Engaging Your Guests Before They Arrive With the iGMS Check-in Form

The guest experience begins even before a guest arrives at your property. This means that it is crucial that you learn more about guests’ expectations in advance. In the vacation rental industry, it is usually called the “pre-arrival” experience. In order to get ready for any special requests from your guests, we have created a customizable Check-in Form that will significantly improve your guest experience.

If you are not with iGMS yet, we invite you to join our hosting community and try the Check-in Form yourself. Don’t miss out!

What is the Guest Experience and Why Is It so Important?

Guest experience is a general term that is widely used in the hospitality industry, and it can also be applied to vacation rental businesses. It describes all the events and interactions that leave an impression on the guest during their stay. This could be anything from their communication with staff, check-in and checkout experiences, and overall enjoyment while staying at your property. 

If you think about the guest experience and try to do your best to make it as smooth as possible, you’re more likely to see returning guests, more revenue, 5-star reviews, and enjoy a better reputation.

Enhance Your Guest Experience With the iGMS Check-in Form

Manually collecting guest information can be quite a repetitive and tedious task. However, with iGMS, you can send a fully customizable form to each guest and collect all the necessary information.

For example, you can ask your guests about the purpose of their visit, whether they need a parking space or not, if they have accessibility or any other specific needs. How you set up your property should always depend on the information you have learned from the guest, and that’s when a Check-in Form can help you. Providing a few personal recommendations about the places to visit, or highlighting a few things to entertain children, shows that you are treating each guest individually and always think about how to improve their experience.

But the check-in form is not only about guests. It’s about your property, too! It also protects your rentals from damages, and you, as a property manager, from unnecessary headaches. For that purpose, we have added an option to upload a legal agreement that your guests can sign when filling in the form.

Why Do You Need a Legal Agreement and How Can It Help Protect Your Rentals?

If you’re renting your property through sites like Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com, you might not need an additional agreement for your guests. These property rental sites have their own vacation rental agreements that are written into their terms and conditions. However, if you’re hosting guests outside of a third-party platform, such as a direct booking site, the legal agreement is vital. 

The agreement makes sure that the renters have actually read your conditions and house rules for their stay, and reduces the risk of potential damage, a disagreement, or miscommunication.

With iGMS, you can now create and send rental agreements to the guests. Moreover, if you rent your properties for more than 28 days, you can create a special long-term agreement that will be automatically applied to all reservations that are longer than 28 days.

How Do Hosts Benefit From a Check-in Form?

The Check-in Form will help you protect your rentals by verifying a guest’s identity and sending them a rental agreement. If you don’t have your own website and prefer advertising your property only on Airbnb or Vrbo, the additional rental agreement might not be required. However, it’s always a great idea to have extra legal protection when a dispute comes up. 

The Check-in Form is also fully customizable and you can hide or show any sections or questions. For example, if you prefer not to ask your guests about the purpose of their visit, you can skip this question in just one click.

Moreover, you can create a separate Check-in Form for each property, which would be extremely helpful in case you rent out villas with some specific house rules or any special venues.

Want to see everything in action? You are welcome to join our weekly live webinars and ask any questions. Stay tuned for more awesome updates to come!