Guest Experience: What Is It and How Can You Enhance It?

When running a vacation rental, making your guests happy is crucial for your business success. Happy guests are more likely to book your place next time and leave great reviews that can help you get more bookings.

As an STR host, you should do your best to provide exceptional guest experience throughout their journey to leave a lasting impression on travelers and drive repeat direct bookings and word-of-mouth referrals.

What Is Guest Experience and Why Is It Important?

Guest experience refers to a guest's interactions and impressions with you as a host. It spans from the initial booking process to the moment when they leave. Guest experience encompasses all aspects of a guest's stay, including

• Their booking experience
• Your communication with them via messages before they arrive and throughout their stay
• A seamless check-in process that sets the tone for the entire stay
• The interior design of your rental space
• The amenities you offer to ensure a comfortable stay
• Cleanliness of your vacation rental property—that's why you should rely on the best practices to ensure that your rental space is spotlessly clean
• A clear and simple check-out process
• The overall level of service your guests receive.

Guest experience can make or break your STR business. The vacation rental industry is becoming more and more competitive. More businesses emerge every day, and potential guests have many options when choosing what listing to book to stay during their holidays or business trips.

So, if you want to keep your rental space booked throughout the season, you need to have high ratings and excellent reviews from previous guests. Remember that most travelers will make their final decision on where to stay, taking into account other guests' experiences.

That means providing a great guest experience from booking to check-out should be at the forefront of everything you do as a host. Focusing on this important aspect of running a short-term rental property will be much easier if you automate your hosting routine using vacation rental software like Hospitable.

What Is Contactless Guest Experience?

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, contactless technology has become a norm in the hospitality industry, and the concept of an utterly contactless guest experience has become a prominent trend. It's all about using innovative technology solutions that minimize or eliminate the need for face-to-face interactions between guests and hosts to enhance the guest experience. Simply, it's about allowing guests to do everything they can during their stay with their smartphones.

Modern tech-savvy travelers seek simplified experiences and expect technology to streamline their stay. For example, they expect instant actions like a self-check-in, where they can conveniently gain access to a place via a smart lock without needing a host to be there, and a simple check-out. They also expect fast and convenient communication with their host when they need to get the necessary information.

Remember that guest preferences constantly change, so staying on top of current trends is essential. You should always strive to improve your processes to meet new guest needs and expectations, increase guests' satisfaction, and win their loyalty.

Using contactless technology solutions, you can deliver a more personalized experience that today's guests want and improve their stay. This will give you a competitive advantage over hosts who lag in technological advancements since guests expect high-tech resources while traveling in today's digital world.

Guest Experience Software

The vacation rental industry is shifting from manual to automated business operations, allowing hosts and property managers to provide guests with a comfortable and enjoyable experience. Guest experience software makes it possible to automate daily repetitive tasks and enhance guest experience because technologies streamline processes and save time and effort. It also helps transform the entire guest journey from a standard procedure into a unique, personalized experience.

For example, vacation rental software like Hospitable can help you operate more efficiently when managing bookings, syncing calendars and prices across all your channels, including your direct booking website, and assigning tasks to your team. It will allow you to welcome your guests remotely, offer a smooth and swift self-check-in process, and ensure effective communication with them from booking inquiries to check-out.

With Hospitable, you can automate guest messaging at all customer journey stages and be sure that your guests always receive the information they need at the right time. You can use our pre-built message templates that cover every stage of the message flow or build your own and personalize them for each guest using shortcodes. You can also create messaging rules to schedule your messages before and after significant milestones of the guest journey stages.

You may find it helpful to check out our blog article, where we share some essential message templates to help you effectively communicate with your guests. You can customize them to your property and include them in your message flow.

Hospitable's messaging system is powered by AI and can detect questions from your guests on more than 20 common topics. It will use your pre-written responses and answer these questions on your behalf almost instantly.

You can also benefit from Hospitable's integration with ChatGPT, which will help you quickly draft thoughtful messages to guests when responding to unusual requests or provide detailed local recommendations based on the guests' specific needs. It's a sure way to enhance guest experience and improve your operational efficiency.

Let's see how Hospitable's messaging functionality can help you create a personalized guest experience for each guest during all stages of the customer journey and make them feel cared for.

Imagine that a traveler was choosing a place to stay from several listings, including yours that you manage with Hospitable, and sent a message to each host to find out more details about parking. Even though it was late at night, the potential guest got your response within a minute and chose your listing.

After the guest booked your place, they instantly received a thank-you message to confirm their reservation. The message also contained a link to a guest portal where guests could choose add-on services and amenities for an additional fee. (Learn more in the help article).

Two days before the arrival, the guest got a welcome message with detailed check-in instructions and a memorable access code to a door lock (these were the last four digits of the guest's phone number).

Since you were going to host a group of three people in a one-bedroom apartment, a day before the arrival, the guest got a message with clear instructions on how to use the sofa bed. There was also a link to a digital guidebook, which you created using Hospitable's integration with Touch Stay. The guest was happy they could find answers to common questions, local recommendations, and other essential information in one place.

Shortly after the check-in, the guests sent you a message asking for recommendations on where to eat and got a response with restaurant recommendations within two minutes (canned response).

When your guests ask you what public transportation to use to get to a specific street in your city, they soon get a message from you with a detailed answer to their question. ChatGPT generated the draft response, and you just edited it and then sent it manually.

On Wednesday evening, your guest got a message that reminded them to take the trash out on Thursday morning. (You can schedule a message for a specific day of the week.)

Two days before the planned departure, the guests got a message asking them if they'd like to stay at your place for two more days at the discounted price. The guest accepted the offer since they enjoyed their stay very much.

The day before departure, the guest got a reminder about the check-out time and instructions.

The guest was in a hurry on the day of their departure and forgot to leave you a review. After two days, they got a polite reminder asking them to leave a review for their stay.

All these messages were sent to the guest automatically, so you didn't have to do anything except create the one with the help of ChatGPT. When manually messaging your guest, you may click the Generate Response button, reread and edit the draft if necessary, and then click Send.

Final Thought

Guest experience is a crucial factor in a guest's decision to return to a vacation rental property in the future and recommend it to their friends and family. That's why it's essential to provide a safe and welcoming environment where guests can feel at home away from home and use technology to streamline processes and ensure perfect communication. This way, you can create a memorable and enjoyable experience for all your guests.