fee. So it may not happen you Shannon right off the bat, and it might, it just depends, but you can do it via price labs. You can also probably do it via your PMS. She said she’s using hospitable, right?

And yes, I think so. So at least in hostfully, we have a multiplier that we can apply to different channels either across the board or to a specific channel. So that’s where I do it. But you have options there, Shannon. I would be surprised if hospitable didn’t have that feature, but you can also do it within your pricing and price labs.

Congratulations on choosing to use Pricelabs, especially early on in your career. You are going to leave so much less [00:05:00] money on the table by diving in to dynamic pricing.

Annette Grant: That 15 percent will feel like a pale in comparison if you actually start using dynamic pricing properly.

Tips for Getting Guest Reviews

Annette Grant: Let’s get into her review question.

Sarah Karakaian: Something that, I’m trying to be more like you Annette and listen to people’s words they use. And she said something along the lines of. I follow up and all that, which makes me believe, Shannon, that you’re not initiating the request for the review.

Annette Grant: So we actually want to start at the beginning because letting, there are, Sarah and I will call them breadcrumbs.

We want to leave breadcrumbs from the very first interaction that the guest has with you about, Your home, your five star stays and how important those reviews are. So we want to make sure that this is a consistent, consistent flow. And some of it is, is very clear. And then some of it is kind of, in the periphery.

of asking and letting them know how important those five star reviews are. So I want to make it [00:06:00] clear that this is something that you want to be working on and letting them know how important it is from your very first interaction with the guest .

Sarah Karakaian: Down to your listing. Shannon, you could put it in that above the fold section.

You could say something like book with us for a five star stay. There’s a breadcrumb in your photos when there is an amenity that really stands out. You can say our, whatever it is, our Next Level Espresso Machine ensures that you have a five star morning.

Annette Grant: If you have, which I hope you do, five star reviews, even in your photos, you could add a screenshot of those previous five star stays.

But even more so, it’s like, when they are in your home, there are some things that you can do. We love, there are a lot of hosts that have, they use a magnet, they put it on their refrigerator and kind of just let people know how to even review the home because some people don’t even understand the rating system, how important it is.

Um, there’s some things that you can do. Sarah loves this one of your, your wifi [00:07:00] password could be five star stay. So there are these, and even when you’re messaging the guests, that morning after message of like, Hey, our ultimate goal is that five star stay. Please let us know if you need anything, but letting them know, like they, they should have had been hearing five star stay repeatedly before you even ask for it. And here is the big hot tip that we like to like to leave everybody.

Sarah Karakaian: So, and this is not our, this is a big tip In the review world, Shannon, but we don’t actually do this as much as we do the breadcrumbs, the password, maybe on your welcome book, if you have a printed one, or if it’s on a magnet on your fridge, like your, insight into how to use things in your home, you can tell them there how important a five star review is to you and your small business.

But when you are given the opportunity to review them, you review them. And then you tell them, Hey, Susie, I just left you a five star review. Thank you so much for [00:08:00] taking care of our home. When you have a moment, if you could leave us a review. It would mean so much for us. And Shannon, you can say, right, you can tell them, be honest with them, be vulnerable.

I’m a newer host and it’s really important to me that I know how your stay was and that future guests know how your stay was with me. If you have anything constructive to share with me, please tell me here in private and you better believe I will be on top of improving that. And if you can leave all the.

Great things that you experience my property in a public review. You have no idea how much that would mean to us in our small business. And I find when I use the right words, your feedback means the world to us in our small family owned business. It kind of tugs on their heartstring a little bit. So if I’m incorrect, Shannon, and you are leaving breadcrumbs and you are straight up asking for the review, maybe it’s how you’re asking that isn’t resonating with your guest.

You need to change, they call it copy or the way you’re speaking to them. The words you use, they just, and you’d be surprised [00:09:00] Shannon, that changing a word or a sentence structure or where you put that sentence in the paragraph, just changing that composition Can resonate with your guests differently so try different iterations of that ask But that’s a big one telling them that you left them a five star review And you’d really appreciate if you they would leave you a review be careful Technically and that reminded me of this We’re not allowed to in exchange for something If I give you an early check and would you leave me a five star you’re technically not allowed to do that Okay, but you can say I left you a review.

Would you mind leaving me a review? But yeah, you got this, Shannon. the more seasoned guests that you host, they know more of the, flow of how imperative guest reviews are because they know The more reviews that they stack in their favor, it looks good when they go to book their next property.

Take a look at how seasoned, quote unquote, your guest is and that’ll [00:10:00] also lead into how much you need to breadcrumb them on leaving a review. If it’s someone newer, they might not understand the importance of it, that both of us need to be leaving reviews. So that’s just a hot tip there to like pay attention to how many stays they’ve had ahead of you and how you might need to let them know how important those reviews are.

Final Thoughts and Farewell

Sarah Karakaian: I want to take just a moment before we sign off on that magnet that Nanette talked about, Shannon. It’s this little, I would say like 4 inch by 4 inch, 5 inch by 5 inch square, and it has, and you can probably find these on Etsy. They’ve got like the 1 star and the 2 star, 3 star, 4 star, 5 star, and next to each level of stars tells your guest what those stars mean.

And it kind of shares with them like, hey, 4 is pretty, things have to be decently bad in our world. Leave me a four star review and it the way it says it is obviously much more concise than that But that might be interesting too for you Shannon to have something like that that explains to the guest What these stars mean and kind of educates them because there are some people out there who just don’t leave five I know you’re not getting reviews right now But if [00:11:00] and when you get a four star There are just people who don’t leave five star reviews and this might help you teeter them to leave you five stars if they understand that it’s like, you know, five star is kind of the You Not baseline, I guess.

Honestly, people have the right to leave what kind of reviews they want to. You really got to go above and beyond to earn those five stars.

Shannon, great questions. Again, everyone. We love this episode. If you want to get your questions answered, head on over to hosting hotline. com. We’ll get them answered here in the podcast. And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are. Thanks for visiting.

Sarah Karakaian: Talk to you next time. [00:12:00]