When you’re looking for a place to stay out of town, what is one of the first things you look at? Reviews, right? People want to make sure that a rental property has good reviews. So, how do you make sure your property has positive reviews online?
Make sure guests have a reason to review
Before you can expect your guests to give you good reviews, you need to ensure they have a reason to. Your property should be well-maintained. In addition, you should offer amenities and be available to answer any questions. Also, make sure your listing clearly and accurately describes your property. A guest will quickly give a poor review if the listing makes your property sound better than it really is.
Ask for reviews
Go ahead and ask for reviews. After a guest has left your property, send them an email a few days later and ask them to please leave a review. You can even provide a quick survey for them to take via email. The survey could include just a couple of questions, a star system for ranking their satisfaction and a blank section for additional information they’d like to provide. You can also ask guests to review you on Facebook or a third-party site.
Thank visitors for leaving positive reviews
When potential guests are looking for a place to book and they’re reading reviews, they’ll be impressed by responses from the property owner. If you thank past visitors for reviewing your property, it can boost repeat bookings.
Anytime you see a positive review, thank the guest for leaving it. You can also throw in a little compliment about how you appreciated what a wonderful guest they were and that you hope they come back. You may even want to reach out to guests via email to offer a special incentive for them to refer others to your property.
Respond to negative reviews
If you receive a negative review, make sure to respond in a timely manner. It’s not unusual to get an occasional negative review. The good thing is you can learn from it and even potentially flip it back to a positive review. Start by knowing the difference between a situation you can fix and one you cannot. Whatever you do, don’t respond to negative reviews when emotions are high. Otherwise, your feelings may do the talking. You need to represent yourself as a professional when you respond to reviews.
Try to handle these discussions in person. For example, you can respond to a negative review by apologizing and asking the guest to give you a call or email. This allows you to address the situation with the guest privately and determine if there is a way to resolve it while improving guest satisfaction.
You can then go back to the review and comment and say something about what you’ve done to resolve it, like “thank you for reaching out to us directly. We are glad that we were able to help resolve the issue by…” This can show anyone reading the review that you care about your guests’ satisfaction. In some situations, a guest may go back and provide a better review after you’ve worked with them regarding their concerns.
Use feedback to improve offerings
One of the cool things about feedback, positive or negative, is that you can use it to improve your property. You’ll learn what guests like, love or dislike. Then you can use that information to make updates to help you get more bookings in the future.
Guest reviews can make a big difference in your occupancy rates, which is why it’s so important to take them seriously. We hope these tips will help you keep guests satisfied and receive more positive reviews.
If you’d like to take it a step further, we invite you to connect with us: https://www.propertymanagementinc.com/. At PMI, we pride ourselves on doing everything we can to make sure your investment is a success and that your guests stay happy.
