The machines are taking over. We have driverless cars. Grocery stores without workers. Robots can build Ikea furniture. Our dystopian future ruled by machines is now inevitable. It’s time to embrace our mechanical overlords.
I love the idea of automation. It lets entrepreneurs experiment and try new things without the risk of taking on employees. It’s also perfect for establishing passive income streams. With these two factors in mind, I developed these 10 tips to Automate AirBnb so that I could operate vacation rental from anywhere in the world.
The first step to automation was to get one of these*:
The second most important step for Automation was…
My Airbnb communication strategy:
I use YourPorter* to send pre-written messages to guests for me. The app is pretty clever and it uses hashtags to automatically populate the messages with unique details like the guest’s name and arrival date and checkout date.
UPDATE – I’ve negotiated $20 off for my readers! Just use the links or insert the code “curious” at check out.
Here’s what I send:
- Confirmation message with info about the house
- Pre-check in message with key code
- Everything ok?
- Pre-check out message
- Auto Review
- Annual reminder
- Booking Enquiries FAQ
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Confirmation message with info about the house
Step one of my Airbnb Communication Strategy kicks in the moment a guest books. I have enabled Instant Booking for my Airbnb so 90% of my guests book without contacting me first. I prefer it this way.
Once they make the booking, Your Porter sends them a message on my behalf.
My messages go like this:
“Hi [#GuestFirstName],
Thank you so much for booking your upcoming trip with us. We hope you have an excellent stay!
Having moved to the area in 2016, we are fairly new to St Pete ourselves and have quickly grown to love it here.
We want every minute of your trip to be easy and stress free, so we thought we would let you know what to expect when staying at our home.”
I then go on to spell out my check in and check out policy, confirm the parking situation, and info about what the guests can expect to find in the house. All of this is already stated in my listing, but since guests often ask this again I just include it automatically.
2. Pre-check in message with key code
Step two of my Airbnb Communication Strategy kicks in a few days before guests arrive.
“Hi [#GuestFirstName]!
We hope you are looking forward to your stay with us on [#CheckInDate]!
Just a few quick bits of info to make things easier for you…”
Their name and Check In Date populate automatically thanks to YourPorter.
Then I give them my phone number and the code to the door lock keypad* and explain how to use it.
I also ask guests to let me know if they find any items are broken or need attention so I can fix it for them as soon as possible. There’s nothing more annoying than getting a bad review because of something fixable, had they simply told you about it.
3. Everything ok?
Step three of my Airbnb Communication Strategy, the day after the guests arrive I send another brief message checking everything is ok and seeing if I can help with anything. I keep this brief because they don’t want to be dealing with messages whilst they are on vacation!
4. Pre-check out email
Step four of my Airbnb Communication Strategy, on the day before check out Your Porter sends another automated message reminding them that check out is at 11am, and finishes off with a bit of brown nosing before asking for a nice review.
5. Auto Review
Step five of my Airbnb Communication Strategy, a few days after check out, YourPorter is set to send an automated review for me. I’ve set this to be a glowing review. This only changes if the cleaner tells me the guests were really bad. I also message guests saying how great they were and how grateful I was they took such good care of the place. I do this even if they weren’t that great (!) because I’ve noticed some people will leave a bad review of a host if they expect a bad one as a guest. That’s not how the review system is supposed to work, but that’s not my problem.
6. Annual reminder
I’m trying to set up an automated message to go to the guest one year from the date they booked with me, in case they are visiting again. My area, St Pete in Florida, gets a lot of snowbirds who come back year after year, so it would be nice to tap into this. YourPorter doesn’t have this feature but I wish it did. If you know of another service I could use for this please let me know!
7. Booking Inquiries
The above Airbnb Communication Strategy deals with the full Airbnb process – from booking, to check in, to check out and finally reviews. All automated.
But things aren’t ever simple. Despite the fact I have instant booking switched on for my Airbnb, I still receive the occasional booking inquiry from guests. Invariably these are asking questions already answered in my listing. Or just downright odd requests. Originally I would answer these inquiries diligently in the hope of persuading these guests to book my place but after a while I began noticing that guests who had raised booking inquiries before booking tended to be the most hard work. As I do not have a shortage of bookings anyway I decided to streamline my response to these enquiries with an automated FAQ reply.
“Hi
Thanks so much for your message!
I try to reply to guest enquiries immediately, but I’m a little caught up right now. I will get back to you as soon as possible on the specifics of your enquiry, but in the meantime here is a list of frequently asked questions – hopefully this is all you need!”
Then I answer the most frequently asked questions I get:
# How far away are we from X? (Basically, google maps it…)
# What amenities do we have? (Basically, everything in the listing and nothing else…)
# Can you give Restaurant and Attractions Recommendations? (Yes, these are in our Airbnb guidebook, on the listing…)
# Can we accommodate more guests than the listing states? (Nope.)
# We are really clean and will eat out all the time – can you skip the cleaning fee? (Hell Nope).
Obviously I say it nicer than that, but this message may still come across as impersonal. I know that. But if I lose a few bookings due to this, so be it. Be selective with your customers – you want the easy ones that pay the most, not the hard ones that try to haggle. I learnt this lesson from reading Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek*. Difficult guests take up too much time. I’d rather focus on giving excellent service to the easy guests.
So that, in a nutshell is my complete Airbnb Communication Strategy. I perfected them whilst conducting The Great Airbnb Experiment and ended up making a lot of money for very little time.
REMEMBER. If you want $20 credit with YourPorter* either use thee link or enter code “curious” at check out.
If you want a copy of the exact messages I send to guests, drop me a message. I’d be happy to share them. If I’ve inspired you to become an Airbnb Host* let me know!
Thanks for reading!
Owen