[00:00:02] This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
[00:00:16] Short Term Rental Management.
[00:00:19] Gonna talk about some inbox stuff today. A couple interesting things in my inbox this morning and wanted to bring them up.
[00:00:28] First one is I had a guest that keeps saying she wants to. Wants us to call her.
[00:00:36] Can somebody call me? Can somebody call me? And she's not liking the AI messages that are writing her back.
[00:00:42] And then so finally things are a little weird over here. We got a couple people off for certain reasons and this and that and the other. So I'm just diving a little deeper into my inbox than I normally would.
[00:00:54] And so come to find out she's booked dates that she doesn't want. She says, I see that May 31 through June 4 are available. Is there any way I can move the reservation to those dates at the same rate? That's the kicker.
[00:01:13] And she doesn't quite understand that she can just change her dates because she wants. She wants the price of these other dates that are less valuable dates. They're less desirable dates. So of course it was less expensive. She's actually booked for.
[00:01:27] Sorry, I'm clicking around on thousand things. She's booked May 4th through May 8th. These are not desirable dates.
[00:01:34] It's a Monday in the beginning of May. Not desirable. She's looking for the 1st of June.
[00:01:40] And she's changed the. She's tried to change the dates twice. Actually. There's another one that says June 4th through the 8th. And then there's May 31st through June 4th. I can't even keep up at this point. But you know, we're like, hey, you just change your dates to whatever you want them to be and you don't even need us for that, you know. But I'm almost getting to the point where I'm like, did she book these cheap dates on purpose so that she could like complain that the other dates that she actually wants are more expensive? I mean, do you go to the, do you go to the grocery store and, you know, check expiration dates and, and complain about the prices of this, that and the other? You know, it's a similar thing here.
[00:02:23] So I don't get it. But she's supposed to check in in like a week and she's like all upset about it. She's sending cry face after cry face emoji, blah, blah, blah.
[00:02:40] So that's interesting. I've never seen that one before. I am going to go ahead as always, assume that she's being truthful and she just booked the wrong dates. But, but now the problem is is the dates she actually wants are quite a bit more expensive. And she was like oh man, these are a great deal. And now I'm happy. I booked my, the house I wanted, I got the price I wanted. She got it for cheap.
[00:03:01] What did she pay? Let's see, this house was $242 a night for beautiful 3,000 square foot house a couple blocks from the beach in Destin with a private brand new private pool.
[00:03:17] And the dates she actually wants are probably double what she booked. So am I saying she booked the cheap dates so that she could complain and get the dates she actually wants for the same price?
[00:03:29] No.
[00:03:31] Although you never can put too much past people. But what I am saying is that now when she goes to change the dates to the date she actually wants and sees that it's twice as expensive, she's never going to be happy with this house.
[00:03:45] She's going to complain and complain and complain because she thought she was getting it for 1300 bucks. And it's actually supposed to be more like probably, probably pushing 3,000 for the date she's looking for. You know, maybe, maybe 20, 2500.
[00:03:59] I didn't check but I know it's going to be more expensive. Hell, I know it's more expensive because she's telling me it's going to be more expensive. So she's already played around with changing these dates and then she wants to get us on the phone and plead her case as to why she should get it for the same price.
[00:04:14] Interesting. Never seen that move before, I don't think.
[00:04:16] And again, I don't think it's a move. I think she's just, at this point, you know, we're going to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that they're honest. And I think that now she's just disappointed that she's not getting the house she wanted in the location she wanted and the date she wanted for the price that she thought she was going to get. Unfortunately, this program has been brought to you by the Short Term Shop.
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[email protected] want to throw another one at you. We've got a new. It's actually coming through Host Buddy again here at Short Term Rental Management, the Short term shop. We do not do any sort of affiliate codes or anything like that. Very proud of that. So nothing but honest opinions.
[00:05:37] But I do use those, buddy. And we, we set up a. They call them journeys and here's how it's going down. It's actually really cool. You know, we've gotten. This year has been rampant with early check in. Early check in or everybody wants early check in. Like everybody. Worse than it's ever been. I don't know why.
[00:05:54] And it's fine. We've got our systems in place, we've got the auto messages in the AI and all that stuff. We don't really have to deal with it.
[00:06:02] But it's been happening so much we kind of tried something new and here's what it is. I'll actually read you these messages again. They're coming from my AI.
[00:06:13] It's an automated message here from AI that says hey, hey, so and so. We won't use your name. We are so excited for your stay. If you'd like to get settled a bit earlier this Thursday, we can arrange a 12pm Check in for an additional fee of $120.
[00:06:29] Let us know if you'd like us.
[00:06:32] If you would like to add this.
[00:06:34] I'm trying to figure out where we came up with that number. So that's four hours prior to actual check in.
[00:06:40] That's $30 an hour I would guess is where we got that from. And we're just playing around with this. So the dollar figure, you know, that's open to interpretation. I would say that's a little high. I think 100 would be more realistic. And also keep in mind that the AI realized that, that the night before was empty.
[00:06:57] I would assume because we can't offer them 4 hour early check in unless the previous night was empty. So the AI picked up on that.
[00:07:05] Did what again, Host Buddy calls it a journey where it said, okay, the night before this day is open, let's go ahead and offer them early check in for 30 bucks an hour for four hours total at $120.
[00:07:17] She said no thanks. That was it. Two words, no thanks. We said no problem. We look forward to seeing you for your 4pm check in this Thursday. Please, please let us know if you have any questions. I like this. I think we could lower that price though.
[00:07:30] But it is, it's a lot to coordinate. You have to get the cleaner in there the day before or early that morning, you know, and you got to pay attention to that because your iCal is not necessarily going to show an early check in. I mean, there's probably a way to automate that. I haven't really looked into that, but we would have to manually coordinate that with the cleaners, et cetera. So for 120 bucks, sure, we'll do that.
[00:07:56] But she turned it down, which also is an excellent way for them. You're getting upstream of it. You're saying, okay, you know what? Everybody's asking me for early check in. How do we fix that? Well, we can say, hey, guess what, we've got it available.
[00:08:10] It's going to cost you 100 bucks. 100. Well, in this case, 120, you know, so I thought that was pretty cool. And we did. Again, all of that was automated. We didn't do anything there as far as communicating with the guests. It was all done with our AI.
[00:08:27] Pretty cool little move.
[00:08:31] All right, perfect timing. We just heard back from that first guest I was talking about and she's actually being very sweet. She said the price difference is way too much for me to change the dates. Is there any way to get a full refund?
[00:08:43] She is 1112 days before check in, so she's not entitled to a full refund, but we're going to give it to her. So I said, you can, yes, we can extend a one time courtesy. If you go ahead and get it canceled now, it will tell you no refund because you're past your cancellation policy, but we will override that once you've canceled. This is a valuable lesson for newbs.
[00:09:10] If you tell a guest they can have a full refund and they are past cancellation policy and they go to cancel, it will say, sorry, you can't have a refund because they're past cancellation policy.
[00:09:22] And then they basically have to trust you when you tell them that you will override that once they've canceled and send them a full refund. And sometimes they don't. And then sometimes they'll call the platform and that gets complicated. It's a pain in the rear end. Then the platform's contacting you and this, that and the other.
[00:09:42] But you could also say something like, this is our verbal, this is our written, you know, writ, written proof that we will go ahead and give you a full refund once you have canceled, basically.
[00:09:58] So that's probably what she's going to say next. She's going to say, even though I told her this, she's going to say, well, when I go to cancel, it tells me I won't get a refund. Yes, because you're past your cancellation policy, but we can and will override that for you as a one time courtesy.
[00:10:14] All right, news update. She canceled.
[00:10:18] Thought I made a reservation for blah, blah, blah, wrong dates, and then she canceled. And then she said exactly what I was going to say. Although normally they say it before they cancel. She said, so it only shows that I got $932 booking credit. Is that going to change? Yes. We already told you we would override that and give you a full refund. So that happens over and over and over and over and over again. You're going to get that a million times. Just part of the business.
[00:10:40] And that is a point that I want to make today. Here's the deal. You cannot get sick of things that happen over and over again. All you can do is just keep the emotions out of it and just say yes.
[00:10:55] Avery always says, put the fries in the bag.
[00:10:58] I love that. I love that. It's like you're at the drive through and they're talking your ear off or something. Not that I would ever go to the drive through and get french fries, but dude, just put the fries in the bag. You know what I mean? Just give me what I want.
[00:11:15] So anyway, put the fries in the bag.
[00:11:18] Keep the emotions out of it. It doesn't matter, man. You're just somebody in the middle that's playing goalie or whatever between guest and protocol, you know, and pretty much as simple as that. So we got her taken care of. It's unfortunate she booked the wrong dates and then realized that what she's actually trying to book is more expensive and then than what she's looking to spend. So feel bad for her, but what can you do?
[00:11:45] We went above and beyond. You know what? We didn't have to give her money back. She's. She's like 11 days, 12 days before check in, cancellation policies gone. You know, so we went above and beyond, gave her a full refund, and that's about all there is to it, so. But I do like that little. That little, hey, would you like to check in at noon for $120 thing? That's pretty cool. And we've been doing that on our AI but anyway, short term rental management with Luke. I love you.
[00:12:14] Enjoy your summ.
