How do you offer the same hosting experience with more than 1 listing?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

How do you offer the same hosting experience with more than 1 listing?

Welcome.jpg

 

Hello everyone,

 

I would hazard a guess, that here in the Community Center, quite a few of you look after more than one listing. Perhaps you have guests who share your home, plus you have an entire listing which you also rent out or perhaps you are also a co-host for another property. Maybe you have two listings inside your home. There are lots of possibilities.

 

Here in the Community Center, we regularly talk about the little extras and how you make your guests feel at home.

 

When you have more than one home to look after, how do you make sure you offer the same welcoming experience? Do you have any tips?

 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Thanks,

Lizzie


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21 Replies 21
Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Lizzie

 

I only have the one home, but I currently have three private rooms listed in my house. It's not difficult to offer the same experience here. Apart from the bedrooms, the other spaces are all shared so the guests all get the same facilities, welcome tour, standard of cleanliness etc.

 

Your question is interesting to me though because, despite the rooms being more or less the same price, one of my rooms gets much lower ratings than the other two. Currently, I have 83% 5 stars for that room, compared to 90% and 93% for the other two. The ratings for the individual star categories are all fine though, EXCEPT for Location, where there is a huge difference, i.e. currently 77% as compared to 87% and 92%. This is baffling, given that it is the SAME location! Also, the room with the lower ratings is by far the best room in the house and faces gardens rather than a busy road so, logically, should get a higher rating for Location.

 

 

I have concluded that it's nothing to do with the experience, as this is the same across the three rooms, but down to guest expectations. Guests who book the best, most luxurious room expect a fancy location (even though Location is described in the listings in the same way) and are just fussier all round. When they mark down on Location, they are also likely to mark down the Overall Experience, even if they liked everything else. It's quite frustrating really.

 

I am offing one room as of now, would like to do 2 in my house.  Do you find that guest mind sharing the house with other guest or just prefer to be the only ones ? Thank you in advance! 

great

 

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Huma, I got the same 1 entire home or 2 private room and the location rating is deference. For me it looks like a room with more peoples ( #1 max 3 guests, #2 max 5 guests ) the #2 have lower rating I assume because guest feel like it more difficult to go out and come back as they may need biggest car for all members. Another point, I found if you somehow got 4.x something in that category before when guest rating you they do follow what they saw before.

We have had exactly the same experience in our home, Huma.   I agree that some are fussier than normal, and perhaps extra tired from traveling so expect more pampering than usual.  All the best.  

 

Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

@Huma0

our experience is the same as yours.

We have  one flat divided into studio + 2 bdr apartment . we rented them separatly or together as 3 bdr apartment. Our studio has the best rating, followed by 2 bdr aparment and the worst ratings we got when we rented them together. So we delisted that option and now we rent them only separately.

I think it is because bigger groups are hard to please. And of course guests who pay more are picky.

 

 

 

@Branka-and-Silvia0

 

Yes, I guess it would make sense that the more people in the group, the more likely you are to get a fussy one amongst them and also for guests paying more, even if between them they are paying less per person. I think also that people renting a studio are simply expecting a lot less than those renting a three bed apartment.

I've found that it's all about staying on top of your tasks. The issues usually happen when you've forgotten about a check-in, broken amenity that needs fixing, guest inquiry that needs a reply etc. I use AirGMS to help me. This way I can automate some things so that I'm less likely to forget something. 

The hardest thing to manage after taking on more than one listing is making sure my guests feel attended to.  To me, Airbnb is about the personal attention you give the guests and that is most often done via messages.  The problem is, it's difficult to stay on top of all the messages while managing your other daily tasks like work.  I know there are a lot of services out there that help with automating messages and I'm sure they are all great but I've been using https://superhosttools.com for over a year and can highly recommend them.  

 

Most of my reviews mention my great communication, my guests never know that most of the messages are automated.  I send each guest a message when they book, a check-in message 2 days before they arrive, a check-up message after thier first night, a message remonding them about thier check-out and a message letting them know I left them a review.  Now that I have 6 listings, I couldn't do all though without automating it.

Thank you 

JB6
Level 4
Johnson City, TX

We have three listings, but one is fully occupied and off AirBnB for the moment.  We placed 3 cabins on our farm, and our goal was to offer some similarities but different experiences.  Our primary cabin can hold 4-5 comfortably, has a full kitchen, a back deck, and allows pets.  Our other two cabins are smaller, designed for a couple or single individual, no pets and are more isolated.  Different price points as well.  The amenities are similar, although the smaller cabins do not have a full kitchen or grill (the grill may  be added next year, since that seems to be a common request).  

I track each cabin separately, and have a separate set of common responses (initial greeting, pets/no pets statement, and two days before check-in information) for each that I keep in a spreadsheet.  However, I've avoided automated responses because guests are interested in different things (parks vs wineries, for example); some are out here as a surprise to their significant other, others are here for a birthday or anniversary, some just want to watch the stars.  So I tailor each response a little bit for those guests, but keep the overall message consistent.  

Overall, we've been able to keep the properties unique enough, yet managed them in the same way, to keep the ratings for them high.  And three, with both of us having regular jobs (and the farm) is about all we can manage in that manner.

@JB6 Hi, I really love your cabins.............did you build those yourself? They are really perfect with the tall pitch - what is the sq. ft. inside, I have a cottage in our backyard - was a funky garage when we bought our home and wanted to do my massage therapy business in the garage- it was the best thing that we could have done. 15yrs. doing therapy and now last year I converted it some and been doing Airbnb since June 2017 - with full success. Just had to ask about your sweet cabins. happy hosting, Clara

Clara - the shells are built by a company, Arched Cabins, out of Cypress, Texas. We finished them off. The small cabins are just over 300 sq feet with a 15 foot center height, while the big one (Wren) is around 600 with a loft and almost 18 high.   All metal, so they are firewise, needed here in the Hill Country. 

We’ve been doing this since 2017 as well, and really enjoy it.  Glad y’all are having fun as well - it’s interesting to see what people have turned into guest spaces!

Sharing the spaces of my house with travelers from all over the world or putting a roof over their head in apartments aroused my interest. I was immediately struck by the joyful gospel of AIRBNB.

 

For me it was a real leap into the unknown. I had no idea that this experience would change me. At first I certainly underestimated the great deal of work that requires following a plurality of short-rented properties with high turn-over.

 

But, in my case, with a beginner’s mind, there was also a crazy optimism, a partial residue of an idealistic phase of my life, but it was to a large extent the consequence of  my ignorance and of the inability to give up on the idea that I was indestructible.

 

I mean, renting rooms and apartments seemed easy, but it was a lot work to do everything right. The first months I went on the run alone, apartment to apartment, with the ardor of my work, always running behind time, late on my check-in, on the cleaning job, on the universitary lecture, on the weekend with friends, in order to ensure that my guests enjoy a high quality welcome and stay (my mission).

 

I swear with the palm of my hand firmly planted on my dog’s head. But, like a shadow, Frodo is always on the move. You want to hear the harsh truth? I had some kind of genetic mutation. I turned into Mary Poppins.

 

I never thought it would happen to me ... because in my life I’ve always had some fixed points. I’d never learned to dance, I’d never be able to put some gas in my car and above all, as far as the house is concerned, I would never do the things Mary Poppins did.

 

But no, I ended up flying on the roofs of Milan with an umbrella and a bag that weighed like a Friesian cow, inside my bag I put everything, WD-40, a pipe wrench and ductape, light bulbs, water filters, rolls of toilet paper, a little phone book with a large number of fast response craftsmen: the Airbnb host’s bag needs to be filled.

 

Look. It was not easy to make it clear to the guests that a cup in the sink does not have to remain there forever, but it is possible to wash it with a Brillo pad, that non-stick skillets are not made to draw doodles on them with a knife tip, and that the face towel should not be used for less noble and wider body parts.

 

My family imprinted me with a penchant for a systematic and regular recording of all current income and expenditure for the purpose of establishing the profit achieved by a holding. Somehow, I found out that I have a company to run and a whole world of people to host at my place.

 

I just had to apply this to the listing: maximisation of the visibility of my rooms / apartments and ads, comparison of my prices with similar hosts in my area, costs of changes of sheet and towels, number of booked rooms /apartments, profitability of each room and apartment, expenditure incurred for cleaning products, damaged goods to be replaced, utility bills and sudden and unforessen events. Documents, clipboads, lever arch files dramatically increased in my room: good order is the foundation of all good.

 

In June of the following year I started getting very tired. Day after day a lot of work: University of Milan-check-out room 3-cleaning room 3-University of Milan-check-in room 3-University of Milan-train-check-in apartment B-train-mattress. I started knowing when I had the nightmares and the bags under my eyes had bags.

 

One night I dreamed Brian Cesky. He wore the Kiss outfit and he was chasing me with a knife in his hand, it might have been my fault though, I had cooked stuffed peppers and all these peppers flopped around my stomach all night, but I realized that this kind of second job slowly ate me up.

 

It was all getting to be too much for me. And then I realized  that - if I really wanted to offer a unique experience trough impeccable service - I must have used someone I trusted, running only the households near my house personally, but always been glued to my cell phone as an oyster to its rock.

 

Remember, one small detail overlooked is enough to create an impression of poor quality. Thus, the focus should be concentrated exclusively on the guest.

 

If your guest is a foreigner who comes for a vacation, tell him of your city, what to do and where to go. And if your guest is traveling for work, give all relevant information to him about public transportation and the pizza delivery service’s phone number. If your guest shows up with a pet, give the dog or the cat something to eat, a mat or a kitty litter. They are small attentions that can let your guest know you are something more than an anonymous landlord or landlady. This, ladies and gentlemen, is added value: it’s cheap, your guest will be satisfied.