Guiding Airbnb Guest: 10 Tips to Craft the Perfect Customer Journey

Creating a great customer experience for your Airbnb guest is an absolute must for every vacation rental manager and Airbnb host. Whenever you book a guest, your reputation is on the line and you absolutely want to deliver the best possible experience. A perfect Airbnb customer journey is critical to your success as an Airbnb host.

Throughout the customer journey, your Airbnb guest will have numerous encounters with you, from their initial booking inquiries to actually staying at your home. Your guests need to effortlessly enjoy their stay, which increases their satisfaction and ultimately the money that you make.

Here are 10 tips to help you craft the perfect Airbnb customer journey that you can use to wow every guest that stays at your property.

1. Write Thorough Listing Descriptions

When you create a listing for your property you’ll want to make sure that it has full information and a complete amenities list. Ensure that you don’t leave any aspect of your property to the imagination, by mentioning even the most minute details.

What this does is helps your Airbnb guest to draw a mental picture of what a stay at your property will be like since photos can’t always fully describe the experience. It also gives them an opportunity to decide whether they will be satisfied with what your property has to offer or if they should look elsewhere for accommodations.

Finally, thorough listing descriptions also help your Airbnb guest to believe that you will be a good host. When you take the time to write a good listing description, you show that you are concerned about providing quality service.

2. Set Expectations For Detailed House Rules

When you draw up the house rules for your property, you want to set expectations clearly, especially when it comes to the check-in procedures. A lot of guests think that it’s okay to show up at just any old time as if you’re going to be available 24/7.

This mindset comes from the idea that a lot of guests have that using Airbnb is just like booking a hotel. Since they can show up at a hotel whenever they want, they have the expectations that their Airbnb hosts should offer the same flexibility.

Be clear about what time is appropriate for check-in (e.g. no late night hours) and include this in your welcome email. You may also want to send the house rules to your guests via email before they show up.

4. Provide Directions to your Airbnb Guest

Don’t let your Airbnb guest get lost on the way to your place by telling them to look it up with the GPS. By providing directions to your property, you’ll show an extra level of service. You can use Google Maps to send them the step by step directions or a URL link to Google Maps directions via text, email, or Airbnb message. You can also take a screenshot using your phone and just text them the image.

5. Share House Tips

Your guests have never been to your property before. Make it more inviting by leaving a welcome message that provides the answers to FAQs, such as where common amenities can be found in your home. Although it might seem trivial, make sure to write tips down like, “The light switch to the bedroom is behind the door.” To keep your Airbnb guest safe, share emergency phone numbers, the locations of fire extinguishers and fire alarms, and emergency exit routes.

7. Leave Tourist Guides

If you have guests who travel to your area on vacation, you can make them feel welcome by leaving tourist guides. A guide to local restaurants, coffee shops, parks, and other local attractions is extremely helpful. You can also include recommended links to online tourist guides in your welcome email.

8. Create a List of Fun Things to Do

If your Airbnb guest arrives early, you can also leave him a list of fun things to do around your neighborhood. This will help to get him acquainted with your city and will make staying at your place a bit more exciting for them. For example, you might suggest listening to live music at a local cafe, checking out a museum, going on a bar crawl or going kayaking at the park.

9. Respond Airbnb Guest Inquiries Quickly

When your guests need help, they expect a prompt response. Make sure that you provide a fast response to all guest inquiries. To improve response rate and response time, make sure to also accept or decline reservation requests within 24 hours.

This is important because your response rate can impact your position in Airbnb’s search results. In addition, responses after 24 hours count as a late response, which will decrease your response rate and increase your response time.

10. Set Up Airbnb Automatic Messages

Make sure to set up automatic messages. You can do this easily with vacation rental software such as iGMS. iGMS has all the templates for you, from welcome emails to ‘thank you for staying’ messages. Users are also able to create automated ‘trigger’ messages that can be scheduled to be sent to visitors on a certain date and time.

Now you have all components to make the journey of your Airbnb guest as good as possible.