2. Implement automated check-in and check-out
The check-in and check-out processes are two of the most underrated aspects of the guest experience. A smooth and convenient check-in process creates a great first impression, setting a pleasant tone for your guest’s stay, and a seamless check-out process finishes off their stay positively.
But for a vacation rental homeowner, streamlining every inch of check-in and check-out is never easy. What if there was an easy solution to eliminate any friction from these processes? The good news: there is.
62% of travelers prefer checking in and out via a mobile app. Use this to your advantage by automating the process with contactless check-in software from a company like Operto. The better news? Jetstream integrates with Operto, so you get all the benefits of self-check-in and 24/7 support from a guest-facing team to handle any hiccups.
Getting automated will save you time and effort while giving your customers all the information they need upfront, and more flexibility to plan their arrival and departure. Here’s how:
- Welcome email. Set up an email sequence to welcome guests at the start of their stay. Include details like location map, neighborhood, nearby parking, your contact information, and commute options. Send this email a day before their arrival.
- Smart lock. Install smart locks to give guests the convenience of entering the property themselves whenever they arrive. Grant access a few hours before their check-in time and let them enter with a simple code. The keyless access feature on Jetstream offers the ease of checking in and out with a one-time passcode delivered to the guests’ phones.
- Thank you email. As the check-out date approaches, send guests a thank you email giving clear instructions about the check-out process, like a link for them to clear the dues. Make the process as hassle-free as possible, listing a few easy steps to complete the check-out.
3. Pick a calendar management system
Managing a vacation rental property yourself means you handle marketing and sales, optimize listings and distribution, and oversee guest communication, among tens of other things.
With so many moving parts in the process, it's only natural to make an error in updating your booking calendar. But this error can result in double bookings, costing you both money and reputation.
Enter the calendar management system: a simple solution automatically updating your availability calendar based on bookings across multiple channels. This tool is available as a feature in most vacation rental management software and even as stand-alone apps.
Here’s how you can benefit from a calendar management tool:
- Prevent double bookings that force guests to cancel and change their plans, potentially spoiling your reputation.
- Centralize operations and stay on top of all your bookings in real-time through a single dashboard instead of manually juggling between platforms.
- Notify your maintenance staff about all the bookings beforehand to ensure proper cleanliness before every stay.
- Proactively plan your marketing and sales strategy based on current and projected demand.
A calendar management system makes life easy for vacation rental owners like you, eliminating the scope for mismanagement and overbooking.
4. Leverage dynamic pricing
For many travelers, booking a stay with you boils down to the pricing. Price is arguably one of the most critical factors in your guest’s decision-making process. So, setting competitive prices is the only way to find the sweet spot between high costs that kill demand and low prices that lose money for you.
But manually changing your prices to strike this balance anytime demand rises or dips is far too much work for one person. This is where dynamic pricing can be a game-changer.
Dynamic pricing algorithms measure demand and calculate the best price based on your set parameters. Jetstream’s integration with Wheelhouse intelligently analyzes the market conditions to pick the best price for your property. The tool estimates the nightly rate based on various parameters, like seasonality, events, and demand.
A dynamic pricing tool helps:
- Maximize revenue by predicting demand and setting high/low prices accordingly
- Make pricing decisions more efficient, saving you the headache of changing prices manually
- Increase occupancy and secure a higher number of bookings to maintain consistency every month
- One-up your competition and gain an edge over them
Let’s understand how dynamic pricing works with an example.
Your property is often booked out for the weekend. So, the base price is naturally high. Let’s consider that a few holidays will fall in mid-week next month. The demand is projected to be high around that time. Your dynamic pricing tool will factor in this anomaly to raise the prices for that week way before the month even starts.
5. Automate and manage guest communications
Maintaining seamless communication with your guests is a huge part of managing their expectations. You have to meet them where they are and understand their needs beforehand to deliver a top-notch experience, starting with effortless communication.
Make it easy for guests to reach you even before finalizing a booking. Here are a few ways you can use automation to streamline and step up your guest communication:
- Create FAQs and guides to answer common guest queries with a short response time
- Make personalized message templates to help guests at every step of the booking process and during their stay
- Use a property management tool like Jetstream to set up triggers for guest communication, like when they check-in, a day after they've checked in, etc.
- Set automated messages for operational purposes like booking confirmation, pre-arrival check-in, and upselling opportunities
Managing guest communication can quickly become overwhelming, especially in the peak season. If done wrong, it can lead to negative reviews and bring down your ratings. So, whether you're maintaining a single property or multiple, try to automate as many aspects of guest communication as possible.
It’s a huge task to manage your vacation rentals on your own. Team up with Jetstream for 24/7 guest communications, seamless channel distribution, and 100% less hassle.
