Surpassing Guests Expectations - My Top Tips

[Andrew395]

The 10 most important items to carefully consider when hosting.

1. Comfortable Bed, if your bed squeaks, wobbles and is too soft, guests will not like this. investing in the most expensive bed you can afford will reward you for the next 30 years as that’s how long a good bed will last you. Research online the top beds 5 star hotels use and follow their example.

2. Complimentary Breakfast on the first morning will make your guest happy and will become the starting point in receiving a 5 star review, but wait there’s more.....

3. A complimentary car ride to the supermarket is a must if you want to make a good impression especially for family groups, this will reduce a lot of the stress and anxiety  a guest may be feeling. Note, the older the guest the more care they require, guests over the age of 35 need tender loving care as opposed to youngsters who won’t hardly bother you during their stay.

4. Change the bedding at least every 4 days during longer staying guests.

5. New towels daily

6. Offer a Smart Tv in every room to keep children happy and adults can watch their favourite streaming services at night. Try a smart tv that has Bluetooth capabilities for headphone use.

7. Make sure guests can contact you within minutes rather than hours, find the best technology to use for ease of communication.

8. Offer a laundry service for 5 dollars, half of your guests will enjoy this service. Remember this is their vacation.

9. Welcome drink and a card is enough to make your guests feel special, a chocolate bar if you want to go the extra mile

10. A guide book for your area and chargeable tour service of car and driver to show off your area really helps with making your guests satisfied.

These top 10 tips will get you to super-host status in super quick time

[Sarah977]

@Andrew395  I agree with most of your points except 4, 5 and 6. 

I offer clean bedding once a week- if a guest is staying longer than a week, I offer halfway through the stay- 10 days, offer at the 5 day mark.

No one needs a clean towel every day. That's extremely wasteful. When you dry off after a shower, you're clean. Hang up the towel and it's good to go for the next time.

A smart TV in every room? To keep children happy?  I've never had a TV in my home and I raised 3 kids. Kids can be kept happy in much better ways than watching TV. 

I have 100% 5 star reviews and have been Superhost since my first quarter, so obviously those things aren't necessary to have happy and appreciative guests.

[Andrew395]

Hi Sarah

i sent a message to you, by mistake it went to Emilia, but sure you already read that, so that was for you. Anyway always good to know what other are doing. I once never washed my hair for six months when in my twenties. Many folk wanted to know what shampoo I used and where I got my hair cut as they really liked the texture and the look of my natural looking hair. Just thought I pop you a story. Take care...Andy

[Emilia42]

New towels daily?! I use the same towels for a week and I haven't watched a TV in 15 years.

[Andrew395]

Lovely to hear from you Emilia and was interesting to hear about your own style of hosting.

yep, me the same I never watched tv for 20 years until the day I discovered NetFlix and now the tv.s come loaded with Spotify. This made me think that the future is to go Smart as most youngsters like the technology aspect. However I do appreciate your view as Tv is the worst drug on the planet.

Regarding towels, you could get away with a change every other day, but feel a new towels can make a big difference. I always give a guest 2 towels each and then replenish every 2 days.

5 day bed change makes sense if staying for 10 days. In the beginning I did the bed change every 2 days, but thought that ridiculous after the first year of hosting, but am happy with my 4 day change over. I do have help with the cleaning and laundry so all is ok. Happy to know you got to SH status, it keeps you on your toes...take care..Andy

[Anonymous]

@Andrew395  I am over 35, and take some issue with the idea that I might need more "special care" than the youngsters. 😉

I agree with you on point (7). No matter what kind of listing you operate, and at what level of budget, fast communication is very important. And on (1) - yes, a comfortable non-squeaky bed is best, although price is not necessarily the factor in hitting that Goldilocks spot. Everyone has a different comfort level for mattresses (firmer vs softer, etc), so one little secret to making the experience adjustable is to aim for the middle and supply different types of pillows.

On the other 8 points, some of these are applicable to certain situations, but there's not a single one that I'd say is appropriate for the majority of hosts. For example (2), (4), and (5) will all substantially increase your costs and labor. If you're running a traditional Bed & Breakfast at a high nightly rate, this would make sense, but a lot of people still choose Airbnb because they would rather save money than have these services. Also, entering a private room to change linens is not standard on Airbnb and many guests will object to this as an invasion of privacy.

Offering rides seems like a nice thing to do, especially if you live in a remote location, but any host who's considering that should thoroughly educate themselves on the liability issues involved. Are you prepared for the fallout if you get into an accident and the guest is injured or killed?  If you're properly insured to offer transportation services, you're better off making that a separate enterprise from your B&B.

TV's in every room? No thanks. The so-called "youngsters" these days prefer to use their own devices for entertainment, and TV's don't tend to add value that's proportional to their cost. A fast WiFi connection gets you a lot more mileage. For hosts who are fortunate enough to live in a place where people travel for fun, a TV isn't even desirable.

[Andrew395]

Hi Andrew

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts, it’s very interesting to know others perspective on hosting.

its certainly true regarding devices for surfing the net, that many folk use their own rather than watching tv. However, that being said, I always ask the guests on arrival if they like to watch Netflix, the majority say yes they will watch during their stay. Maybe I am over excited about Netflix, but I can tell you, once when our internet provider blocked the Netflix service, guests were not too happy.

I do add in the extra costs to the nightly fee for the extra services. I take your point when considering driving the guest to the supermarket, that’s a risk you take.

Now the best thing I like about your message Andrew is the range of differing pillows as an additional benefit, so now you have me thinking and I thank you for this. I will explore the pillow selection next time I am in town.

You take care and happy hosting.

cheers

Andy

[Stephanie]

Hi @Andrew395 ,

Welcome to the Community Center! Thanks for sharing your top tips, it's really great to see your hosting style and how effective it has been for you in your career. I just wanted to let you know, I've moved this topic into Hosting so it will get better visibility from your peers 🙂

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Andrew395]

Thanks Steph

its interesting to read replies from other hosts.

take care

Andy

[Mark116]

@Andrew395 

1) Eh, yes and  no.  People have different likes and dislikes, some like a soft mattress, some like a hard, to me, I feel the midrange price point on a mattress with nice linens is the best option.  But, our bed frames are very attractive and high quality.

2)  No, this isn't do-able for most hosts, we do leave a lot of complimentary items for them to use, making them breakfast is not in the cards.

3)  We do offer this, it's a 15 minute drive around the neighborhood that shows guests the subway and bus stops, the grocery and the liquor store.  Not everyone takes us up on on though.

4)  We also offer this for guests staying more than 7 days, but again, a lot of people don't want you in the unit and they decline this offer.

5) No.  Never.  Just No.  It is totally unnecessary, a massive waste of water and energy.  No.  A thousand times.  Even hotels discourage this kind of waste these days.

6)  No.  I don't actually want to encourage people to stay in the apartment, I want them out sightseeing, but it might be different if we had a 'destination' type of listing, and not a listing where people are coming to see the sights out of the house.  We have one flat screen TV with many cable offerings in the living room.  I also don't want to encourage eating in the bedrooms which would happen more often if we had TVs in there. 

7)  Agree, our response time is almost always under an hour, and usually under 15 minutes.

😎  No.  I am not a maid and will not be responsible for doing people's laundry and then getting blamed because there is a spot or a tear or something.  

9) We usually leave a 'goodbye' gift of cookies or breakfast pastries and a thank you note.  And yes, this goes a long way toward getting a review and a good one.

10)  We have a binder in the apartment that has much information on our neighborhood and the sights to see in NJ and NY.

[Andrew395]

Thanks Mark for your views and perspectives, they help to form a new impression on hosting. Actually, I realise every area and guest is unique, Therefore, my advice I originally wrote relates to Bali together with the type of accommodations on offer. I should have made this the point more about Bali and related to a particular type of property and guest.

take care

Andy

[Mark116]

@Stephanie   I wrote a long reply which has disappeared?

[Stephanie]

Hi @Mark116 ,

Sorry about that, it triggered the Spam filter for some reason! I have reinstated it for you now 🙂

Thanks for flagging.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Andrew395 

what works for your beautiful villa with a swimming pool in Bali, doesn't have to work for a small apartment in a city center somewhere in the EU or USA

If the bedrooms are just 3x 2,5 m or the apartment is in the basement then it can't be a luxury accommodation regardless of the quality of the mattresses, amount of towels provided and Netflix. 

Off-site hosts can't offer breakfast.

If the grocery store is 50 m away than transport to the store is pointless

etc...

If someone can't raise the prices than he has to cut the costs.

What I want to say is - what works for you doesn't have to work for someone else, but we are glad you found your successful style.

[Andrew395]

Hi Branka and Silvia

you are correct in what you say, my short sightedness offered a blanket formula for all, not thinking carefully enough, but now I know it’s possible to keep guests happy doing what hosts know best about their own local area and matching their guests expectations.

thanks ever so much, my eyes are now open wide.

cheers

andy