Episode Transcript
[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] All right, Luke here. Short Term Rental Management. And I want to talk about reviews and a few other things somewhat related to reviews next. This comes from a quote that I heard from Damon Johns, as you'll know from Shark Tank, and He said not 98% of successful products come from customer complaints.
[00:00:38] And I tell you, in this business, there is no better way for you to get off your ass and do what you need to do than a bad review coming in and ruining your day.
[00:00:48] Because it happens.
[00:00:51] And this is the world we are living in. And dare I say, to a certain extent, I think some of us need it.
[00:01:00] I'm getting way too deep on you here. But I do think that there's a certain contingency of people out there that are looking to prove something to the world and they may need these reviews.
[00:01:18] And maybe that's why us sickos are in this business to begin with.
[00:01:24] I mean, I know I got a little bit of that in there, you know what I mean? Like, I always try she chip on your shoulder kind of a deal. Always trying to prove that you can do it, you can be the best.
[00:01:36] Please tell the Internet that I am the best with this five star review.
[00:01:44] Little too deep on a Tuesday morning. I know, but think about that.
[00:01:51] I see that. I see that in some folks sometimes. I see it in myself sometimes. Now I do feel that I've gotten older and wiser and to the point where I don't care as much, you know, but it's an interesting topic of conversation, you know what I'm saying? So anyway, there's no better way to light a fire under your rear end than bad review coming in or two or three in one week.
[00:02:27] So we need to be, even though they ruin our day and they're horrible, somewhat grateful for these reviews.
[00:02:36] And it would have been really nice of you to just told me that the light wasn't working instead of hitting me with three stars for a light bulb that wasn't working. I mean, come long, but sometimes the messages aren't enough to get our attention.
[00:02:52] Sometimes you've got to get smacked right in the face with a bad review to realize that. You need to get somebody over there and clean your tile floors because mopping them, that's not good enough, by the way. It's not. You need to get a professional cleaning company like a carpet cleaning company. They do tile and vinyl as well. Get them over there once or twice. A year and get those floors clean.
[00:03:18] And sometimes it's that bad review that reminds us we need to get that done, you know, And I will also say the reviews are the only thing. And again, I've been doing this a long time. I'm just a little old owner operator. Yes, I've got hundreds, a couple hundred units, but not all short term. Not very many short term really in the grand scheme of things. I got what, 10 or 11, depends on what day it is. And foreign.
[00:03:47] The reviews are the one thing that I have not been able to remove myself from. As I've grown and grown and grown and hired people to help me in the office and implemented AI, etc, it is difficult to get out from underneath the pressure of those reviews. And maybe to a certain extent we shouldn't be. That is the job after all. Right?
[00:04:12] You know, so these bad reviews come in and it stings. It does. And the initial reaction is, oh my goodness, this person's horrible.
[00:04:23] How could they do this to me? But in, in all of that, there is some truth and some reality and we have to take what they have said and fix the problem.
[00:04:34] Now we could go on a two hour chat about the different types of bad reviews that come in because there's really only like four or five of them. You know, one that comes to top of mind for me is the one, the guest that wanted more attention.
[00:04:52] You get that a lot. You do. They just wanted you to kiss their rear end. This is the type of person that usually has like 20 or 30 Airbnb reviews and they can. They consider themselves to be like some sort of professional Airbnb or.
[00:05:05] And how dare you not understand who you've got sleeping in your house? Because you know, those people might be the same type of people that they're feeding off these reviews too. Like, I gotta go get me another Airbnb so I can get another review in my life. You know, someone needs to review me.
[00:05:21] And those are the type of people that are like, you know, hey, I will be heard, hear me roar.
[00:05:28] And I'll be honest with you, the longer I do this, the less, you know, I'm, I'm super responsive to guests. In the culture of my, my business here, my, my, my company, my property management company, we do find ourselves kind of pulling back a little bit sometimes on guests, responding to guests because it does get to the beat. It gets to.
[00:05:54] Sometimes you feel like, why am I doing, why am I sending all these responses like, are you really going to ask me how to turn the light switch on?
[00:06:05] Does that.
[00:06:06] Do you need to respond to that? Because seems to me like you should be able to figure that out. Let's figure that out, big boy.
[00:06:15] Find the switch. It would take you less effort to find the damn switch than it is, than it would be to message us and wait for us to write back. And to be honest with you, we got so many damn switches, I might not even know.
[00:06:26] Sorry. And this does go back to the conversation we've been having a lot lately that this is not a damn hotel.
[00:06:33] This is not a hotel. We, we have seen a rash of that lately where people are thinking that this is some sort of front desk situation where somebody's going to bring me stuff. And it's not. It's a house. That's the whole point.
[00:06:50] It's the whole point.
[00:06:52] The real estate market is always changing.
[00:06:55] Covid is long gone, prices are down, and properties are sitting on the market.
[00:07:01] The short term shop sells houses in all of the best vacation markets. And we'd love to help you purchase your next vacation home.
[00:07:10] Join us at theshorttermshop.com theshorttermshop.com let's find you a deal.
[00:07:20] Can. Can Airbnb get a little better at that? Convertible get a little better at that culturally and let the, Let the guests know this is a house.
[00:07:26] We do not have a housekeeper here for 40 hours a week because it's a. Where are they going to sleep?
[00:07:36] In your bed? I don't think so. It's not a hotel.
[00:07:43] In return, you get privacy and peace and quiet and you get a washer and a dryer.
[00:07:51] You know what I mean? But anyway, I'm getting in the weeds. The bad reviews again. There's really only a handful of them. I named one. We could do a bad review show. We're doing a bad, bad review show right now. But like bad review type one through five, we should do that.
[00:08:09] But you should embrace them and understand that this is the best way to get better.
[00:08:15] There is a little bit of truth. A little bit. Sometimes a teeny, tiny fraction of truth, maybe even just one or two words worth of truth in, in every bad review that you get.
[00:08:29] And it might be something that you need to read between the lines.
[00:08:34] Like they were just in general disappointed with whatever.
[00:08:38] I mean, I had one recently that didn't even make any sense. They were like the couch and chairs at this house were just torn up, dilapidated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is a brand new house.
[00:08:51] This, this couch and chairs are not more than eight months old.
[00:08:59] So you know What? I mean, it's absurd. Sometimes it is absurd. Like, what are you talking about? How this couch is. Is disgusting or whatever he said. I don't remember what he said. I know it was a gentleman. That's all I remember.
[00:09:13] And that's one where you just gotta brush it off. Like, you know, you go to the review response and you say, well, I hate to tell you there, Mr. Disgruntled, but this couch is only eight months old. You don't say that, you know, but you find a nice way to not sound in any way passive aggressive. Just to be honest and be nice. Be nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. And that's one thing I will say I am grateful for. I used to be quite the jerk, and this business has taught me that you have no choice but to be nice.
[00:09:47] But I've also found what I've been looking for in life that was causing me to be a jerk and I don't need to be anymore. Family, health, wealth, etc.
[00:09:56] Three things I didn't used to have. Got to go out there and fight for it.
[00:10:01] Sometimes.
[00:10:06] You got to fight harder than others, you know? I mean, at the end of the day, all we can do is the best we can do, you know?
[00:10:14] The best we can do is all we can do.
[00:10:18] And to a certain extent, not everybody's gonna get along.
[00:10:21] I'm really sorry you didn't like the house, but let's move on with our lives, you know what I mean? So anyway, next time you get a bad review and you're super bummed out about it, just learn from it. Take the good and move on. And like the quote that I started with today, 98% of successful products came from a customer complaint.
[00:10:47] A lot of fire under your ass. Anyway, I'm Luke. Carl.
[00:10:51] Don't overthink.
