How/When to communicate house rules and send welcome letter?

Michael596
Level 2
Berkeley, CA

How/When to communicate house rules and send welcome letter?

Hi, 

We are totally new to Airbnb. However I have been reading a lot and learned of the improtance of sending out a cler welcome letter and also preparing a set of detailed house rules. 

We just got our first booking (for a week from now) and I am wondering when is the best time to send out the welcome letter and the house rules? Should I send it out right now or wait until a few days before their arrival to send the information out?

Thank you!

Michael 

14 Replies 14
Scott80
Level 10
Honolulu, HI

AirBnB automatically sends the house manual when someone books. I usually send a two-sentence 'thanks for booking' message as soon as a get a booking, then send door codes appended to the top of my house manual the day of arrival, send a 'how is it going?; message day after arrival and a 'thanks for being a great guest' message the day after departure.

 

Hi Scott, 

 

I'[m a brand new host and appreciated your sharing about this topic. How do you recommend sending an updated House Book with Codes? Do you do it using the Send Message feature of AirBnB Hosting pages?

 

Ours is about 7 pages since it has local tips and photos - is that too long to translate well into that small Message screen? Or is our book too long?

 

Thanks,

 

Allison

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Michael596

If the booking is still a while out and because guests can be extremely flakey, you could always first simply send them a 'Thank you for the booking, and I'll send you the necessary directions (or whatever) shortly before your arrival.' Just don't forget to mark that in an agenda. 

Thank you Scott and Andrea 🙂 

CarlandDiane0
Level 10
San Marcos, TX

@Michael596, congrats on your first booking! I'm sure it's just the first of many.

Some great advice here. We also send a standard confirmation message immediately after the guest books, and in that message we state that as their arrival date approaches, we'll send them directions and arrival info. (We don't call it "check-in" info because they don't need to come see us first.)

About three days ahead of their arrival, we'll send the arrival details, with the house rules at the end.

If you're using a computer instead of a mobile device, you can also create standard messages that you can save and then call up via the "Use Saved Message" feature within the Messages tab.

You'll learn a ton from your first few bookings. Our very first guest knew she was Guest No. 1 and kindly made very helpful suggestions that we implemented immediately -- things we hadn't considered but that made sense. I would encourage you to invite your guests to give you any direct feedback that would help you create a better guest experience. But when you do, ask them to message you with that info, just so they don't think you're inviting them to leave a review with a punch list of stuff they didn't like. And always take their feedback with appreciation and enthusiasm, without explanation or argument. They don't want to hear why you didn't do something they feel you should have.

We've had a great experience overall with Airbnb. The vast majority of our guests have been phenomenal people.

Have fun!

Carl and Diane

 

 

Thank you for the wondeful suggestions! 

I was not aware of the "Use Saved Message" feature within the Messages tab. I tried to look it up but could not find it. 

Can you please tell me how you get to it?

Thank you 🙂 

Michael

 

@Michael596, go to your Inbox and click on the latest message from your first guest. You then should see a quick profile of that guest on your left, and to the right is a window where you can type in your message. At the bottom of that window is a gray bar, with a white "Send Message" button to the right of that gray bar and a green "Use a Saved Message" hyperlink to the left. Click on that and it will guide you through the process of storing a basic message for later retrieval. You'll use that same hyperlink later to pull up that message, which you can then edit and personalize before you send it.

Please let me know if that doesn't make sense.

Carl and Diane

Can you share the suggestions guest #1 made?  I would be curious about the things that are forgotten or not thought of.  Thanks!

Dede0
Level 10
Austin, TX

@Michael596 In the case of most booking requests, before we approve the booking, we send the potential guest a friendly message that also contains our entire House Rules (not just the check-box "rules" that AirBnB lists) and ask that the guest acknowledge their agreement with the rules and our cancellation policy. We do that for two reasons: 1) it might weed out a guest who doesn't want to follow the rules or didn't pay attention to the cancellation policy, and 2) when they respond with a "Yes, looks fine" message, we have that exchange on record in AirBnB's message system in case it's needed later.

When the guest does respond affirmatively (almost all do), we approve the booking and then send them another friendly "Thanks for booking with us, blah, blah, blah, and we'll send you door code and parking info, etc, 7 days before your arrival".

Which, weeks or even months later, we do. (As an aside: Immediately after accepting a booking, I pop two entries into my iCal -- a reminder 7 days in advance to send the promised info to the guest, and a reminder to clean the apt on the day of their departure.)

I wouldn't, as someone else mentioned, wait until the day or arrival or even the day before, to send that sort of arrival information. For one reason, people may be traveling and not easily be able to retrieve the info. For another, guests tend to get antsy as the day approaches and they'll be inclined to bug you in advance anyway.

Note that our listing does not use the Instant Book feature. We get to approve or decline all requests. If that's not the case for your listing (I suspect that your newish listing has had Instant Book forced on it), then I'd still send the House Rules as soon as possible after the booking is made. Some guests may have missed some of the key rules, such as "Max 2 people" or "Absolutely no children" or "No Pets", etc, etc. In that case, after receiving the rules, they might choose to cancel their booking and go elsewhere.

These are great suggestions! Thank you! 

I indeed disabeled the instant booking option (being new I want to have a chance to carefully evalaute who is coming to our house) but did not think of sending the house rules before the booking! I will do that from now on 🙂 

Michael

Hi,

 

Thanks for sharing your Host tips! Do you send your House Book via the Send Message feature of the Host site, or via anonymous email to the Guest?

 

Thanks,


Allison

Linda108
Level 10
La Quinta, CA

@Michael596  How smart you are to not only read what is available on this site but also in the Help Center!  As you are experiencing, the host forum provide support and great information to those who sincerely ask IN ADVANCE rather than whining after the fact.  You will quickly develop your own hosting style and "rules".  Even now, I like to ask my guests to put on their "picky hat" so I can get down to the details of the guest experience.  Have you used Air BNB as a traveler?  If not, I would highly recommend that you do so.  

 

As part of my welcome message, I usually ask for the ETA and comment that I want to introduce them to my "co-host" Cami my dog.  I do that to again alert the guest to the dog and to emphasize that I provide an individualized experience in my private room.  As to house rules, I also provide a hard copy of the rules, using a bullet style rather than a long narrative, on the welcome letter that gives the Wifi log in information as well.  The letter is in a large notebook that has many maps and brochures about resources here in my town and in the desert valley in general.

Does anyone know if we could send automated messages 2 days prior to check in?

A welcome letter template drafted by my friend who is a host from Miami. Hopefully helpful. Wish you have more guests visit and reviews. If you want the two-page word version, you could definitely go to his start-up website to sign up and get it.  

 

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