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When Not To Make A Claim, and How to Do It Right · Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions

• Jeremiah: It's not all sunshine and five star reviews. If you realized being a short terminal investor isn't glamorous, you're in the right place. Today we're getting into damage claims, specifically to help Sugesh to know when to make a claim, when to let it slide, and some ways to generate goodwill with the guest. I'm happy to help him because this is the community where we talk about the gross, awkward, and the operational messes, as well as the real strategies that help you keep going instead of quitting. Anybody can win big in this industry. But you can also ignore education and you can quit. My name is Jeremiah. I'm an investor with over a decade of experience. And I'm also a property manager with over 140 units under management. I talk about what rental investing looks like from the inside. Welcome to Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions. Let's get right into today's email. Good morning Jeremiah. Last night I was messaging into the late night with a guest who left my rental near Ocean City in pretty good shape, but they told me they broke the hammock. I was hoping to replace that hammock since it came with the house when I bought it last winter, And just didn't get around to it. Anyways, I ordered one for $100 and so asked the guest to reimburse for $100. They did not like that. I have photos of the hammock they broke before the reservation and the broken one after. I got them to admit that they broke it. So if I enter a damage claim on Airbnb, I'm sure to get it approved. What's your approach in a situation like this? Will making a damage claim with my Airbnb hurt my visibility on the platform? Regards, Sugesh. yes, actually this will hurt. This will hurt the success of your listing. And it's not immediately evident exactly how. at least not to most people. So you are you're focusing on like the $20 bills when you what you should be focusing on is the $100 bills. So it's not like your $100 hammock is nothing at all, but like you're charging your guest $100 for a used hammock that you admit you wanted to replace anyway. So there's a value discrepancy there. And even if you are successful in your claim. Airbnb is not necessarily going to give you $100 to go buy a brand new one. They're going to give you probably the value of your old one, which I mean, it's a used hammock. If you could replace it with a better one for $100, it's probably only worth $20 anyway. But I want to focus on this question, which is, what's your take on this situation and what should I do as a result? When we're dealing with and managing the guest experience, what's important to communicate to your guest is that you are number one, generous, number two, friendly, number three, reasonable, and number four, that you are on their side. Because once you are not on their side, the two of you can only fight. And when there's a fight, there's only one winner. And no matter how ready you are for battle, There's still a loser in that situation. And the best situation, and almost every situation with Airbnb, it's potentially a win-win situation. You can usually make the guest happy, and you can usually keep your reviews in line, and you can usually keep the guest experience good. So let's focus on each one one at a time, using your scenario. So, first, we want the guest to feel like we are generous. Acknowledge the damage and immediately put their mind at ease. So I would say something like, I don't normally charge a guest for anything if it's under fifty dollars of value. Or I don't really charge guests for things that aren't their fault. there's a such thing as normal wear and tear. Imagine you lived in an apartment for 10 years, and when you left, they charged you for a paint job, they charged you for new flooring, they charged you for, water heater upgrades. Like that's the landlord's problem. This is normal wear and tear. And when you've got guests in your short-term rental sitting on your hammock, that's by the way, in Ocean City, I'm assuming Maryland, out in the sun. outdoors, it's gonna wear out. It's gonna go bad. And they broke it. And that's not necessarily their fault. So I'm not necessarily saying that there wasn't any activity a guest could have avoided in order to keep your hammock from being broken. But like if you had just bought that new hammock back in you know January, you would have thrown away the old one. What kind of value does that hammock have anyway? We're talking about something so small. And really what we need to be focused on is making the guest feel welcome, making them feel like they had a good experience. Making them feel like, you know, that they want to recommend this to their family and friends. Because if they won't recommend it to their family and friends, then that will affect your visibility. So after I immediately put their mind at ease by telling them, I don't request guests pay for things unless it's like over $50. Then I'm gonna look into the replacement cost, the repair cost, or you know, some reasonable estimates of what this could be. And I'm gonna get back. them and I'll say something like, Hey, it looks like a new hammock's gonna cost me about a hundred dollars, but the one that was there wasn't new. So it's probably only worth like 20, 30 bucks anyway. I'm not gonna charge you for this. Don't even worry about it. I'm sorry if anyone got hurt when the hammock broke. And hopefully everybody's feeling okay. So coming across this way to the guest is acknowledging that there is damage and taking that question out of their mind that you're going to find it later on and leave them a bad review. Sometimes guests leave you a bad review just because they think that they're going to get a bad review themselves. So this is kind of their their revenge, their preemptive revenge, right? they left the house, they know that they broke something of yours, whether it's the headboard or the chair at the dining table. Or something else, they're hoping you don't notice it so that they don't get charged for it. But they're expecting that if you do notice it and they don't pay for it, that they're gonna get a bad review. So you're unnecessarily making this a confrontational issue when it doesn't need to be a confrontational issue. And again, it's because the cost of that hammock is like 20 bucks. We're not talking about a big screen TV here. This is not six hundred dollars of value. And even if it was six hundred dollars of value, if it's a $7,000 reservation, I'm probably just gonna say, You know, don't worry about it. I'm getting a new TV now. it was an expensive TV, but you know, it's small compared to what you pay for this place. So I'm happy to, move on. Now I want to add this little disclosure. When I'm managing a property for somebody else, that threshold is set by the property owner. Right? I'm gonna be generous with my money and with my properties. And that's one of the reasons why my properties perform. so incredibly well. But there's parameters set on me when I'm acting as a property manager. And I have to respect those boundaries that are set by the property owner. We still have a discussion and we talk about these things like this was a $9,000 reservation. Are you sure you really want to charge them for a $600 TV? Not necessarily, you know, because sometimes the guest will now fake their own outrage and talk about how terrible your house is and everything else. And you feel like now getting nothing in return from them is a break even because now you're not giving them a credit for their bad experience and you're not requesting that they pay for your broken TV. So like there's a lot of things involved here. And again, you just want to come across to the guest that this is like not a big deal, that you understand where they're coming from, and you want to give them the impression that you're generous because everybody likes a generous person. even if you're not Sugesh, even if, like, you know, you can't sleep at night because you had to buy a new hammock for this person, I would implore you to at least put on a smiley face and to type the words out that this is not a big deal and I'm not going to charge you for it. I'll give you a couple examples. So in my own rental property, we had Only two actual situations where there was a pet damage. we haven't had any situations where a guest caused damage, except one time they actually caused the hot tub to be gross and then they denied that it was their fault. That was a bad experience. I don't want to relive that one on the show. the other one. I'll tell you about. So there were two situations where there was pet damage. one, it was a two bedroom house and the second bedroom wasn't getting used. It was just a couple that was there. Their little dog went into the second bedroom, they didn't notice it or see it, but it pooped on a rug. the rug, I mean, this is kind of like it makes sense after the fact, but the rug was a fake bearskin rug. So kind of looked and felt like grass. And this is, I guess, what the dog is used to doing. trained to do probably thought it was okay. Either way, the guests didn't go in that room, like at all during their stay. The door was just cracked open. So when they left, they didn't think to check that room. Well when our cleaners arrived, they checked everywhere and they found some dog dirt, as my dad would call it, some dog poop on this rug. And did it ruin the rug? No, absolutely not. it's a fake bearskin rug. It's not real. I wouldn't put a real bearskin rug on the floor. But nevertheless, it was there. And I could buy a whole new fake bearskin rug for $60 on Amazon. And the pet fee is $60. So I acknowledged that this had occurred. I told the guest about it. I told them this thing is machine washable. And I'm just gonna ask my cleaners to put it through the wash. And I don't think that they're even gonna charge me anything extra for it. And I immediately ordered a second one. I ordered another bearskin rug because I felt like, you know, this is probably something that might happen again. And I want to have a spare just in case we can't wash it on site. Because, you know, it's a rug. But like telling the guests about this, they were horrified. They were worried about their review and everything. I set their mind at ease immediately by saying, This is completely understandable. I'm not blaming you for this. I'm not going to ask you to pay for it. It's only a $60 rug. But I had photo of it. I mean, it's as gross as it is. I sent them the picture so that they could see like what their dog did. And there was no doubt. You know, they accepted responsibility and everything. And if I asked them to pay $60 for me to get a new rug, they would have paid it. But in reality, that's just not fair. Right? I don't want to ruin the guest experience. I want to make them feel like, wow, I'm impressed. This guy definitely could have held that over me and he didn't. And who knows? You know, to them. They might have had a thousand dollar budget for that reservation and they spent a thousand dollars with food and that stupid dog put them now sixty dollars over budget. This could have ruined the whole experience for them. And it's not even like it's a big deal to me. Right? I'm getting like a thousand dollar reservation and I don't want to nitpick. I don't want to focus on these little $20 bills when I could be picking up Benjamins. Do people still call them Benjamins? $100 bills. All right, I'll just stick to that another situation with dog damage was when dog had I guess barked at somebody who was walking past the the sliding glass door and they scratched the window. actually not the glass, they just scratched the curtain and that was a eleven dollar curtain. I got a whole new set for like all of like $23. Delivered, you know, second day. So it wasn't a problem. It was just a little scratched, and again, told the guest, put their mind at ease, ordered a new one. Had the new ones put in, the guests left five stars. And at that point, you know, like I'm kind of like telling them about this for two reasons. One is I want to make sure that they know I saw it. That means that I'm a good host. I'm actually in my properties, I'm actually checking on these things, or that I have a good team, that my cleaners are conscientious and they're seeing these things. But the second thing it does is if they noticed it before leaving and they just ignored it and didn't say anything, there's no question. whether I saw it or not. They don't have to worry about, did he see this? Is he gonna leave me a bad review? Because that doubt in their mind, their mind not being put at peace, it's gonna color their experience, I'll say. Another thing that you've got to do here though is you have to be friendly, right? So don't get confrontational with a guest. Yes, you have evidence and yes, they are wrong. And whether they admit it or not, just don't get confrontational. Like that's not gonna make for a good guest experience. I have no problem confronting people, but at the same time, if I can be diplomatic about it, I'm gonna be diplomatic about it. So think of like the way you would want to be told if you were in their circumstances. And remember, like they might really be embarrassed. This could have been like a 300-pound person as your guest who is sitting on your hammock and it broke. And they might not be surprised that it broke. But now they have to admit that the reason it broke is because they're overweight. And that's a very sensitive topic for people. It's a very sensitive topic for Americans. I'm from the Philly area. That's the fattest city in all the US. Like per person. The BMR is higher than anywhere else. I think the second one is in Wisconsin, where they've got all the cheese. But you know, like maybe Comment on the video if if you're from Wisconsin or Philly, you know, we can all be fat together, who knows? but hey, back to like be sensitive, right? Because you coming across as being not friendly or confrontational or saying, Hey, fatty, you broke my chair. Come on. You're just asking to get a one-star review. And you might even be thinking, well, what if the guest already left their review? Well, Now you can get confrontational. It's not going to affect the review. They already put the review in. But here's the thing. If you catch this stuff after they've made their review, now you don't know what they left. They were maybe hoping that you didn't notice this issue. But if you approach it the way I'm talking about approaching it and they left you a four star out of five, then you being generous, you being friendly and understanding with them. Is potentially going to cause them to contact Airbnb and say, hey, I want to change my review. I want to take it down, which the guest has the ability to do. And they get told all the time they can't do it. But a guest has the ability to take down their review. I think a host may as well. Anyhow, I have seen reviews being taken down before. but getting their guest's review taken down is a lot more challenging as the host. The host's review taken down as the guest is actually quite easy. I've seen that happen numerous times. But off of reviews, focusing on being friendly to the guest. try to understand their perspective. You know? Like I had a guest and it was not a great experience. They caused damage. They caused fines. They caused all kinds of things. But I put myself in their shoes, right? This is just a 19 year old kid, a college kid, actually. And he's just trying to get together with a couple of friends. his friends group from a couple of years ago when they graduated. They all played like a sport. I think it was like tennis or whatever. But they were all just getting together in one house. They did have a party, but it was quiet and it was kept under control. There was no damage. Now they didn't have enough trash bags to clean up. And they didn't know where to take the trash bags. And they weren't familiar with the process that it required. So they're driving around neighborhood with trash bags hanging out the window. It's just something that happens with 19 year olds. You know, they're clueless sometimes. But putting myself in their position and like I don't know if the word is sympathizing or empathizing, whatever, putting myself in their position and talking to this guest about this stuff, he was willing to accept responsibility. So we went through the whole claim process with Airbnb, and he's willing to pay the rest. But what are my chances that that would happen if I didn't sympathize? If I didn't understand his perspective, if I didn't tell him that he didn't do something wrong, like Everybody that you interact with, if you ask them if they're a good person, they're gonna say yes. Your worst Airbnb guest believes in their heart that they are a good person, regardless of how badly they ripped you off. They can always find some sort of way to justify it. So I believe that's universally true. But getting confrontational, telling the guest, hey, you did this and you're gonna pay, that's a good way to get lawyers involved. And by the way, that 19-year-old kid. Was going to law school after college, and his family was full of lawyers. So that's not getting involved. It's not going to get involved. Because what did I do? I sympathized. I saw it from his perspective. and that information just came out over the course of time as we're talking about this whole situation. Was I likely to get all of these things covered by Airbnb? Absolutely not. Airbnb is terrible about processing claims. So if I'm going to get the full amount, I've got to have the guests' cooperation on this, you know? so you have to kind of like understand their perspective. If they are a large-sized person from the Philadelphia area, like me and my family are, then us sitting down on your chair and breaking it is very embarrassing. I don't want to now have to also pay for your chair, but I'm the kind of person who's going to take initiative. I'm going to take Responsibility and I'm gonna tell you that the chair broke and I'm gonna offer to reimburse you for it. I'm actually gonna start that conversation as the guest by looking up what that chair is worth. And anybody can do this now. Like upload a picture into Chat GPT of the broken chair and say, hey, what's one of these things going for used? If this is really a hammock or a chair or something like that, that's like a custom kind of piece, like, you know, like the host kind of took a risk putting it in a rental. Rentals generally get more wear and tear than your primary home, your vacation home that doesn't get rented, or your long term rentals. But That's not always true. And then the next thing is like be reasonable. Right? They might get defensive if they're worried that they're going to be taken advantage of. See, many, many guests that are using Airbnb are using it for the first time. You're going to see on there that they have one trip, two trips, no reviews, things like that. And they don't know the rules the way you do. They don't know what violates Airbnb's policies. They don't know the way around it. That's like arguing with a lawyer. They know the law. They know the law a lot better than you. And it's a reason why people don't trust lawyers, is because they're concerned that they're going to be taken advantage of. Not that they necessarily have broken a law or done anything morally bad, but just that, you know, this person has a knowledge of the law and of contracts that I don't have. And this is an opportunity for me to be taken advantage of. I've got to be on my guard. So whenever you're talking to a police officer or a lawyer or somebody in that field that has a special knowledge. Generally, you're on your guard. You're defensive. But if you come across to the guest as being reasonable, then they're not going to have to act defensively. They're not going to have to feel like they're going to be taken advantage of. So again, keeping that guest experience at the front of mind, how do you want to be treated? When you're a guest in an Airbnb, you want to be treated reasonably. You might show up with different expectations. Like when I think back to the last like bad experience I had as a guest in an Airbnb, it was just because like the pots and pans were dirty and there was hair in the shower and it wasn't clean. It wasn't done well. The hot tub was supposed to be balanced and it wasn't. And they weren't able to get somebody out there until the second day. So like that was my bad experience in an Airbnb. And it was just because of my expectations. And it was Also, my expectations about what the host was able to do in order to solve my problems. But like those expectations aren't always reality. And your guests, especially the ones who aren't experienced, like they don't know what it's like being in an Airbnb. And I've heard hosts making claims like, hey, we're not a hotel. You can't expect a turn down service. You can't expect this. You can't expect us to just drop off more sheets. You can't expect us, like, this is not room service. This is not a hotel lobby. But like, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try and do what a hotel lobby could do. And you know, sometimes it's cost prohibitive, right? if the payout for that reservation, after the cleaning fee and the registration fee and everything else is taken off, I might be clearing like six hundred dollars for that, like maybe two-night weekday stay. Six hundred dollars. And if I'm giving $150 of that to somebody to go over to the property. And to, you know, clean the windows a little bit better because the guest is a little upset about it. I'm gonna try. that takes my net from $600 down to $450. I'm focusing on the guest experience. It's not about what am I gonna net from this reservation? It's not about is this reservation making me money or was it a waste of money? It's about focus on their experience. Because if that guest can honestly say, I'm going to recommend Airbnb to my friends and family, I'm going to recommend this Airbnb to my friends. I am planning on coming back here someday. I felt comfortable. I felt safe. I felt like the host heard me and listened to me. Like those are all indications that Airbnb should promote your listing to other guests. And if your guest is saying the opposite, that they're not going to recommend Airbnb, like that's an indication to the platform that they should stop promoting you. So think about that. The next time that you're in a situation where you could be completely unreasonable and you could tell them that they're going to give you $500 for the glass that they just broke. Well, just remember in context, what you think that's going to be. So here's other ways to go about this, Don't overcharge. Be reasonable. They broke a couple wine glasses. another four pack of wine glasses, like 10 or 20 bucks. They're cheap, especially if they're glass. Now I can see them getting more expensive, But if you put expensive wine glasses in your rental, you should probably have spares and recognize that these things are tall, they're top heavy, they're likely to fall, right? Anyway, so ten dollars to new wine glasses. Do not charge $50 for delivery of the wine glasses and forty-five dollars for an administrative fee. Like charging a guest like a hundred and five bucks here is not going to help anything. It's not going to get you $105. When the guest refuses to pay, it has to go to the resolution center. The Airbnb Resolution Center is only going to approve you for the $10 charge. So putting it in front of your guest and telling them that you want them to pay an administrative fee and a delivery fee, it's not going to get passed. And your best case scenario is a ticked-off guest that feels like they were taken advantage of because you were being unreasonable. Now I do recognize there are fees involved. You might have to drive two and a half hours. Or three hours to get to your property to drop off some other wine glasses. I think if you had a good cleaner, you could ask them to stop at the liquor store and grab a couple wine glasses. It's not rocket science. sometimes it's just Uber. It's just delivery. there's DoorDash that'll do stuff like this. so. If you could just have DoorDash done while the cleaners are cleaning the house, you can ask your cleaners for a favor, hey, accept the DoorDash and put them on the shelf, please. I just ordered a couple extra. Like, this is not something that has to be complicated. You know, you don't have to spend $30 in fuel to drop off a new hammock. You just have to have it shipped right to the house and have your team put it up. So, like, there's things that we could figure out with this. So, another story. Just last week, I had a guest who said, Hey Jeremiah, I'm sorry to say this, but hot tub is gross. We haven't used it yet. And it's cloudy and dirty, and it smells like laundry that's been left in the washing machine. I know that smell. I've seen dirty hot tubs too. It's usually after a guest gets out of it that it smells like that. the first thing I did, I responded right away. And a big thing about this is number one, believe them. Say, I don't know how that could have happened. I'm so sorry. Don't get confrontational in this situation. I didn't. I said, I'm so sorry. It really shouldn't be like that after two days. It was all well balanced. Here's a picture of the test strip that our cleaner sent us after they balanced the chemicals. It's so hard for me to believe that if that tub was left closed for that long, that that would have happened. And I noticed something in their photo, because I asked them for a photo. It said ninety nine degrees in the hot tub. We leave them at 101. Why? Because I like 101 degrees. If I don't want my guests spending much time in the hot tub, I leave it at 104 or 105, which is not a nice temperature in my opinion. That's a temperature that you're in there for a little while, you sweat, and then you get out. Anyway, so for it to be at 99 means that somebody was in there. Somebody was doing something. But did I confront them on it? No. it was pretty late at night. It was like nine or ten o'clock at night when they sent us this message and these pictures and stuff. So I just told them, hey, you know, there is a cost for treating the hot tub. I'm gonna have somebody come over there early tomorrow morning. What time would be okay with you? That cost would be $60. The homeowner's gonna be paying that unless they find some sort of evidence that this was not their fault. If they find some sort of evidence that this was your fault, then I would expect you to be willing to pay that $60 fee. Now, what did we get? now, you might be wondering, what happened after that, Jeremiah? Well, we did find evidence. We found footprints in there. There was like dirt and there was all kinds of stuff in there, and it was kind of slimy. So we found evidence that they actually were in the hot tub, which meant that the guests lied. And by confronting them in person, they were like, Well, my kids didn't tell me this, but when they got out of the lake, They were dripping wet and they decided that they'd clean off by going into the hot tub. Well, now we know. the guest offered to pay $60. And in that situation, it's a homeowner who gets to make the final say. The homeowner wants them to pay it. They're paying it. Not a big deal. do you see how, with its illustration, we're keeping everything reasonable, everything is friendly, and we're even coming across with a generous tone. I'm trying to solve their problem, get them a clean hot tub that they feel comfortable going in. For that, who's going to pay for this service? Because it's not just somebody that we can do for free. so I'm just going to default to believing them because telling the guests that they're a liar and that you have evidence to the contrary, it never works out well. they start becoming defensive. You know, I've never ever seen that a guest say, hey, This house isn't clean. It wasn't clean when we arrived. And the host be like, no, I've got 50 photos showing it was clean. The guest then turns around and says, you're right. It's clean. I was just trying to get one over on you. No, that's that's never happened. They're going to argue their position. They're going to send pictures in their defense. They're going to make things up. And in the world of AI, you can put ticks on pillows. And you can send a photo that was made by AI and it has a tick on the pillow. And you can say, I can't sleep in this house. Now they check out. And Airbnb is going to give them a refund for that. Like if they send a picture that looks like there's bugs in the bed, they don't have to stay there. They're getting a full refund. the time has passed. They pulled out the get out of jail free card. And you've now got a cancellation. You still have to clean the house. So another strategy that I use with guests is I'll oftentimes just ask them what number they think is reasonable. Now, this is a risky thing to do. It does work in my favor sometimes, other times not so much. So what I mean by this is the guest is looking at what they'd paid in total. Like they might have paid $2,000 for the reservation. And if I ask them, You know, what do you think is reasonable for this inconvenience? They might say, Well, I'd like, one of my nights refunded. Well, they don't realize that there's a bunch of fixed costs and then there's the variable cost. It's not a hotel where it's just like, you know, $150 a night. So they're looking at it as $2,000 for a weekend, and that's two nights, and they want to refund one of those nights. But You might not be getting a thousand dollars after everything is taken out. So, like it's not 50% for you, it's 50% for them. And so sometimes this doesn't work out well. When that happens, I have to educate the guests. I just have to explain to them well, that means that I'm paying for the cleaning fee, I'm paying for this, and you know, you're not just taking half the rent because the sales tax is still going to be paid on the total. The hotel tax is still paid on the total. I can't reduce those figures, those other things. Like Airbnb is still getting their 15 and a half percent if I send you a credit. So explaining those things to them doesn't make them feel better about the situation, but it could potentially limit your damage. Either way, you're getting them to think of a number, like something that would make them, more satisfied with the situation. You're trying to make the best out of a bad situation, essentially. So asking them what they think is fair is a good strategy. or at least more often than not, the guest actually guesses where I was thinking or lower. So I might say, like, hey, you know, I know there was no propane there in your grill the first night that you arrived, and we weren't able to get it delivered until the following day. I feel like I should be issuing you a credit for this. I just don't know what you think is reasonable. And they'll say, like, I was just thinking like 20 bucks. good. Cause I was thinking 50. So whatever they say, I'm gonna try and exceed that. Right. So whatever they think is reasonable, I'm gonna exceed that. Why? Because I want them to think that we're generous. So if they say, you know, like, well, we had no propane and it was a real inconvenience and I wasted, you know, fifty dollars of ribeye. So I'd like a credit of a hundred dollars for this. I'm gonna like, you know, you have been great guests. I'm so sorry this happened. And I want to show you that this will never happen again. So another strategy that I'll do sometimes, instead of just offering them $110 in that situation, is I will invite them to come back. I'll give them an option. I'll say, Well, I want to prove to you that this is not normal. Normally, like our guests have nothing but five star raving reviews to say. This was just, you know. unavoidable. It happened and I'm sorry that happened, but it's never going to happen again. So I can give you a hundred and ten dollar credit to just, feel a little bit better about the situation. Or I can offer you a $220 value if you want to book a future stay. If you want to book that future stay, I'll go in and make a special offer that'll cost you $220 less. Now, this could end up saving me $100, you know, and My far out pricing might be actually higher than what it would be if you waited until a week before the reservation to book. So this works out good for me because now I have a future reservation. And I was able to get the guests to commit to that before they even left. Or, you know, shortly after they left or far enough in advance. So I really like giving them this option. But the other thing that that option communicates to the guest is you are welcome back. This was not your fault. I don't blame you in any way for this. There's no hard feelings. I would love to invite you back into my home. That I think speaks volumes. it's also giving them that option. So if they are like saying, like, I I would want to return here, like this was a good experience, other than this one little issue. I like that. I like giving them the option to come back. And I'll offer them double. maybe it was just a propane tank. You know, next time I'm gonna have a spare and I'm gonna have it there on the property, or I'm gonna do a better job at satisfying their concerns before it becomes too late. So that's kind of the idea. I mean, we're gonna strive for five. Strive for five stars every single time. And that is by pulling out of the stops. It's by, you know, being friendly, reasonable by exceeding expectations. Like that's what you do. That's the right way to handle your business. And if you do things that way, I believe, Sugesh, that you're gonna have raving guests who want to keep coming back to your property. That is going to be better for you long term. If you focus just on the here and now and you want to get, you know, a free hammock, I feel like I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting a free hammock, but conning a guest or conning Airbnb as a platform out of it is just not what I would do. It's just not focusing on the right thing. Because if you just you know, focus on planting more seeds, then you'll have a much greater crop at the end of the growing season. But if you focus on like weeding just as one little parcel that you like did actually put seed in, you're gonna have very limited yield later on. Like you could you could throw wheat and corn over a hundred acres, or you could spend the exact same amount of time, effort, and money and you could do just 10 acres. of really well done corn. And by doing that ten acres really, really well, you might get twice as much yield from that ten acres, but that's still only twenty acres worth of yield. when you could five X your result by spending the same amount of time and effort doing a hundred acres. Now Sugesh, you didn't say that you were a farmer. So I don't know why I'm using farm analogies, but you know, it kind of plays out. Like you have to focus on your top line. I mean, keep costs under control, yes, but I am so focused on the guest experience that I don't have to worry about, the ups and downs in our fluctuating market. So basically, be generous, be friendly, be reasonable, and be on their side. So we we need the guest to feel like we're attacking a problem together. The problem is the hammock is broken. So how do we deal with a broken hammock? So we get a new hammock. But let's do this together. let's solve the problem. Because the problem is it's broken. The problem is there's money to be dealt with. The problem is the next guest is going to arrive and they're not going to have a hammock. So what can we do together to solve that problem? So we're we're all happy about this. Approaching it from that angle, it's like, hey, we have this issue. Let's fix it together. It also, I think it helps for your guest to know that you also have a budget. So as the host, I'll often say, well, I've been saving up for a new grill. I'm sorry that you're a little unhappy with the one that's there. I'm a little unhappy with it as well. It still kind of feels like better than average, but it's not really to my standards. So I've been saving up and I was expecting to buy a new one in about three weeks. We're gonna cut this joy. Making them realize that you're not Mr. Money Bucks, that you don't just like have money falling out of your pockets as you walk by. I think it's important and it makes you on the same level as them. They might realize, hey, you're just a soccer mom too. And you're just trying to give your guests a good experience. or you're just the property manager. You're just doing your job. let's attack this problem together. Like, let's identify with one another. Let's be on the same side. The thing is, you can't necessarily get the guests to be on your side. You have to go over to their side of the table and then help. pull them around to your side. You have to lead them. Right. you can't just tell them, hey, this is the spot for you to be, and this is why you're wrong by being over there. Because that never goes over well. Or you might even say about this hammock, like, you know, I was budgeting for this hammock to get replaced in November, but now our next, you know, couple of guests won't have a hammock. So I'm going to have to accelerate this and just buy a new one now. Would you mind helping with the cost of replacement? You can say that, you know, especially if it's something more expensive, like a TV for $600. You can say, you know, like our next guest is not going to have one if I don't just, go open up another credit card and put it on their credit card. I can process a claim through Airbnb, or you can pay it. But like, this is what damage protection does: it covers the expense of the damage. I don't want you to feel like it's something personal. You know, a lot of times you can you can kind of come across that way. If you can't afford to pay it, then maybe Airbnb will cover it. I don't know. I just know that I have to request this from you. It's part of my job. So another way of saying this is like put yourself in their shoes. I'll actually say this as the host, I'll say, well, if I was in your position, I'd be upset about this too. Or I think it's perfectly reasonable that you would feel that way. I'm not saying that this was your fault. Just that this did actually happen, and we can't say that it's because of normal wear and tear. I'll say, look, it's really hard to keep track of a game room full of boys. I would imagine the item was broken and they were just scared. So the item's broken. I'm gonna request that you pay for it. But it's very understandable. It's not your fault. This sort of thing happens to everybody. It's part of being a parent. Actually, you probably don't want to say it's part of being a parent because parents don't usually take advice like that very well. it's just part of this rental thing. Sometimes damage happens. Sometimes kids break things and they want to hide it because they're scared they're going to get in trouble. I was that same way with my grandmother's house. Or you could actually say to them, look, I certainly wouldn't want to pay for somebody else's brand new hammock. You know, but I might chip in to help them get it. So I can already hear some of our listeners saying, But Jeremiah, Airbnb is a billion-dollar corporation. They take 15% of my rent. And the least they can do is pay when their guests damage my property. I've heard it over and over again. And this is what is insurance for. But try explaining that to the guests without committing insurance fraud. Try calling up the guests and saying, Hey, you don't need to pay this. Airbnb will pay this. They're this billion dollar corporation. It doesn't matter to them. I know the right kind of stuff to say. You don't have to pay it. that's insurance fraud. That's like saying, hey, there's some damage, but I'm just gonna put this through on your claim. Now I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an attorney, I don't know what insurance fraud actually is. I just know that I'm only placing a claim when I need to place a claim. I'm doing it as little as I possibly can. I feel like somehow the insurance gods are gonna know that I'm watching out for them and they'll keep my policy low. I don't know if it works that way or not. Hopefully it does, because that's what I've been doing. And there's things I probably could make claims for, but I haven't made claims for them. I just fix them myself. And but then there's times when it's too much. And you know, that's kind of what insurance is for. So I feel like there's no need to ruin the guest's experience just to get something small, like paid for and taken care of. So I'm gonna have to tell you about I don't want to use her real name. Let's call her Melinda. so Melinda owns a house and has tried selling it for like two years and it's not getting sold because Melinda is unreasonable. Now, Melinda also misleads her guests into believing that her house has access to HOA amenities that are right across the street from her. that's wrong. It's the wrong thing to do. So Melinda contacted me for property management. And for one very unfortunate month, I managed Melinda's properties. It was not a good experience. It was not a good experience for me. It was not a good experience for Melinda. It was not a good experience for her guests. And one of those reasons is that her guests were never really satisfied with her property. It had a whole bunch of issues. And it's because Melinda will not put the guest experience first. So she has a fine. Of $500 if you bring a pet without disclosing that pet. This is just an example, so if you forget to put the pet on your reservation, and it's only a hundred dollar pet fee, but if you forget to put it on there, she's not getting a hundred dollars. She's charging you five hundred dollars and she's actually taking it out of your security deposit. Explain how they do that on Airbnb. I don't know. I don't know how it's possible. But she's doing it. She's charging them. And she will not give them the door code until they've wired her a thousand dollar security deposit. So, what ended up happening was the hot tub, there was this really cheap, like rickety, hot tub cover. It was these rails that come up and there's wheels on them so that you can push the hot tub lid off of the hot tub. It's still being supported by the side of the hot tub, and it makes it easy to take it off and put it back on. Now, this apparatus should have been Screwed into the wooden members behind the paneling of the hot tub. Because everybody knows the paneling of the hot tub is just plastic. It's just fiberglass. It's not meant to hold any kind of weight. So this system worked for her for a few weeks after her husband installed it. He did not take off these panels to figure out where the screws should go. He just put them where he felt like they needed to go, which was incredibly risky because these are three-inch screws. And he could have easily punctured one of the lines for the jets. Didn't happen, fortunately, but when our guest was there, they pushed this hot tub cover back the way they're supposed to, and it broke the side. over time, these lids they get waterlogged. And I think that that's all that was happening. It just got waterlogged, and it now broke the thing off of the side of the hot tub. Which means There's damage. So I went over there. a couple days later, I analyzed the situation. We determined what needed to be done in order to fix it, and we put everything back together with the original pieces. And you could still kind of tell it was broken, but the invoice for that came up to like a hundred and five dollars and ninety-one cents, I think. whatever the number actually ended up being, it was pretty reasonable. But in order to satisfy the next guest, I was actually doing this in the rain. It was a day just like today. If you're watching on YouTube, it's raining out while I'm recording this. But it was raining like today. And I was out in the rain using power tools, trying to get all of this stuff back together the way it belongs before the next guest arrived. Well, that invoice for like $105, I told Melinda, this is not something we should be charging the guest. The chances that this is the guest's fault are like Maybe one percent. This is ninety-nine percent because it was not correctly installed. Melinda said, I don't care. Charge the guest for this because Airbnb is a billion dollar corporation and they're not going to notice it. They're not going to care. And it's only 105 bucks. Well, 105 dollars when you know it's your fault is I still feel like that's fraud. Let's call it what it is. I think in my opinion, that that's just fraud. But whatever. So I actually did what I was told to do because there was a chance that this was the guest's fault. And I felt terrible because the guest actually paid it. I made the request that they pay this hundred and five dollars to fix this this thing, this hot tub cover lift, and they paid it. And I was like, I still feel bad about this. I saw that they paid it and I thanked them for it. And I told them, you know, you're welcome to come back anytime. Just make sure you ask for me. I'm going to give you a big discount on your next stay Why? Because I want a guest like that. Somebody who's taking responsibility for stuff that's not even their responsibility. And maybe they just didn't know. Maybe they just knew that it broke and that, they're taking responsibility for it. I probably would have done the same thing. But I felt terrible in that situation because a property owner, Melinda, is forcing a fraud on them, in my opinion. and I'm being forced to request this, expecting the guest is gonna say no, we're gonna get into confrontation, and then Airbnb is gonna end up paying it because we had all the photos that we needed to in the way of the invoice. Well, Airbnb is also gonna assume that it was installed correctly, and I know that it's not installed correctly, but I'm not supposed to share that with anybody else. You know, So if you are like Melinda, you need to just get out of Airbnb. You need to stop listening to me and sell your property I don't want to be the guest that's staying in Melinda's house. Number one, her house was nothing special. It was kind of crappy. to just to give you an example, she puts a timer on the only heater in her game room. Her game room is this big open basement. It's freezing cold all winter long. She wants you to take your shoes off when you walk through the door. and there's a sign. Please take your shoes off. Well, this basement is freezing. It's like 45 degrees. And there's only one heater, and it's an unvented propane fireplace, and there's a timer on it. You can only turn that vented fireplace on for 60 minutes. And then it's going to go off again. So you might warm up the space, but then it's going to get cold again. Like I was trying to convince her, just put a heater down there. Put something on a thermostat so it can stay comfortable. And she wasn't willing to pay for the fuel. She wasn't willing to pay for the electricity either to keep it warm. I was like, look, you know, we don't have to heat it when there's no guest. There's Wi-Fi connected wall heaters. Like you can get an electric wall heater and you can have it Wi-Fi connected and you can make sure that it's off when there's no guests there, and you can make sure that's on before the guest arrives. Like I'm focused on the guest experience, and she's focused on I'm using up too much propane. I don't care if the guest is comfortable. Like that's gotta be what's going through her head. I just don't get it. I don't get it. Maybe she grew up in a place where that was normal. I don't know. It's none of my business, actually. But what I'm promoting has worked for me and it's worked for the other people that I've worked with. it's what I've seen play out over and over and over again. That when you are building a business and you are generous and you are kind and you are focused on your customer and their experience being positive, what you create are these cheerleaders. They go forth and promote your business. And they are going to be way more effective at promoting your business than you are. And people like Melinda are just going to have to drop their prices until the cost-conscious buyers purchase their product. they've got no goodwill. They've got nothing going for them. Now, lastly, I feel like. Guests get a bad reputation sometimes. Airbnb guests, Booking.com guests, VRBO guests, they all have this like stereotype. And I want to break that down for a minute because people in our industry, hosts, other STR owners, they all kind of talk about guests like they're entitled, like they're sneaky, like they're just always unhappy, like there's nothing you can do to satisfy them. But that's because when the notification comes in that Cole left a five star review, that Sasha left a five star review, we don't read it because that's what we were expecting. We were expecting five stars. We get so many emails, we don't have time to read those. So what do we actually pay attention to? We pay attention to the guest that's a problem. We pay attention to the one that's causing issues, the one that's asking for a credit, the one that's left a four-star review. Like, it knocks the wind out of me. But it's because I'm not putting into context. I might have 25-star reviews, and then one four-star comes in and it ruins my day. So, for that week. We're at 4.95, which to me is like the average over the last couple of years. But like, I don't know. I just floored by the four-star sometimes. It just takes the wind out of my sails. And us as hosts, I think are focusing on that negative too too much. We're just we're focusing on that four-star. We're focusing on that guest that was a problem. We're focusing on the one that was unhappy. We're looking at our systems and thinking, I can't improve this system. I'm just gonna have unhappy guests forever. This is what I'm doomed for. But here's the thing. In reality, most guests are just like you. They are gonna be happy. They're having a great experience. They're telling all their family and friends about your house. They're trying to impress you sometimes with how clean they leave the property. I had a guest one time. That almost fooled me into thinking that they didn't stay there. I mean, if it wasn't for the cameras showing that they walked in and out of the house, like I would have thought, because they made the beds the exact same way that they were when they were found. They rolled the towels, they did everything to make it look like they had not used the beds, they had not used the couch, the floors were spotless. oh my goodness. Amazing guest. They loved the place, they left a fantastic review, and they cleaned up so well. I actually had to ask her. Like, did you wash the sheets before you made the beds? No, I just always I'm in the habit of making the beds, and I really liked the way you had it when I arrived. So we unmade the beds. We washed the sheets and towels and everything else we made the house. But like there's more of those guests. There's more of those five star guests than there are the problems. And we sometimes just focus on the problems. And then all the average or good guests, the ones that are really happy with it, the ones that do feel like this is a place that they want to come back to every single year, the ones who are going to make recommendations to their friends to rent an Airbnb. Those are the ones that we tend to like, I don't know, just forget about. Like they're average, they're normal. But that's a guest like you and me. Like that's one of the reasons we got into Airbnb. Right. It might have been foolish to think that all of our guests were going to be that way, but like that's the majority of them. So recognize that it's normal for guests to be happy. It's weird for them to be entitled or sneaky or just unhappy and unsatisfiable. Is that a word? Like they can't be satisfied no matter what you do. Like they're not going to be happy even with a credit. They're not going to be happy even if you bring over another propane tank. They're just not able to be satisfied. that happens and we get jaded. I think as hosts and as property managers, I get jaded sometimes. So here's a quick activity for you hosts, listeners, and you Sugesh take all of your reviews, put them into AI and ask AI to summarize this. Ask it, what are some themes that you see? And it'll tell you your guests are very happy with your house. They're particularly impressed by your hot tub. They absolutely loved the hammock. Sorry, bad topic. But like it'll tell you these things. And that I hope will be this little reset that you do maybe once a quarter to help you realize like you are doing a great job. Your property is five stars. You just got some guests from time to time that are not super happy with it. We can get so focused on perfection that we completely miss excellence. And for us, it's either 100% or 0%. It's all or nothing, baby. Well, that's a tough way to live your life. When you can be like striving for 100 and you get 93, and it's not A-territory, it's like just straight A. Remember that a 93 and a 99%. Get you the same thing. So, Sugesh, in your interactions with guests, I recommend being gracious and friendly in all circumstances, even when they break your hammock. A used hammock would sell for maybe $25, depending on the age and style. Outdoors, near the ocean. Probably got a more limited lifespan than in other conditions as well. Also, keep in mind if you do too many resolutions through Airbnb, your visibility will suffer. My final recommendations focus on the guest satisfaction. Focus on guest happiness. You need to make raving fans of your property, because those fans are going to promote you more than you can promote you. And even though you might get $100 for a free hammock, I think that you're missing out on thousands of dollars of future business because you're not focused on the guest experience. I genuinely enjoy sharing messages like this. And that's why this is the show where we discuss the challenges and the stuff that no one talks about when they sell the dream of easy passive income. If you're a property manager, an owner operator, a co-host, or just an investor, then email me at info @ galvanizedmanagement.com. I'd love to connect and learn more about your approach. And if you have a question, ask it. Your question might be the next one that we break down, and chances are you'll help a lot of other hosts in the process too. We win or we lose together. If this episode helped you, great. I'd appreciate a good rating and a share too, So we can continue growing organically. Together is how I believe we make this industry better. I'd also love to see you follow on TikTok at Galvanized Investments and Facebook and YouTube at Galvanized Management. Until next time, stay steady, keep learning, and keep building something real. This is Short-Term Rental Problems and Solutions.