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[00:00:00] Wendy: Hi, guys. It’s Wendy. Thank you for joining us on the show, and because I have a lot of anxiety about announcing or inviting the people into our podcast, I’m going to let them introduce themselves so I don’t mess up their names. We have two fabulous co-hosts with us today. Colleen, introduce yourself.

[00:00:17] Colleen: I’m Colleen Prochaska. I host for Stay Awhile Hosting Co.

[00:00:21] Amy: And I’m Amy Corbett, and I am the founder of a co-hosting business called All Belong Co.

[00:00:26] Wendy: Thanks for joining us.

[00:00:28] Amy: Thank you.

[00:00:29] Wendy: Okay. So Colleen, can you give us a little bit of your background because you started in hotels, and I think that’s a really good– it’s just a different perspective. She works with Sarah Karakaian, who you guys know also started in hotels. Tell us your background.

[00:00:45] Colleen: So I started working for Marriott Hotels in 2010 as a front desk agent. And then I became the GM of the hotel in 2014, and I remained in that role for 10 years. And then just very recently got into the short-term rental space with Sarah probably about two years ago, co-hosting with her business and handling her revenue management. And then I left hotels full-time and work for Thanks for Visiting.

[00:01:12] Wendy: So you’ve dealt with a shit ton of guests.

[00:01:16] Colleen: Yes, a ton. I’ve had tons and tons and tons of guests, multiple hotels in different markets, airports, suburbia, everywhere in between, um, different styles of guests, sports teams, business travelers, wedding parties.

[00:01:32] Wendy: And lots of problems.

[00:01:33] Colleen: Tons of problems.

[00:01:34] Wendy: Excellent.

[00:01:34] Colleen: Yes. Flooded hotel rooms, smoke detectors, fires at every hotel I’ve worked at that is not related to me. But yeah, everything under the sun.

[00:01:43] Wendy: You are well qualified. This is going to be perfect for this episode because I’ll tell you what the topic is here soon. But Amy, also a co-host. She runs her own business and has dealt with a lot of guests. Tell me how many properties are in your collective right now.

[00:01:57] Amy: We’ve got somewhere around 30.

[00:01:59] Wendy: Right. And you’ve been doing it for how long?

[00:02:02] Amy: About five years.

[00:02:03] Wendy: Okay. So the reason I want to have these two onto this episode, because we’re going to talk about how to make getting five stars easier. When you start, you don’t really know what the guests are going to ask. You don’t know what problems are going to arise, and you can just make it easier on yourself to get those five stars or even just have a more pleasant experience with hosting.

[00:02:26] And so I wanted to talk about some of those. And I know that’s very vague, so I’m going to give you an example, and then I want you guys to give some examples of when things went wrong and how you handled it, or more importantly, the things you put in place so that these things don’t happen again.

[00:02:42] So like, yeah, fires aren’t really going to happen all the time, and of course, we’re going to be safe, but there’s some of those day-to-day things that can just really put a damper on your stay, just from having a bad experience. So one of the things that constantly comes up for us– I’m in Scottsdale. We have pools with pool heaters.

[00:03:03] People show up looking to go swimming right away, and it’s not warm enough for them, even though we’ve heated it to 85 degrees, that’s the resort temperature, recommended temperature, they come in and they’re like, can you make it hotter? It’s not warm enough. And we just can’t because it’s expensive. It costs about a $1,000 a month to run a gas pool heater, the months of December and January.

[00:03:29] So it’s one thing that we’ve done, which has cut down on a lot of the complaints because we can’t do anything about it, but we can set the expectations. So we have a pool tray. We call it a pool tray, but it’s a tray on the counter because it’s the first thing they want to do when they show up.

[00:03:44] There’s a sign on the pool tray that says all the pool rules, and then the expectations. So like, hey, the pool is set to 85. It will fluctuate, the temperature will fluctuate. What else does it say? Oh, it’s not a hot tub. It’s not a 100°. So just keep that in mind. And then all the things to keep any accidents from happening or things going wrong. So we also then put the pool towels on there. We put some tumblers on there because we don’t want glass around the pool.

[00:04:14] And then we are actually adding a water watcher lanyard for parents to wear when they are in charge of watching the kids at the pool. So this has cut down on so many complaints because, as you guys know, when someone is booking, you’re talking to one person in a group of however many, 4, 6, 8, 10. So only one person is getting this information.

[00:04:38] The other people in the party need to get it too. So that’s really helped. I think we’ve gotten a lot more five stars because of it. And maybe we were getting five stars before because some people will just give five stars, but I can tell the guests are happier, just fewer complaints. So do you guys have anything like that that you have implemented to make things more–

[00:05:01] Amy: Yeah, I think a big thing for us has been some signage and not obnoxious signage where it’s overkill. But every property has its quirks. So one property, the shower, to turn it from bathtub mode to shower mode, there’s some little thing underneath the tub faucet that has to be pulled down, and a lot of people have just never done it that way.

[00:05:27] And so we were getting so many questions over and over again from guests, like, how do we turn on the shower? I think it’s broken. And so by adding a little small sign next to the shower, like, hey, this is how– pull the thing. Whatever it says. Yeah, we have a train caboose that we’ve renovated, and we don’t have a full stove there. So we have these– what are those things called? The cooktop induction things.

[00:05:58] Wendy: An induction burner?

[00:05:59] Amy: Yeah. With two little burners that you can pull out and use, but they don’t start warming up until pots are actually on it. And so guests were again like, hey, I don’t think this is working. It’s not turning on. So just by putting like that little piece of information on a small, cute branded sign next to where they would be doing it, it just cuts down on that extra time for our team, and so forth.

[00:06:27] Wendy: Mm-hmm. Maybe you’re not going to get a four-star because of that, but you’re definitely going to have a happier guest, and they’re going to tell someone else. I can tell you the frustration of not knowing how to use something is– or even where something is– we’re staying in a hotel right now, and they have this little bottle that you can fill up with water by the ice machine. The ice machine, there’s a tag on it, says ice machine by the elevators. Guess what’s not by the elevators?

[00:06:53] Amy: Right.

[00:06:54] Wendy: And so I called, no one’s answering. I call, finally get someone, and they say, oh, it’s not on the seventh floor. It’s on the eighth floor. So I go to the eighth floor. Guess what’s not on the eighth floor? So this is a 30 minute trek of trying to find water. I use tap water. I just gave up. But just the frustration of that, even though the rest of my experience has been fine, brought it down.

[00:07:16] Colleen: You’re a guest who’s willing to call and ask. How many people don’t want to mess with it, so they’re like, oh, we don’t have water? And then they’re not going to ask. They’re not going to seek help, and then they’re just going to hit you on the review anyway.

[00:07:27] Wendy: Totally, totally. And you have a guest maybe still there. We talked about this already. There is a skylight.

[00:07:34] Colleen: So this is a third floor walkup. There’s no side windows. It’s essentially a converted space. So the only way to get natural light is to have a skylight. And he says that the skylight is affecting his ability to sleep, can we cover it? Of course, we can’t. So let’s just get the guest an eye mask so we can block out the light that way and still save the review.

[00:07:54] Wendy: Yeah. And now moving forward you could probably do a couple of things. Provide eye masks, or sleep masks, or you could warn them in messaging before they arrived. Hey, if you’re a light sleeper or whatever, bring a sleepmask.

[00:08:10] Colleen: Absolutely. Absolutely

[00:08:11] Wendy: That’s one thing. It doesn’t always have to be something that you do.

[00:08:14] Amy: Yeah. I’ve got a neighborhood where it’s not going to be for everyone. And so making that clear in the listing, but then guests have to actually read the listing to get that. So yeah, some people are going to have potential for noise in different situations. And yeah, I think just the wording of it, and don’t write a huge paragraph that people aren’t going to be able to read. Make it clear. Make it concise so that, yeah, the expectations are set.

[00:08:49] Colleen: What do you guys think is the balance between proper listing, and being obnoxious, and scaring people away, but setting expectations?

[00:08:58] Wendy: Well, you definitely have to mention lack of amenities that people would find normal. So you don’t have air conditioning.

[00:09:06] Amy: Wi-Fi.

[00:09:09] Wendy: Wi-Fi. You may say that in your listing, but I would say it in the messaging before they book so that they have to agree to it. So we agree to our house rules. This is something that saves so many headaches. When the request a book message comes out, that means somebody is requesting they want to stay, and we have to approve them, we send a message that has all the house rules, and then also any details about the house that may affect their stay.

[00:09:37] So a potential for noise. If there’s no elevator and they have to walk upstairs. Let’s see. The pool’s not heated. And people just assume they’re going to be able to swim in December because it’s “hot”, which it is not. It’s warm.

[00:09:52] Colleen: So they want to use the pool. Let’s be real. We started doing that because, one, people were breaking the house rules, and two, because of the pool heaters. And we don’t really have houses that don’t have pool heaters anymore, but we have it in the listing.

[00:10:12] Wendy: We have it in four different spots, but they would book, and they’re like, why is the pool so cold? Because it’s 40° at night. They don’t even think to ask if it should be heated. So people are spending a lot of money to come to Scottsdale in high season, and for it to not be there, that experience that they’re looking for and spending so much money–

[00:10:38] Amy: You don’t want to disappoint them. Yeah.

[00:10:42] Wendy: But we’ve done in other markets. We had a loft in downtown Cincinnati, and there was a trolley that went by, and potential for noise because there was a bar downstairs, and so we started doing– once we start doing it with one property, we do it with everything, across the board, because it’s just has changed to things for the better.

[00:11:03] We’ll have people request, and then they’ll read that, and then they’ll pull the request. And at first, I was like, ooh. Are we really being mean here? And then I send a message, like, was it something we said? And usually they’ll message and say, oh, my father-in-law smokes, so I don’t want to disregard your house rules or whatever. So that’s great.

[00:11:30] Colleen: I think 97%, 99% even of guests actually want to be good guests. So if they see something that’s not going to link up, then they’re not going to stay because I think most people are rule followers.

[00:11:42] Wendy: Yeah, yeah. And I think that a lot of it isn’t about not wanting to follow the rules. It’s about not reading. There’s so much information. Too long. Didn’t read. And just like I said, we’ve had this happen where people book. They’re like, why isn’t the pool heated? Well, our pool isn’t heated. Well, you never said that. And I sent screen captures, like, this is where we mention it in four different places. Also, your wife agreed to it at booking. And then that was that. No, I feel bad, but we can’t do anything about it.

[00:12:18] Colleen: It’s definitely being proactive versus reactive. We do that, and in Stay Awhile, you see the same thing over and over again. We’ve talked about signage. We have a thermostat in one of our units that the brand of it is alarm.com. So tons of people will message and say, I need to adjust the temperature, but I can’t tell. This says alarm, whatever.

[00:12:38] So obviously, you put a note on there that this is the thermostat. They know they can adjust it, and then we’re grateful that those people sent us those messages because how many people were uncomfortable in the unit, afraid to adjust the thermostat prior to that. Then there’s other things. We have a marathon here every year. So proactively messaging the guests that are going to be checking out on Sunday, like, hey, all of the roadways are going to be–

[00:12:59] Wendy: Mm-hmm. Jammed.

[00:13:01] Colleen: Effed this morning.

[00:13:03] Wendy: You can say that on this podcast.

[00:13:05] Colleen: I don’t know what I’m allowed to say, but that things are going to be rerouted. This is a better route for you, or pay close attention, or whatever, those types of things that come up that are one-offs that maybe we make note of it. Like, oh, we had a guest last year who couldn’t figure out how to leave the space, so we got to make sure next year we take care of that.

[00:13:23] Wendy: Yeah. Basically just taking the annoyances out of everyone’s day, whether it’s a one-time thing or all-the-time thing.

[00:13:30] Colleen: And it makes us better co-hosts as well because we’re not needing to answer that question 58 times, and we will get frustrated. But why are we frustrated? We know that question’s coming. How many times have we seen it? So let’s be proactive here.

[00:13:44] Wendy: Totally true. So another thing I wanted to talk about, and I wonder if you guys do this, is do you ever pick up the phone? I know that you have co-hosts in your business, Amy, and so do I. So a lot of times, I’m saying, pick up the phone.

[00:14:03] Amy: When you’re dealing with writing, the tone just doesn’t come across the same as we can when we’re just talking to someone. So my co-hosts, um, most of them are in their 20s, and it’s a different generation with those kids, and they’re used to texting and writing their communication. But it is. It’s so important sometimes in some of the stickier situations. So much could be relieved, alleviated– that’s the word I’m looking for– if we just pick up the phone and call the guest.

[00:14:43] Wendy: Yeah, this just happened to you, right? Colleen.

[00:14:46] Colleen: Yes. We had a guest check in. So she checked in. She had issues with her door lock. Nothing on our end, but that happens.

[00:14:54] Wendy: User error.

[00:14:55] Colleen: User error. And then I could tell from her message that she felt uncomfortable. Whether it was right or not, it doesn’t matter. So I was like, you know what? I’m just going to call her and make sure that– so I called her. I’m like, hey, so sorry. That’s crazy. I know it’s raining, blah, blah, blah.

[00:15:08] But then I wanted to just essentially establish that connection and know that there’s a real human behind the person that you’re messaging. Had her try the door with me on the phone. I’m like, that way. If it doesn’t work and you’re locked out, I’m right here. Whatever.

[00:15:19] And then she said, that was so cool. We timed it. We added it up from her not being able to get in the door to me calling her was 22 seconds. And there is no way I’m not getting a five-star review from that because she knows we’re there and that it’s real that we actually care.

[00:15:33] Wendy: Yeah. And you took the time to work with her on her opening the door. Even if somebody can’t get in and we want to press that button to let them in, which is fine, we still want them to practice so we know that they’ll be able to use the door lock the next time. We don’t have to have it to come up again with the same person, especially.

[00:15:54] Colleen: The other time we’ll call a guest is if we really don’t want them to book. And they’re trying to book, and they’re trying to explain what they want to use the space for. And we’ve tried to communicate that your bridal party will not be comfortable here. There’s not enough lighting. There’s not enough for you to spread out the outlets, blah, blah, whatever it is.

[00:16:11] And then they love the house so much, of course. So they want a book, and then you want to call them and make sure, again, that the expectation that they have, if we can meet it or not. Because the last thing you would want is a guest, a bridal party, anybody, to show up somewhere and think that they can use the space one way and they can’t. Sometimes that can come across different on messaging versus calling them and saying, hey, legitimately, we can’t. Your eight girls cannot spread out here. It’s not going to work.

[00:16:36] Wendy: Yeah. You don’t want to write a novel either. I’ve had calls with people who want to have a certain vendor that we don’t allow. And you guys know who I’m talking about. We host bachelorette parties at a lot of our houses, and they want a certain vendor to come and, we don’t allow it because we’ve had a bad experience with noise and the neighbors getting upset. And they want this vendor to come.

[00:17:05] And so I finally just picked up the phone with one recent guest and was like, look, I know that you guys want this vendor, but we don’t allow it anymore. We never did. We didn’t know was happening until it was too late.

[00:17:20] But for guests now, we say, we just can’t allow it. And the reason is because it gets too loud. The neighbors get upset. They call the police and for a noise violation or whatever it is, because of the noise ordinance. And now your bachelorette party is ruined. We just don’t want that for you.

[00:17:40] Amy: And the neighbors love it.

[00:17:41] Wendy: Oh yeah, the neighbors love it. We actually lost the house because of it. The owner had to sell because the neighbors were upset. So just talking those things out, the backend things, that was the next thing I was going to talk about. Sometimes it just makes sense to explain your backend and how your operations work. Why can’t we come early and drop our bags? And they don’t understand. But I don’t understand. We’re just going to drop them off. Well, that totally makes sense. And I understand, but–

[00:18:17] Amy: You had this situation just come up, and I thought you did a really great job of– how did you word it with that guest?

[00:18:24] Wendy: With the suitcase or the luggage?

[00:18:26] Amy: Yeah. And he was wanting to check in early.

[00:18:29] Wendy: Oh, it’s because it messes with the operation of our team. They need to get the job done and–

[00:18:37] Amy: I think you used the phrase like, we have a lot of moving parts to get the home ready for you. I really like that phrase.

[00:18:47] Wendy: I’ll continue to use that

[00:18:48] Colleen: We always tell our guests we have no idea the footprint that the previous guest is going to leave. I would hate to guarantee you something that we can’t– we don’t know until we open these doors and see what the space looks like. Obviously, we will do everything that we can.

[00:19:00] And Wendy, we just talked about this the other day. If we can get the guests in early, get them settled, and we know we’re good. We want to get them checked in early too. Or reiterating that the reason why you booked here and we have such a high rating is because of our cleaning standards and the expectations, and we need the time to be able to execute that.

[00:19:17] Wendy: Good one.

[00:19:18] Colleen: Yeah.

[00:19:19] Amy: Yeah. Like that.

[00:19:21] Wendy: Yeah. And sometimes it’s a lot of moving parts, like we said, and one of those things is we don’t have garages. If our house has a garage– I should say we do have a few houses that have garages, but we don’t have a lot. And so if somebody wants to drop their bags there, we will open the garage door and let them leave the bag there.

[00:19:40] They cannot enter the property, and they cannot enter the backyard. And the reason is because we have a lot of people that show up at 8:00 AM because they’re flying from the east coast, and their flights land at like 8:00 AM, so they want to come right away. Well, check-in isn’t till four. I totally understand that.

[00:20:01] But we’ve had people. They’re so tired from waking up at 3:00 their time that they come in. They’re touring the property. Oh, look at this. This is great. They put their bags down. We’ve had people pass out on the couch. We’ve had people, I don’t know if they’re hungover or whatever, but sick and laying on the couch.

[00:20:22] And our cleaning team’s trying to clean around them, and they feel awkward because this is not their job. Or we have people walking around the pool getting super excited. We want you to see the property when it is ready and welcoming you, not when it’s like a shit show and a disaster because everything is torn up, the laundry’s being done, and we’re trying to get it ready. So one of the things we’ve done is we offer a company they can call to hold their luggage.

[00:20:54] Amy: That’s good. Or don’t you also ask them, if they’re getting in early, like, go ahead and reserve. Think about reserving the night before because then you can check in early at any time when you do land at your convenience.

[00:21:09] Wendy: Yes, we sell a lot of extra days that way. And usually discounted because we know they’re not going to stay the whole time, but at last minute, we’re probably not going to book that one night anyway. And we tell them like, if you do not reserve the night before, there’s no guarantee you’ll have check-in. In fact, it’ll be unlikely because we’ll have maintenance scheduled even if there was no one booked. Or we’ll be doing deep cleans or whatever we do.

[00:21:35] Colleen: Is that part of your flow if somebody requests an early check in, you have a system in place where they offer a discounted rate maybe to add–

[00:21:45] Wendy: Yeah. It’s constantly changing as I find the words to use, but just recently, someone asked, and we had told them, you can have the date night for 150 bucks. Their nightly average might be $400, and we’re offering that day for 150. But they see it as, well, I’m not staying the night. I don’t want to spend that.

[00:22:06] So we charge $25 an hour for early check-in up to four hours. So that’s noon. So you’re getting in at 8:00 AM you still have all that time until noon before you can come? And I handled this situation. I didn’t do it well. I didn’t explain what our early check-in rate is, and he’s like, well, why didn’t you say that in the beginning? They would’ve just booked the day. I was like, you’re right. Went into my canned messages that I have set up, and I added that, like, here are your options.

[00:22:38] You can book the night before if it’s available at X rate, and we figure out what that is. The second option is you can be a gambler, take the risk. If someone books, you’re probably not going to get it. If somebody’s checking out that day, you’re not going to get an early check-in. I’m just telling you right now.

[00:22:57] Colleen: That’s one thing you just brought up about the guest saying, well, why didn’t you tell me? And you’re like, you’re right, which a bunch of my old employees will probably roll their eyes if they hear me say this, but one of the things I used to tell my associates all the time is we’re not going to say the guest complained that they had to pay.

[00:23:11] We’re going to say the guest provided valuable feedback that it would’ve been better. We never allowed to say the word complain because ultimately, in my case, at a fitness center of a hotel, for example, who’s going to be the first one that’s going to know that the elliptical machine isn’t working?

[00:23:25] It’s the guest. You need that guest to provide that feedback. You need the guest to tell you that that messaging was confusing because we look at it every single day. The guest is the expert in our space, not us. They’re the ones who are using it as a guest. We’ll never have that fresh set of eyes.

[00:23:39] So you have to hear that feedback and then make those adjustments appropriately so that, as you said, now you have a canned message to make it go so that the next guest isn’t confused and potentially revenue for you. The more seamless for everybody, the higher stars, the more revenue.

[00:23:55] Amy: Yeah. I think we get so defensive as hosts when we get feedback. And that’s just, a lot of times, our natural, default mode. But like Wendy did, when feedback comes in, if we can look at it with a very objective view and really use that to level up our own hosting and our businesses, that is definitely going to get us higher reviews.

[00:24:26] Wendy: Even when you’re delivering bad news, like, sorry, you can deliver it in a way, whether it’s by calling or just explaining the process and why they can’t. They might not like the answer still. The answer is still no, but at least they understand why, right?

[00:24:45] Colleen: And Stay Awhile Sarah’s policy is, it always needs to be no, but. Like, no, but we can do X, Y, and Z. And even if it’s something as simple as, no, but this coffee shop for the next hour until we have a space ready is where we get our favorite coffee, whatever it is, it has to be something.

[00:25:02] Amy: Right. Yeah. We always say, in All Belong Co, we are yes people. So if we have to say no, then it’s going to be followed up with, like you’re saying, no, we don’t allow photography, but there’s this great studio downtown. Or, no, we can’t do that, but here’s what we can offer you. We can offer you an hour late checkout. Just having some things in our back pocket so that we can say yes.

[00:25:31] Colleen: And then taking that a step further, how many times are you getting asked those things, and do you need to make a change in your operation, or is there a revenue opportunity in your operation?

[00:25:40] Amy: That’s a great question.

[00:25:42] Wendy: Yeah. One of the things that we made a change with, I think it was last year, I was just getting so sick of saying no. All of our messages, I feel like after you’ve done this– I’ve been doing this five years. You’re five years. You’ve been in this a long time. How many times are you telling people no?

[00:26:01] I feel like everything we were saying, and actually, it wasn’t me. It was my sister Ashley, who co-hosts for us at most. She said, I’m really sick of saying no. And I’m like, I am too. And so I just started going down this rabbit hole as I do. How can I say yes? So we changed our request to book message to a way of telling people the rules without saying, no, you cannot have glitter. No smoking. No this.

[00:26:31] So we changed it to a message that’s supposed to sound like a dating app. So like, I got to think of how it’s phrased, but I actually did go on– I googled dating app profiles or whatever. One of my houses is called the Duck Pond. The Duck Pond is looking to invite in someone who is a non-smoker, loves pets but will leave them at home.

[00:27:06] Colleen: Like that.

[00:27:07] Amy: That’s great.

[00:27:08] Wendy: Enjoys the outdoors, but will bring it inside after 10:00 PM. And so it’s a way of–

[00:27:15] Colleen: That is so fun.

[00:27:17] Wendy: After a while, don’t you start getting so pissed off at just all the things that you just start saying, no, stop it. And you can see it in other people’s messages when they’ve had enough.

[00:27:27] Amy: Yes.

[00:27:29] Wendy: Don’t even think about doing this.

[00:27:31] Amy: You can tell when a host has been burned so many times because there’s just all those nos, and the house rules just become so lengthy that it almost is off-putting as a guest, before you’ve even stayed.

[00:27:46] Wendy: Yeah. And then it carries onto the signs in the property, like, don’t do this. Absolutely no smoking. Don’t even think about whatever.

[00:27:57] Amy: Yeah.

[00:27:58] Colleen: I see it as that. This snarky, but I see it as that, and then I thought, well, less signage, and dust your baseboards. Just because now I’m put off, so now I’m annoyed with them, and I’m looking at their space, and I’m like, a little bit less of that, and more of attention to detail, ma’am. I wanted to say that. I didn’t say that.

[00:28:20] Amy: Yeah. Am I even welcome here? Do you actually want me here?

[00:28:23] Colleen: Do you even like hosting?

[00:28:24] Amy: Yeah.

[00:28:26] Wendy: Yeah. You’re put in a position where you’re like, this person doesn’t even want me to be here, and now you’re on the lookout for problems.

[00:28:35] Amy: Yeah.

[00:28:35] Colleen: And you’re on pins and needles, like, don’t use that glass. I told my kids, don’t even open that. Don’t reach in there. Don’t look. Actually close your eyes. Don’t even go in there.

[00:28:44] Wendy: We’ll just get takeout and throw everything away. Okay. So trying to think of anything else that is along this lines where, yeah, just stop the madnesss. Stop banging your head against the wall, and make it easier on everyone. Find a solution. Find a way to say yes, like you said.

[00:29:07] Like, okay, no, we can’t come cover the skylight, but we can get you an eye mask. Just last week we threw out the ice between every guest in the ice maker, and maybe they didn’t do it till the last minute, so now there’s no ice, and it hasn’t made any yet. So the people come in, and they’re like, there’s no ice here.

[00:29:29] And instead of being like, well, it’ll make it eventually, sorry about your luck. Guess what? People are coming here to have some margaritas, so they need some ice. So I just have DoorDash bring a bag of ice. Comes in 10 minutes. So just be the solution, make a solution, make the guest happy, and move on.

[00:29:48] Colleen: The same thing goes for maintenance issues that you couldn’t necessarily fix in between a guest. Calling those out ahead of time– the guest. We previously had a crack in one of the windows, not an interior, but it’s a double pane window, whatever. But you still want to message them so you don’t look like a negligent host.

[00:30:08] So you’re like, hey, when you arrive, this host is no threat to you in any way, but I just want to make sure you know that I know that it’s there. Because it’s so embarrassing to get a message from a guest. It’s like, Hey, I’m not sure if you are aware of that, whatever. And it’s like, well, of course, I’m aware of that, but how would they know that? And what are they thinking when they check in at same thing are they looking for something? So just being proactive with your guest.

[00:30:32] Amy: And can we talk about check-in for just a minute? Because check-in is everything. If check-in is not good, then they’re going to, like you said, be looking for more things. So you’ve got to be ready if your guests– do the preventative things. Imagine you’re coming into a completely strange place at night. Maybe it’s rural. There are no lights anywhere. What can you do preventatively to make that experience totally comfortable? There needs to be a motion light coming on, or some solar light that’s still on a desk till dawn light. The keypad needs to work, and there needs to be a backup key onsite just in case Wi-Fi went down.

[00:31:20] All the things that we can do to just make check in smooth. That is so important. People have been traveling all day. They’re exhausted. They just want to get in. They got to go to the bathroom. They got to just put their stuff down, get out of the car from the people like they don’t want to be with anymore after a long car ride. But as hosts, we need to make check-in seamless.

[00:31:48] Colleen: And acknowledging when does check-in start. Check-in starts when they receive the message about how they’re getting to the space. Check-in starts when they pull in. Is your grass cut? Does your home look well kept? Is your exterior door clean? What does that first–

[00:32:05] Amy: Impression.

[00:32:05] Colleen: Yes. And that starts like, what is the smell in the common space before you actually enter your unit? Check-in starts long before you actually open the front door of the building.

[00:32:14] Amy: That’s good. Yeah.

[00:32:15] Wendy: Even after check-in, we have a settled in message. We call it our settled in message. It goes out around 8:00 PM, I believe. And it’s not too late where they’re maybe going to bed, and it’s not too early. They still might be arriving. So we say, as soon as you’re settled in, let us know if you have any questions. By the way– and this is for every single house, depending on the quirks of that house– here are some quirks to our house.

[00:32:41] It has a two HVAC units. The one thermostat is by the primary bedroom. The other one is here. And then here’s how you use the coffee machine because we know how important coffee is in the morning. So anything that’s like that quirky thing that they’re not going to figure out on their own. And maybe we have signs there at the house, but there’s only so many signs you can put in a house.

[00:33:02] Amy: And you don’t need to put that necessarily in the check-in message with all the details. Oh, and this, and this and this. So I like how–

[00:33:09] Wendy: That’s too much.

[00:33:09] Colleen: I love a follow-up that says, here’s the quirks to the house because that’s going to stand on its own. Because those welcome messages are too long. They have to be. You need to provide all that, but it’s way too much. That is such a good message. Good job, Wendy.

[00:33:24] Amy: I like that too. You’re brilliant.

[00:33:26] Wendy: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, and a lot of people are like, oh, thank you so much. I am going to need that coffee. In the instance of the HVAC, you don’t want them, like one room is burning up and it happens to be the primary because that’s where that second HVAC zone is.

[00:33:44] Amy: Or maybe there’s just like a weird noise that your fridge makes or something that might be like unsettling to a guest. And then if you like, bring it up, like you were saying earlier, Colleen, yeah, it just helps put guests at ease.

[00:34:01] Wendy: Yeah, and it’s important to get that information at the right time. Like you said, the welcome message is too long. It’s already a novel. Give them the information when they need it. Another message we send out is timed by the day, not necessarily by the reservation. So if someone’s staying there on Tuesday, then on Monday night they’ll get a message that a pool tech is coming tomorrow or the landscaper’s coming tomorrow. Because guess what? Ladies don’t like when random men walk into the backyard?

[00:34:34] Amy: Is that true?

[00:34:38] Wendy: Maybe they do.

[00:34:38] Amy: No, they don’t.

[00:34:40] Colleen: They don’t. They don’t.

[00:34:40] Amy: Yeah, I’ve had so guests.

[00:34:41] Colleen: Ladies don’t like random men. You can actually end the sentence right there.

[00:34:45] Wendy: Right. That’s true. We have all types of guests, and who knows what they’re doing back there? They might be skinny dipping. So we have that message saying, Hey, our pool tech is coming tomorrow. There is not a specified time for their arrival. They’ll only be there for 15 minutes, making sure the pool’s okay, and then they’ll be out, or the landscaper. And usually, we get a message back like, hey, cool, thanks for the heads up.

[00:35:14] Colleen: So let’s say they write back, and they say, do they have to come during my stay?

[00:35:19] Wendy: They do.

[00:35:20] Colleen: And he’s like–

[00:35:21] Wendy: Sometimes they do.

[00:35:22] Colleen: Yes, no, they do. They’ll be there.

[00:35:23] Amy: Yes.

[00:35:24] Wendy: And we just say, hey, these are outside vendors, and they do not work around our schedule. If they were in-house, that would be great. And I don’t even know then if you can run a business that way. But we do have a message that goes out that we send manually. If we know the pest control people are coming, we try to work it around because that person we are scheduling, if the person’s there for a long time, they don’t want chemicals sprayed around– I mean treatment. We’re not going to call chemicals.

[00:35:51] Amy: The house is treated.

[00:35:52] Colleen: And we actually shouldn’t say pests. We should be like, what?

[00:35:56] Wendy: Let’s not talk about it anymore.

[00:35:57] Colleen: Yeah. End it.

[00:35:59] Amy: The home will be treated.

[00:36:01] Colleen: The home will be treated with the utmost respect by somebody who has something, a little spray.

[00:36:06] Amy: Expertise.

[00:36:07] Wendy: Remove friends that we don’t want to friends with.

[00:36:09] Colleen: Yeah.

[00:36:11] Wendy: Yeah. So anyway, I think the messaging is super important. Has really cut down on a lot of the– I don’t know. I just feel like we don’t have as much– backlash isn’t the right word, but the expectations are set because they’re getting the information when they need it, and they’re not overloaded.

[00:36:29] Colleen: And it’s on wording too. If you’re like, well, unfortunately, this guy’s going to have to come by and do the pool, it’s like, hey, we want you to keep using the pool and have a great time. So they’ll be by at 10:00. Those are two totally different narratives.

[00:36:43] Wendy: It’s the yes and not the no.

[00:36:45] Colleen: You should never say unfortunately basically, ever, right?

[00:36:48] Amy: Right.

[00:36:49] Colleen: As soon as you open that sentence, whatever you say after that, I already know it’s trash. Like, oh, well.

[00:36:54] Amy: Unless there’s but. Unfortunately, blah, blah, blah, but–

[00:36:59] Wendy: But because they came to take care of the pool, you’ll be able to use it.

[00:37:03] Colleen: Yeah, you’ll be able to keep swimming.

[00:37:04] Amy: Yes, I’ve got another idea of a way that we started getting more five-star reviews. I was just getting tired of guests who come, and they have a great stay, and everything in their review was like, this was great, but they still gave a four-star review. And you’re like, hey, like what’s the disconnect here?

[00:37:26] Wendy: And not even any feedback to go on.

[00:37:28] Amy: Yeah. Right. So I actually found these magnets on Etsy, and it has a review explanation system on it. Looks good, and it helps guests like lay out, like when you give a five-star, this is what you’re saying. I had a great stay. A four star is there were several things that did not meet my expectations.

[00:37:54] Colleen: Yes.

[00:37:55] Amy: That has just been a game changer for us. We don’t take our listing photos with that magnet on there, but that’s something that we put up for hosting.

[00:38:05] Colleen: We did that tons in the hotel. It’s just called brainwashing the guest. But basically, anybody, any associate, you ask them how they are, whatever, they say, excellent. So at any given time, a guest may have heard the word excellent 15 times during a stay. So then they check out. They get that survey.

[00:38:25] How was your experience? It was excellent. And you’ll be mind blown at how many people leave a comment that says, excellent. That’s all they say. And it’s because you brainwashed them by– and it’s like our Wi-Fi password. We would make it perfect10. In hotel world, it’s a 10. Still love hotels, so still give your hotels a 10. But it would always be perfectstay10. That’s your password because, again, just as much as brainwashing as you can do.

[00:38:50] Amy: Five stars will be our password.

[00:38:53] Colleen: My password, fivestars.

[00:38:54] Amy: Fivestars.

[00:38:55] Wendy: Fivestarexperience.

[00:38:56] Amy: Yeah.

[00:38:57] Colleen: Or the morning after message and they say, oh, everything’s great. I always reply. I’m so glad your stay is perfect. Thank you. Let us know. Just nuggets.

[00:39:05] Wendy: Here’s another reminder that your stay has been perfect.

[00:39:08] Colleen: It’s been perfect. Did you hear me? Yeah, that’s what I said.

[00:39:11] Wendy: That makes me want to plant something freaking awesome.

[00:39:14] Colleen: You should. Try it at one house. Use a word at one house and just see if you notice it in your– you will. But it’s crazy.

[00:39:20] Wendy: I’m going to say, has your stay been freaking awesome? How are you today? Freaking awesome?

[00:39:24] Colleen: Are you freaking awesome or not? Yeah.

[00:39:26] Wendy: Isn’t it amazing all the things that we’ve done or thought of over the years that you can’t even remember that you did it to just alleviate the problems?

[00:39:38] Amy: Right.

[00:39:38] Colleen: And it’s crazy because you’re actually not reinventing the wheel. Hospitality is hospitality is hospitality. But you can perfect your wheel. And as long as you keep an open mind, and you’re still learning, and you’re not taking things personally, that’s the number one thing. And it’s so hard to not take it personally, but you have to have these guests tell you what’s going on, and then you have to do something with that information. You have to, otherwise–

[00:40:05] Wendy: Even when we do get a star rating that we’re not happy with–

[00:40:09] Colleen: Wasn’t five stars.

[00:40:11] Wendy: Yeah, exactly. Any number below five, I reach out to them and just say, hey, see that you gave us four stars. Was there anything that didn’t meet your expectations? There might be somebody that’ll be like, oh, everything was fine. I just never give five stars. I’m like, seriously?

[00:40:24] Colleen: Airbnb should not allow them to take a review.

[00:40:27] Amy: You did not read the magnet.

[00:40:28] Colleen: Yeah.

[00:40:29] Wendy: I don’t have a magnet. It’s my own fault.

[00:40:31] Colleen: Which also, at that point, you already have the review. You don’t have anything to lose in reaching out. And ultimately, we’re helping all hosts, by doing that, by saying, hey, just so you’re aware, the five-star is so crucial to our business operation. There’s nothing wrong with telling a guest that.

[00:40:47] And especially if they already tanked you, which they don’t know, a four is tanking you, but you are tanking me when you give me a four, so you educate them. If they never give five stars and that’s their weird position, then it would actually be better if they didn’t take a survey then, or didn’t take a review.

[00:41:02] Wendy: Yeah.

[00:41:03] Colleen: Something wrong with shaming the guest a little bit.

[00:41:07] Wendy: There’s a little bit with shaming the guest, but there is a place for, let’s call it educating.

[00:41:15] Colleen: Yes. See, that’s changing the wording. And then look. Educate the guests on how important the reviews are.

[00:41:21] Amy: Changing the narrative.

[00:41:22] Colleen: Change the narrative.

[00:41:23] Wendy: Like a five star, four versus five-star in Airbnb is completely different than one on Google.

[00:41:32] Colleen: Yes.

[00:41:33] Wendy: If a restaurant has a four point something, 4.5, it’s a decent restaurant.

[00:41:37] Amy: Still good.

[00:41:38] Wendy: If you have a 4.5 on Airbnb–

[00:41:41] Colleen: You’re trash.

[00:41:44] Wendy: You’re not freaking amazing or awesome, whatever it was.

[00:41:47] Colleen: Yeah, excellent. Obviously, my brainwashing–

[00:41:51] Wendy: Okay. It’ll work in a few minutes, I’m sure.

[00:41:55] Amy: Something else I think Sarah has talked about that might be worth us talking about is how we as hosts will do a better job taking our cues from the hospitality industry, meaning look at what hotels have done and perfected over the years. Because they know what it takes to get these– they don’t necessarily get reviews like the Airbnb review system, but they have hosted so many guests.

[00:42:23] Look at what they’re doing. Look at every little thing. It is intentional, every detail. And think that’s another thing that blew my mind when she made some connections for us in our HBMM community. It really made me pause and realize there are things that I can– of course, we’re residential, but there are so many things that we can take from the commercial hospitality world into our hosting to get those excellent reviews too. Can y’all think of any examples?

[00:43:00] Colleen: There were so many adjustments from going from hotels to Airbnb world for me, all stemming from that exact thing. At a hotel, you have five million square feet of space. So if a guest wants to check in early and we don’t have a room ready, which, why wouldn’t we have a room ready? You know what I mean?

[00:43:16] We would just get one ready in 15 minutes. We’d all run to the room, and everyone would take an area of the hotel room and get it ready. But if we couldn’t, then we would just store it in our luggage storage area. And then if a guest forgot their pack and play, they really wanted to try a Cincinnati flavored ice cream, they heard about Skyline, but they weren’t sure, we have this massive staffing that can run out, and we would do all these surprise and delight opportunities for guests every single day multiple times a day.

[00:43:48] Or a TV’s not working and it’s 10 o’clock at night. Well, we have a maintenance guy that’s on duty for that exact reason. So in the Airbnb world, you have to be so much more on your game because it is just you. You don’t have this massive staff that can support all of those little things. So your inspection process, your pre-arrival process, it has to be so dialed in that you’re anticipating any single thing that can come up with a guest.

[00:44:11] A perfect example is a coffee maker. In the hotel world, if the guest calls down and their coffee maker’s not working well, when you go up there to look at that coffee maker, hotels have coffee brewing at all times. So I’m coming up with a cup of coffee. So while I’m troubleshooting a coffee maker, an associate, whoever, then you hand them a coffee when you’re doing it. So we’re already squared up. So that’s just bonus that the coffee maker’s working.

[00:44:34] In Airbnb world, you might be 10, 15 minutes away. You might be remote co-hosting. There’s a lot of moving parts there. Which I love your DoorDash thing. So just DoorDash. I’m at Starbucks, like, hey, I’m going to figure this out. But in the meantime, what’s your Starbucks order? I’ll just send you one.

[00:44:47] Wendy: Yeah. We co-hosted on a property that was in downtown Cincinnati. I live in Phoenix. My co-host Ashley lives in Chicago. So there was no other option. We can’t run to the property. So we had our people on the ground, and we had backup idea after backup idea. So whether it’s Instacart bringing something, or DoorDash bringing ice, or our cleaning person bringing a bottle of wine, obviously we’re paying her to do that and paying for the wine.

[00:45:18] But you just have those backup plans in case something goes wrong. You’re going to take ideas from the hotel, and you might not be able to implement it, but you’re going to do it in your own way. Something in our hotel room right now that I’m like, gosh, that’s a good idea, is you open the closet and the light turns on.

[00:45:39] Colleen: Yes. They love that.

[00:45:40] Wendy: It’s like a wardrobe, and it’s got the suitcase thing right in there, stand. All my stuff is in there. I close the doors, and I don’t have to look at it anymore. And some of those things are really easy. Even if we have a bachelorette house and there’s a lot of girls getting ready at the same time, we have full-length mirrors in every room. There’s obviously the vanity in the bathrooms, but if there’s two bathrooms and eight girls, it’s not going to work. So we have the makeup mirrors with the lights on them on a desk, which is really a makeup station in the bedrooms. And we take the closet doors off. There’s no reason for closet doors. Doors just get in the way. So we put the makeup station in the closet. There’s still hangers where they can hang clothes. They can get ready right there. We are trying to anticipate their needs.

[00:46:34] Amy: Yeah. And even like the curtains at hotels, there’s going to be your shears, but then there’s always going to be blackout curtains. The hospitality industry, commercially, know that guests want to come and get a good night’s sleep. And being able to provide that is huge.

[00:46:50] Wendy: True. So I can’t wait till we come up with more ideas and have to have another episode.

[00:46:55] Amy: Yeah, we could keep riffing forever.

[00:47:00] Wendy: Well, I think that we have run out of ideas for a minute until we turn this off and come up with two more or three more. But we’re definitely going to brainwash with excellence.

[00:47:10] Colleen: I had an excellent time with you ladies on this podcast today.

[00:47:12] Wendy: I also had a freaking awesome time with you.

[00:47:16] Colleen: It was excellent. Do it and let me know. I actually do want you to do that.

[00:47:20] Wendy: Five stars. I give this one five stars.

[00:47:22] Amy: It five stars.

[00:47:23] Colleen: It was five out of five.

[00:47:24] Wendy: Can you guys tell us where people can find you or where your houses are and where they can book?

[00:47:31] Colleen: Sarah’s houses are in Columbus. Her business is stayawhilehostingco.com. Please come visit us in Columbus for our Buckeyes game.

[00:47:39] Wendy: Request a book, and she will tell you how–

[00:47:41] Colleen: If you request a book, it’ll be me.

[00:47:43] Wendy: And you’re going to tell them how they’re going to have an excellent stay.

[00:47:46] Colleen: And it will be excellent. Even just if you go to the website, it’ll be excellent experience for you.

[00:47:52] Amy: And you can find our All Belong Co properties at allbelong.co, not.com, because we’re All Belong Co. And we are mostly located in Lynchburg, Virginia, most of our properties. But we do have other properties in other states. So we even have a couple in Ohio, ladies. We have one in Ashland and one in Apple Valley Lake. Yeah. So that’s fun. But we will give you that five-star stay.

[00:48:25] Colleen: They won’t even need the magnet upon arrival because they will already know. Five stars.

[00:48:28] Amy: Yeah. You’ll just know. It’s going to be excellent.

[00:48:30] Colleen: That’s right. We’ll just set it up that way.

[00:48:31] Amy: Freaking awesome.

[00:48:32] Colleen: Freaking awesome.