How To Get Better Vacation Rental Reviews!
A property can have beautiful architecture with all of the fixings but an owner may still face issues getting bookings if there are no reviews. Most online shoppers are influenced by the reviews that they read so it’s incredibly important to have good reviews that showcase and confirm the quality of the rental. In this article, we will go over how to gain better reviews on vacation rentals to help boost revenues.
Why Are Reviews Important?
People get influenced each day throughout their lives from the opinions of other people. When was the last time you tried out a restaurant or a new TV show because a friend made a suggestion or your read a review? Social influence can come in handy when you’re trying to gain more profit from your vacation rental. People want to know that other people enjoyed their stay before deciding on renting your property. While pictures may speak a thousand words, reviews display a more concrete image of what a potential guest will be in for when renting the vacation property. Good reviews give people validation that the host is someone they can trust. This also allows hosts to charge a higher rate per night because it shows that the rental is worth the price.
Want a 5-star Review? Be open to Feedback!
The first thing that you should review when trying to develop better reviews for your vacation property is to look through the feedback you have been given about the property. Not all of your reviews have to be 5-stars but it’s important that most display something worth stating that adds to the understanding of the rental. It’s important that your reviews also display something that the reviewer found satisfying about their visit. If there were issues during their stay, it’s also important that you tried to fix specific issues so that they don’t repeat in the future. Just remember that it is not professional to contact guests after their stay, especially if they already left a review.
Make sure to ask for a review from your guests right after they check out from the vacation rental. This means that they will have their stay fresh in their mind. It’s also the most appropriate time to request a review and won’t make you look like you’re overstepping. Most guests will agree to leave a review about their stay. You can add a check-out message that kindly asks for the guest to leave a review, even mentioning how it helps improve the status of your rental and attract future guests. If you wait until the guest is back home to request a review, their trip is most likely far from their memory and they’re too business getting back into their regular routine.
You also want it to be easy for guests to leave a review, so include a link in the checkout message or instructions in your guidebook to allow them to leave a review. Certain platforms like Airbnb, where you can list your vacation rental make it very easy for guests to leave a review for the places that they stay.
You should make it a point to hold yourself to the same rules and review your guests they same day they check out. Guests gain bonuses and the ability to rent from more places when they get good reviews from hosts. After completing your inspection, leave a review and notify your guests that you did so. Most platforms won’t allow guests to see the reviews that hosts leave them until they leave a review about their stay as well. This will make the guests curious about when your review is and compel them to write their own if they haven’t already.
Make sure that if you’re using multiple platforms to list your vacation rental, that you sync all of the reviews that you have together. You don’t want to have a bunch of positive reviews on one platform that people won’t see unless they go to that specific platform. Hostfully makes it easy for hosts to sync reviews from multiple platforms easily. This also allows property owners to access reviews to present on the vacation rental’s own site.
Another thing that can be helpful for vacation rental owners who want to generate better reviews is to get VBAGs which provide linens and other toiletries to make it easy to provide the essentials for your guests. VBAGS are available at Maid2CleanLLC.com/vbags and are the last step to creating a stay that will qualify for a high-rated review.