Ever wondered how significant a single review could be? How much of a difference can an odd review by a traveler have on your vacation rental business? To tell you the truth, reviews are the single most important part of your vacation rental listing. Apart from location and rental pricing, impressive and eye-catchy reviews leave an indelible impression on all readers. Travelers specifically search for rental listings with appropriate reviews, and would also be willing to go that extra mile for price if the reviews are stellar.
And there is no easy way of inviting reviews from travelers than delivering exceptional rental services and amenities sans discrimination. And also that the more reviews,the better for your rental business.
A-Quick-Reality-Check: Every now and then, you’ll always have a negative review here or there for reasons that would seem far beyond your control. However, it is imperative not to pay attention to it and keep your focus on generating a steady stream of positive reviews that ultimately boost your revenues.
To further help you with generating positive reviews on your rental listings, here are some pro-tips that you can easily follow –
Identifying and Target your favourite Travelers.
Recruiting a band of advocates/proponents/promoters to your cause, i.e. posting brilliant reviews and impressive content that paints your vacation rental as a hub for hospitality, describing it as a serene and resplendent rental to spend some quality time goes a long way in building a rapport with everyone. Sounds pretty simple, but its easier said than done, as not every traveler that visits your place posts reviews, and certainly fewer are even interested in doing so. Ideal travelers should be eager to tell their friends and family about the amazing time they had with you. If you can get a few high-quality, 5-star reviews right from the start, you’ll be in great shape, and the best way to accomplish this is to ensure that the utmost of care and affection is given to all your travelers, irrespective of the business they get you. Reaching back out to them post the booking duration, and providing incentives for further visits are again great methods of kick starting your online reviews, apart from
Guest Book
A guest book is a great way for travelers to passively interact and give each other tips on what to do in the area, or little quirky facts about the vacation rental. Alternatively you could encourage your visitors to keep a little diary with notes of their stay listing their favorite attributes and then intern request them to post a part of it, or share their experiences on the listing page. A Win-win for both the parties, as you could incentivize each review with some form of attractive merchandise or discount for next stay.
Incentives
Consider this a useful tactic, as there are numerous possible incentives to lure your previous guests for posting sparkling reviews. Giving off lucrative discounts leaves a special impression on travelers and motivates them to leave reviews, and more so a pretty little gift basket, chocolates and pictures of the vacation together leave a lasting impression on all.
Encouraging Follow Up
If you were to ask any service provider regarding the importance of follow ups, they’d gladly tell you that this perhaps is the most important aspect of maintaining an active client base. Hence, you should always maintain relations with your previous travelers through regular follow-ups, it kind of makes them feel wanted and venerated, like they’re special and in ways draws them to your rental property over and again. Its all about maintaining healthy relations. Travelers would gladly leave you a nice review if they had a wonderful stay, apart from visiting again which is a sure shot way of ensuring business and furthermore reviews.
To conclude, little text messages, emails, correspondences with previous travelers go a long way in establishing a healthy relation with them. Moreover, an exceptional level of service, perhaps giving a little extra and going above-and-beyond results in creating memories that last a lifetime. A beautiful concoction of the above methods should be effective enough to generate appropriate reviews and fetching higher revenues for your vacation rental.
