[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is short term rental management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
Short term rental management. It is a great day for an awesome day, man. I'm grateful to be here. I love you, and I've got a microphone and a big mouth, so it's gonna be good time. Please leave my podcast a five star review. Please, please, please.
We are in the review business. It would be much appreciated if you could hit me with a quick five star there on Apple podcasts or wherever you may be listening. Today we're going to talk about reviews. Matter of fact, I recently had a podcast on having a bad review removed and actually listening to my own podcast. I'm going to admit that on the air. I don't think you should do that, but I'm admitting it.
And I thought to myself, well, man, what if they deserve this bad review? Cause sometimes you can't be all perfect all the time, right? So today we're gonna talk about whether you deserved it or not and how to mitigate and handle bad reviews on short term rental management with Luke Karl.
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You got a bad review. Guess what? You deserved it. All right, well, maybe not all the time, but listen, you can learn a lot from these bad reviews. And the thing is, is that, you know, we're in the review business here, and it is. It is very stressful because it's like our. Sometimes we feel, especially when we're new, like our life is on the line. Oh, my goodness. I just got a bad review. I'm never going to get another booking. How could this be? My family's never going to love me. And, oh, my goodness, I'm letting everybody down. And, you know, to a certain extent, a lot of that is true. Of course, you get to the point where you've been doing this long enough and you just don't care anymore. Of course I care. I do care. I've got systems in place now where I don't even really look at my reviews that much. And they. They just rock. You know, I do look at my properties. I go to my properties. I think that's extremely important. You can't know what kind of product you're offering if you're not walking through it, sleeping in it. And I do that as much as I can. You know, sometimes it only happens once a year, but if you're never, ever, ever going to your property and you're just relying on photos and videos, you know, to a certain extent, that's okay. But, man, you just can't get the vibe. You know, there's a vibe in a home. There's, there's like a.
You can just feel it in the air. Sometimes you're like, man, I need to open these doors and get the vibe out of here, you know, like, I like to do that every spring. Open the front door and the back door. Just let the vibe out, exercise the home, get out the, get out the spirits or whatever it is, you know, just making things up at this point. That is a thing, though, where people in the springtime open up all the windows and let the house breathe. And I'm one of those people. I love having fresh air running through the house. And, you know, I like the fact that I can go and touch and feel and smell a house. You can't smell a house on a picture. So get over there, man. Because you might have a little bit of a. Because, you know, your cleaner might be the cleanest person in the, in the world, but she might have a funk and she doesn't know people that have a funk. They don't know they've got it. You know, it's not like I'm walking around and I smell bad and I don't care. I don't know that it's happening. You ever been to somebody's house and they have six dogs and you're like, oh, my goodness, it stinks in here, and they have no idea that could be your house. If you haven't been to your house in two years and your cleaners got six dogs, you never know. You know, I like to carry, I like to have room sprays available if needed. I like these yankee candle room sprays. You can get them on Amazon. I usually like to get the apple because it's like, you know, a scent that almost everybody's, it's universally loved. Who doesn't love an apple smell, you know, especially in the fall? So I keep those around. I try to keep one in the bathroom. I keep a couple in the owner's closet just in case. I do ask my cleaner to spread. And again, this is a terrible. I should not even be talking about this because there's a hundred people that are going to say, oh, man, I hate it when there's fragrances in the home. It gives me a, a migraine headache anytime I go to a home and there's been a room spray or an air freshener, you know. But anyway, devil's advocate, I suppose. So, long story short, you know, go visit your homes as much as possible. Here's, here's a story. You know, it's all, I've been doing it a long time. All I can do is tell my stories and hopefully that gives, provides you some value. I remember one time I walked in one of my houses, inspected the hot tub. It's a newer home. I don't remember. This was a couple of years ago. Now. I don't remember the actual details, but I do remember that it was a situation where the guest decided that the hot tub wasn't clean and they wanted a refund. That's never happened to you, right?
Well, if it hasn't, it will. And the funny thing is, is I was there the day before the day of check in. Actually, I was there to like about two and a half hours before check in. And I was smart enough to take pictures. And my cleaner always does a very, my cleaners do a great job of taking pictures of everything because quite frankly, it's a great way for them to cover their ass, you know. But I had pictures of this hot tub from two and a half hours before this guest checked in. And luckily, of course, I was able to get ahead of it and send them over to the platform and say, hey, this guest is getting weird about the hot tub, but I was literally just there and inspected it myself and here's some pictures of it. So, you know, we can't do that all the time. Even if you do live there next door to this house, you can't do that every single time you're busy. You got the kids and soccer and, you know, everything else. But, man, it was just such a, it was, first of all, that story I just told was great timing because I had just been there and had photos. So, wow. You know, and, but more importantly than that, because it's not even about the review and the money. It's about making sure that you're offering a good product. And that when you start playing the blame game and saying, man, this guest stinks, they're lying. And this and that, you, you need to know damn well that you're offering a kick ass product and you just got a clunker of a guest. Okay? Now, 99% of guests are awesome people, and we love them, and that's why we're in the business. We're here to give them a great place to create memories. I cannot say that often enough. I say it all the time and I cannot say it often enough. I'm so grateful for my guests, and I appreciate them. And there's the 1% of them that are just bad seeds and they want money. And, you know, it also blows my mind that the amount of time that that type of person will spend trying to get a $100 back from. From whatever at the clothing store or the gas station. Well, man, this pump, it didn't give me as much as it said it did. I need five more gallons of gas, whatever it is. This type of person spends so much time trying to recoup or basically rob, in some cases a $100 off of somebody that they, if they just gone to work for that amount of time, they probably would have made more money. You know, it just doesn't, I don't understand that way of thinking and way of life, but these people are out there. So if you, if you have, you know, good, basically you're looking for some confidence in your home. And the pictures and videos can help with that big time. But going, going to touch it and feel it and smell it is just a big confidence boost.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Did you know that we're officially back in a buyer's market? That's right. Even though interest rates continue to rise, they are causing prices to fall. So there's finally room for you to do regular real estate investor. Things that we couldn't do for so long, like gas. Negotiate, make lower offers. Ask for sellers to cover some of your closing costs. So it's a really great time to buy in terms of being able to get a lower purchase price and being able to negotiate. So if you're looking for your first or next short term rental, it's a perfect time to reach out to us at the short term shop. Let our team of agents in any of our true vacation market destinations help you find the perfect investment. Jump on over to theshortmshop.com and click get connected to get started. We are brokered by Exp Realty. See y'all over there.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: But anyway, at the end of the day, every now and then you're just gonna get a bad review. You know you are. And you gotta use it to your advantage to make you not only your home better, but you better as a host and you better as a human being. You know, I mean, we don't need to get into psychotherapy here. But I have never been good at taking criticism, especially as a child. I'm a later child, and you know that if you're a later child, you'll know what that means. That's actually, I've been reading a book on that. Well, I've read many books on that subject, but right now I'm reading one called originals. Highly recommend a book called Originals. How non conformists move the world came out in 2017 by Adam Grant. And I am loving. I'm just about to finish it, actually. So looking for suggestions for my next book, but he talks about a lot about firstborns and laterborns and how the Laterborns always trying to compensate because the firstborn gets all the damn attention, you know? So I've always been. I'm a Laterborn, and I've always been not very good at taking criticism because I always felt like everybody was paying attention to the earlyborn, you know, to the firstborn. And again, I'm a grown ass man now, so that shit doesn't really exist as much as it used to. But it's nice to know that we're human beings. We're human beings. So my point is, after a certain amount of criticism, if nothing else, you just got to get better at getting. Taking the criticism. Now, we don't want this to happen often. You know, you really need to be maintaining somewhere around, like, 4.9. I always like to be around 4.874.92, somewhere in that neighborhood within five bps.
I'm actually going to read you my most recent bad review, which was, man, the problem here is that I'm conjuring things. You know, it's like bad juju to even be bringing this stuff up. The most recent bad review on this particular platform I'm looking at was over two months ago. Yikes. Also, I will say one more thing about the bad reviews. The bad reviews come in batches, okay? So I like that. I love it when I see somebody or somebody calls me up and says, Luke, I just got a bad review. What do I do, man? Can you believe it? And I say, okay, read it to me. And he says, what do I do? I can't believe I just got this bad review. And I say, well, dude, you're about to get three more, man. They come in waves. You're not getting just one bad review. It is extremely rare. It's just the universe.
It's a mysterious thing. And you get that first bad review. And I just. I smile. At this point, I'm like, oh, I have two more bad reviews coming this week. And another funny thing about it is, hold on. I'm going off on some tangents, which is, okay, it's kind of fun. It's funny. We say bad review. Bad review. What is a bad review? Where's my pen? What is a bad review? I will tell you right now.
Some of my best reviews were not five stars there. Every now and then you can get a kick ass review that was like three or four stars. And it's because the person was so ridiculous that then people come in, will be like, wow, this. And, and of course there's a response. You get to handle it with, you know, great gracefully. So if you get some bad review that they're, the people are just being redeemed ridiculous. And you respond like a pro and crush it. You just got some new fans, you know, so the people coming in, wow, man, this get, this person was ridiculous. And this, this host handled it like a pro booking that one. There's one great way to use a bad review to your, to your advantage, you know? So that's, again, bad reviews are not always a bad thing. Most important thing about bad reviews, point number two, I'd like to make here, you use them to make your house and your management better. If you get a bad review from a good person, they just did you a favor. Now, could they have sent it to you in a private message instead of putting it out on the Internet? Yes, that would have been cooler. But sometimes we don't listen. You know, sometimes that's what it takes. Now, you might argue that a good person that I mentioned would not do that, and they would just message you privately. And I would say you're probably right about that. But every now and then you get this passive aggressive type that actually has a point. So my point number two is passive aggressive. That has a point. And, you know, it's, it's difficult because it stings. It's like, man, am I really going to deal with this? It's like they're trying to shove it, you know, like they stick it to you because you get, you get that every now we're dealing with all kinds of personalities in this business. And every now and then you get the kind of person, and I'm not saying that this is subject number two, the passive aggressive, but it leans that direction where they almost have this vibe like, oh, you think you're so cool because you own this house, but you're not. Let me show you why you're not that cool. Four stars. You get that every now and then, you know. But anyway, let me read you a bad review here and see how this goes. And again, it was from two months ago. Overall quality four. We enjoyed our stay. I do encourage adding a few hooks for jackets, etcetera, in the bedrooms. The cabin was clean for the most part, but the sheets had some hair. Oh, the dreaded human hair. The dhh. The dreaded human hair. Well, she didn't say human, but I would assume headburn. Headboard was a bit dusty. Also, the Wi Fi was not strong. Thank you for allowing us to stay. Alright, so in that case, this home has a thousand megabits per second. So we looked into it, reset the modem. We couldn't find any issues. I don't know if maybe she was trying to connect to the next door Wi Fi or what. We, we weren't able to get any of that information from her. She didn't, you know, she was passive aggressive. She didn't respond to us personally. She just put it in the review and that's okay. You know, you just write a cute little response. And what was my response on this one? Let's see. Well, I'd have to dig, dig through all this just to even find it, but I'm sure I said, you know what? We fixed the Wi Fi and appreciate that. We're happy to help. Something like that. Short, sweet. I'll do my best to try and go through my hundreds of immaculate reviews to, to try and find another bad one to possibly bring up here. But let's, let's talk about bad review person number three. That's just the you deserved it review. That's the straight up you deserved it. Is there a situation where maybe it's a situation where you were too busy to attend to this guest needs. Maybe you had your child graduating high school and you were swamped and didn't give them enough. Fair warning. I think in a lot of cases, if that is something like that, you should probably let them know. Hey, man, I'm just going to be honest. We got a really busy weekend with my family this weekend, and if there's anything you need for me, please get me, you know, on Thursday before everything gets nuts or honestly, we'll get you a long way with guests. Most people are going to respond to that, you know, if you're just being cool and honest and real with them. Hey, I'm going to be on a cruise for the next couple of days. If there's anything you need, just let us know, this way or how you know at this time and, you know, but you take that information and you, you use it to your advantage. Hey, man, you just got smacked with a three star. You got to use that for your benefit and make your house and your. The experience better for your guests, because that is why we are here. I can't say it enough. We are here to provide fantastic vacations. So every now and then, you deserved it. You just did. Your house was not up to snuff. You had a staying in your comforter. Your pillows are stinky or whatever it is, and you need to pay more attention. And you deserved it. And this was your wake up call. Fix it before it gets worse. So, you know, that's just another type of bad review. And for the most part, you should be glad. Oh, my goodness. I didn't even realize I wasn't paying enough attention. And now this guest really hit me over the face with it. And, you know, now it's like, okay, here's my chance to redeem myself and bring my house up to snuff so that I can provide quality vacations to hard working people. Because that's the whole point. Okay, so it's really a part two from how to get a review removed, how to deal with a bad review. Because sometimes if you get that bad review and you're trying to get it removed, you may be thinking, you might want to slow down and start thinking to yourself, well, crap, maybe I deserve this damn review. And maybe I need to look within for a solution to make my product better for these wonderful people spending their hard earned money on this home. All right. I love you. Feel free to join me every Monday. I've got a mastermind for short term shop clients.
Come hang with me. We talk about topics exactly like this one. You're going to have to talk to your short term shop agent to get a link to that. And you can start that journey at the shorttermshop.com, where my wife and her wonderful team of real estate agents sell vacation homes. I don't want that to be a secret. I love you. I do. I love you. Thank you so much for listening and hanging, and I hope you enjoyed it. And I already gave you a book.
So this week, as usual, I will leave you with the good old fashioned, hey, don't overthink it.
