Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Why Airbnb Hosts Need To Screen Every Guest!

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Why Airbnb Hosts Need To Screen Every Guest! · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
Hello and welcome to House Planet Bite Size, the podcast
0:03
brought to you by House Planet and House Philly.
0:05
My names James Farley, the founder of host Planet and our
0:09
goal is to share everything you need to know about buying and
0:11
managing short term rentals. Today's guest is Ella Measure
0:15
Borski from auto host. She's got 5.
0:18
Need to know facts about guest screening?
0:21
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1:03
Hello, welcome to House Planet Bite Size.
1:05
Thank you for joining. Us you've got 5 need to know
1:08
facts about guest screening so let's.
1:11
Take it away with fact #1. Let's do it.
1:14
This was really fun to put together.
1:15
I think it's really evolved throughout the last couple of
1:18
years. So this was a great list.
1:20
So, OK, so fact #1 which is a little bit of a misconception
1:24
sometimes is that guest screening really isn't just one
1:28
thing. So guest screening would be any
1:31
and all activities that are related to your guest
1:35
registration, verification and vetting of anybody that walks
1:39
through the door. So it's not always do I have to
1:42
run a background check. Sometimes if you have a
1:44
registration form, sometimes it's not for safety.
1:47
Sometimes it's for an amazing guest experience.
1:50
But whatever process you need your guest to go through would
1:53
be some sort of screening. The middle would be
1:56
registration, vetting, verification, get more
1:59
information about them, any and all of those activities.
2:02
We'll talk a little bit later about what elements could go
2:04
into guest screening when we talk about the extent of it.
2:07
But that's the important part, that anything you're doing as
2:10
old school or small or, and you get huge and you're running
2:13
thousands daily. All of these activities are
2:15
guest screening. And anybody does and really
2:18
should have something in place. So it doesn't have to be all the
2:21
way, but you're doing something to vet your guest.
2:24
You're not just turning a blind eye and handing over keys.
2:26
So you're screening your guests and that's the responsible thing
2:29
to do for any operator. So I thought that was an
2:33
interesting thing. Yeah, it was important to know.
2:36
It's really just like anything you're doing is a transition of
2:39
a black box and anonymity to kind of safety and transparency.
2:43
So that's everything we're doing around guest screening.
2:47
All right, so so. First things first then
2:50
everything you're doing is a type of guest screening and you
2:53
need to have something in place so need to know fact #2.
2:58
Correct. So fact #2 is that especially as
3:03
you grow and scale, and it could be from 1:00 to 3:00 or, or or
3:07
30 to 300, standardization of your process is really a key to
3:12
avoid loopholes. So we're finding that operators
3:16
when they're really small, they try to find these sort of like
3:20
one-size-fits-all and say that, you know, we can go really
3:23
strict or really lenient with specific things and that create
3:26
gaps. So you could go no one night
3:28
stays or I'm not taking booking.com or nobody under 25
3:33
and you can do this and that would be your better save than
3:36
sorry strategy. But that leaves a lot of money
3:38
on the table. And so, and then On the contrary
3:41
too, you can kind of come and say, well, I'm not going to
3:43
screen Airbnb guests or I'm only going to screen Expedia or I'm
3:46
only going to screen certain things like one night on a
3:49
weekend by a local. And it's just that those types
3:53
of things end up creating gaps. I know that some operators
3:56
sometimes want to do it to avoid supposed friction in the guest
4:00
journey. And so it really is your
4:02
responsibility as an operator to make sure that first of all, the
4:04
screening isn't presented as friction.
4:06
It should be presented as an incredible guest experience or
4:09
whatever we need. We're going to have you agree to
4:11
staff. We validate you are who you say
4:12
you are. Your identity hasn't been
4:14
compromised so that you can have a smooth check in, we can
4:17
release the information and so on.
4:20
So in that sense, as companies scale, what we're seeing is that
4:24
they do not differentiate by OTA or by age of guests or by
4:27
location. They just really choose to
4:30
standardize their process. Direct bookings are being
4:32
brought into the agenda and like the equation and just
4:36
standardizing what you're doing across the board is really
4:39
important. The one other element that you
4:41
really achieve with standardization is the ethical
4:45
screening part. So that part is really
4:46
interesting. When operators are small, they
4:48
rely a lot on, I mean, if you put it nicely, you're going to
4:51
call it gut feeling. If you put it not so nicely,
4:54
then we're talking about bias and discrimination.
4:57
Now, other than that just being wrong and you're going to
4:59
accidentally or intentionally decline the wrong guests, that
5:02
also opens loopholes for sophisticated fraud that
5:05
understands those biases. And they're going to come off as
5:07
a really well put through message and an amazing profile
5:12
picture and a lovely cover story.
5:14
And so if anything, lack of standardization and trusting
5:17
your gut feeling, which I mean I've done as an ex operator is
5:20
something that we see that as companies scale, they really
5:23
make sure to avoid so big important part.
5:27
Yes, it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, I guess a lot of that
5:29
boils down to whether you've got instant book on your, you know,
5:33
on your OTAs or even on your direct booking platforms.
5:36
Yeah, standardizing the guest experience.
5:38
I mean, you'll hear a lot of house and property managers,
5:40
they'll say, well, I will never accept a one night booking on a
5:43
Friday or a Saturday night because maybe my property's in a
5:46
built up area and it's going to be a party or something like
5:49
that. So yes, it's interesting.
5:50
I guess when you do get bigger though.
5:52
You've got no choice. You kind of have to have a
5:53
standard procedure. There's no way you're going to
5:55
like look at every. Name and photo and profile.
5:58
And and say, Oh well, I'll take that guest, but not that guest.
6:01
Exactly. And actually my favorite example
6:03
for the one night stays on a Friday is, you know, like my
6:07
parents live in the surrounding area of Toronto, so we're
6:10
considered locals. And they might go downtown to a
6:13
theater or the opera restaurant and have a few glasses of wine
6:17
and decide last minute to just stay at a hotel or stay at an
6:19
Airbnb. And by all means take their
6:21
money, right? Like that's not the reservation
6:23
that you want to screen out just because you're saying no one
6:26
night stays on a Friday. And that's what kind of fine
6:28
tuning your screening a little bit better would be really
6:30
beneficial for your bottom line. Yeah, 100%, yeah, if you're if
6:33
you're refusing everybody, I mean, you know, we know from
6:36
being, you know, host and property managers, 95% at least
6:41
of guests are great. And you know, it's only a very
6:44
small percentage that that are causing problems.
6:46
All right then, Ella, so need to know fact #3. #3 So I mentioned
6:51
this before, but in a different kind of capacity.
6:53
I said that guest screening really isn't one-size-fits-all.
6:56
So you're not going to implement a process when you're at 5 to 10
7:00
properties and have that same process remain all the way
7:03
through. So first of all, something is
7:06
better than nothing. Just like having a sign on your
7:10
door saying beware of dog. Even if you don't have a dog at
7:13
first, it's better than not having that sign.
7:15
So get started with something you don't always need tech, you
7:20
don't always need in person. Check insurance.
7:21
You might be starting with that. As you grow, you can move more
7:25
towards an automated process. You can introduce more
7:28
screening. You can remove human element and
7:30
trust, say software more. Or you might, you know, kind of
7:33
go, I'm going front desk and I need to screen everybody and I
7:36
need somebody to look at people. But either way, and it's
7:39
something that I'm hearing also from clients that have been
7:42
using us, as they grow, they do take that time to re evaluate
7:46
their processes, see if something needs to be tweaked,
7:49
either automated better or something wasn't working in
7:52
their criteria. And just keep your kind of pulse
7:55
on it to see is it working well. Are you avoiding, are you
7:59
avoiding the the damages, the risk, the issues, the fraud, the
8:02
chargebacks that you're hoping to avoid?
8:03
And at the same time, are your guests happy with it?
8:06
Or are you really achieving what you needed to achieve with being
8:09
a responsible operator? So based on your size, look at
8:13
you know what's out there and what you should be using, be it
8:16
internal staff or tools that are available.
8:18
But definitely make sure that you re evaluate as you scale
8:21
your portfolio. Yeah, how much is guest?
8:23
Screening a constantly evolving process.
8:26
So it it really is because you start with when you're small,
8:29
you you kind of do in person check insurance and your gut
8:31
feeling is they look sketchy or they don't look sketchy and a
8:35
sketchy is not a good criteria. I mean, I've done that and I've
8:38
been burnt with it. But then, yeah, as you're
8:42
growing scale, you run into like you have a team with people and
8:44
they have their biases. So like one agent that's, mind
8:49
you, a guest support agent, their job is to make the guest
8:51
experience amazing. They're not bouncers, they're
8:53
not supposed to be gatekeepers, but they kind of are forced into
8:57
that role a bit. So arming them with some more
8:59
standard procedures if and then decision trees lay there down
9:05
the line, some tools that let you collect the right
9:07
information, do the verifications you want to run
9:09
from via ID verification to social to background checks and
9:13
fraud and device. And there are so many things you
9:15
can check to make sure that the guest is who they say they are.
9:18
But definitely utilize those things as you grow bigger and
9:21
you have to handle a higher volume because you don't want to
9:23
be holding your fingers crossed. That's not a strategy.
9:27
Yes, even though you might. Be doing that.
9:29
From time to time. OK then Ella so need to know
9:32
fact #4. Let's do it.
9:34
So especially in this day and age, it's extremely important
9:39
and that no matter your size is to educate yourself on data
9:42
privacy and security. So we recently just saw this
9:46
come up with Airbnb's new policy.
9:48
But just in general, regionally and countrywide and continent
9:53
wide and worldwide, you need to be aware of compliance with
9:57
privacy laws, especially by the way, if you're not at first
10:00
using certain tools and being aware of.
10:02
So PII is personal identifiable information.
10:05
So if I collect some information about you and I have James
10:09
Varley with your picture of your ID sent to my e-mail and my
10:12
e-mail gets hacked, that is where liability kicks in.
10:16
There's examples of companies way bigger than you'd assume
10:19
where for a very long time they would just write down credit
10:22
cards of customers for a security deposit and just write
10:25
on a piece of paper or in a journal or into a form.
10:28
So as you grow and as your liability grows, being aware of
10:32
the fact that, yes, you're asking for identifiable
10:35
information from your guest for your and their safety, but it's
10:38
also your responsibility to make sure that it's encrypted, it's
10:42
guarded, you're using a safe service, that the reason why
10:45
you're doing it really is for your mutual protection and
10:47
therefore privacy laws come in. And then there's things like how
10:51
long you can keep the information and deleting it.
10:54
And you know, tools that you use would take care of that for you.
10:56
If you're not using tool, just awareness is really important.
10:59
And whatever tool you are looking into, making sure that
11:01
you're remaining compliant, that you're not liable for any data
11:04
breaches or information in that sense, because you want to get
11:06
the benefit, but obviously not be on the hook for any issues
11:11
arising. So that obviously is really
11:13
important. And as fraud online grows, it's
11:17
it's becoming a real concern. Yeah, it's something you have to
11:20
be careful of and it's going to change depending on what
11:22
location you're in. Even if you're out here in in
11:25
Europe, you have to think of when you're storing people's
11:27
e-mail addresses, you've got to be GDPR compliant and all that
11:30
kind of thing. So yeah, think, think very
11:32
carefully about data privacy and security is really, really
11:35
important. OK then, Ella, so 5th and final.
11:39
Need to know fact let's do that. So the fifth one is something
11:43
that it's like it's something that we're terrified by, but it
11:47
keeps us running and going it's the fact that guest screening is
11:51
something that's evolving and getting more and more
11:54
sophisticated. So if I look at a few years down
11:59
kind of back, we would see situations where companies won't
12:03
accept locals. So, you know, local gangs would
12:07
realize that they can have, you know, a friend in a different
12:10
city, make the booking, but then pass the information.
12:12
So it's almost like there's always loopholes that are being
12:15
found. So fraud and fraud is there's
12:17
different types of fraud. But let's just kind of say that
12:19
anybody you really don't want to be walking through the door and
12:22
who's lying about their identity or intentions, we're going to
12:25
let's call that a fraudulent reservation right now, whether
12:28
results in a chargeback or not. And so we found very early on at
12:32
autos, for example, and that's what, you know, our R&D is
12:35
focused on the more exploits and the more ways you have to do
12:38
this, we need to always stay on top of it, be it recording
12:42
devices that are making multiple bookings or there was a period
12:45
where reservations were made and then sold on Kijiji is like, you
12:49
know, a triple the cost and where parties are happening.
12:51
So that was back then and now we're reaching the age of bad
12:56
AI. So AI is now going to be the
13:00
driver of so many incredible things.
13:02
But we in hospitality also really need to understand that
13:06
those gut feeling strategies that we once had, like the
13:09
message sounds sketchy, or let's ask them something or let's
13:11
distract them. The message is no longer going
13:14
to sound sketchy. Everything is going to be lovely
13:16
and coherent. Everything is going to have an
13:18
incredible cover story. You take that to the next level.
13:21
ID images can be fabricated, especially for the human eye.
13:26
Selfies, biometric scans, like there's so many of those things
13:30
where you can go deeper and deeper into finding a way to
13:33
fake it. Now my favorite recent one that
13:36
terrifies me to the core, and I'm a little happy that I'm no
13:38
longer an operator, but we want to do whatever we can to help
13:41
operators. Is that way back when if in
13:44
doubt it was like we'll just call them just call the guest
13:48
judgement. Just give them a call.
13:49
You'll see if they're a normal person, you'll see if they're
13:51
fine and so we're now talking about voice activated chat bots.
13:56
We're talking about you being able to have a coherent
13:59
conversation with somebody who you think is Julia Johnson.
14:06
That's booking. And it really won't be her, but
14:09
the bot will. And she's not even going to
14:10
mumble because the bot will be given the instructions of what's
14:14
the story, how to answer. They're going to think on the
14:15
spot way faster than you can. And so we're getting into, on
14:19
the one hand, it's terrifying, but it's really just our
14:21
responsibility to be aware of that evolution of the risk and
14:25
just the more data points you bring in, the safer you are and
14:29
knowing that the guest really is who they say they are.
14:31
And we have the benefit of with all of this happening, guests
14:34
should be aware and understand that we're doing this for their
14:38
safety as well. And so in terms of cooperation,
14:40
you're talking about instant booking.
14:42
A lot of the verification is kind of presented as a
14:44
registration. It can happen after the booking
14:46
to avoid friction. But those types of things is
14:49
something that operators also need to be aware of that it's a
14:51
little harder to know if the guest is, you know, who they say
14:54
they are. And it's on us to make sure that
14:56
we're not just turning a blind eye and handing over the keys to
15:00
anything from Gray area issues from parties, vandalism, noise,
15:04
rule compliance, and then all the way to criminal activity,
15:07
gangs and drug smuggling and escort services and sex
15:10
trafficking and ending up in chargebacks.
15:12
And that fun list goes on. I'm thoroughly frightened, but
15:17
at the same time excited for your business because there's a
15:20
there's a lot of scope there for new technology in this space.
15:24
Just before we kind of chat a little bit.
15:26
About auto host just. Tell us.
15:29
What the the big OTAs are doing in relation to guest screening?
15:33
So what are? Airbnbwhatarebooking.com.
15:35
Doing every. Time they take a booking and
15:38
how. Secure are those bookings and
15:40
how? Confident can you be as a host
15:41
that they're actually genuine people?
15:44
OK, so, so it's interesting, I'm, I'm going to have to be
15:46
like a little bit, a little bit politically correct about this
15:49
just because the OTAs are claiming to be doing a lot and
15:52
it does differ and they and they alter what they're doing.
15:54
So for example, Airbnb is known and thought to be the safer of
15:59
the OTAs just because they're doing more on the guest
16:03
registration side, the review system.
16:06
Having said that, you need to submit your ID at the beginning
16:10
of the creation of a profile. And so it's one of those
16:13
loopholes where it's a perceived safety.
16:16
And sometimes it really does work, but sometimes for more
16:18
sophisticated fraud, it gives kind of it gives way for the
16:21
ability to like lots of examples where kids are being paid off to
16:25
open an account with a supposedly real ID, but then you
16:28
don't really know who it is. It's booking in cases like
16:31
booking.com, for example, which is, I mean, notorious for people
16:35
that have their, you know, red line, no booking.com
16:40
reservations. I'm passionate against that
16:41
because it's such a beautiful platform.
16:43
They're doing so much to bring reservations in.
16:45
But they're, I mean, their KPIs are turning lookers into
16:49
bookers. Like they have 0 interest at the
16:52
end of the day to add friction on behalf of the operator, to
16:57
stop any fraud from happening. As years went by, they've
17:01
introduced things. Sometimes they are the merchant
17:03
of record, they've been processing some payments, so
17:07
booking.com has been making some attempts towards that.
17:10
Expedia somewhere in the middle there.
17:12
So again, whenever you're the merchant of record and you need
17:16
to make sure the payment goes through and the person is who
17:18
they say they are, the responsibility is still on you.
17:21
You bring direct bookings into that mix and that's kind of
17:25
where you really want to know who's staying.
17:27
And then at the end of the day, if payment doesn't go through,
17:30
that sucks. And if payment does go through,
17:32
but something that is not legitimate happened behind
17:36
closed doors, are you as an operator OK with it?
17:39
Right. So that's what kind of, I
17:40
brought in the point of standardization, even though
17:42
things do differ, for example, Airbnb's policy, which is really
17:46
focused and they want to keep their money.
17:47
So the point is less, you know, don't ask guests for anything,
17:50
but they're saying they want to make sure payments go through
17:53
the system, that you're not taking them away from the
17:55
platform and so on. But even in those cases, the
17:59
attempt really is to help the guests and, you know, avoid that
18:04
friction. We as operators need to find
18:06
that balance. So yes, you can choose to, if
18:10
you have, if you're using any tools, you can choose to disable
18:12
things based on which OTA and channels they come through.
18:15
But when you start looking at a game of numbers, you just want
18:19
to even out the playing field. So they do do some things and
18:22
they compete for that and it's constantly evolving.
18:26
But in their best interest is to kind of get as many reservations
18:29
through the door. That's what they're competing
18:31
on. And we as operators, our job is,
18:33
you know, to keep our business safe and thriving.
18:35
A. 100% yeah, so. Tell us about auto host.
18:39
Where do you fit into the guest screening?
18:43
Enterprise. So I mean in, in a nutshell, I
18:47
actually come from the property management kind of side of
18:50
things at 1st. And so auto host it is a guest
18:53
screening platform that used to be an internal tool that we
18:56
used. And then we just realized really
18:57
that the industry needs needs it yesterday and there's so much to
19:01
be doing. So we went to get into many of
19:04
the marketplaces and basically handle the entire guest
19:09
screening process start to finish from Hi James, thank you
19:12
for booking to like I said, there's an array of things.
19:15
So you can go as simple as guest registration and just collect ID
19:18
to have on file and then all the way to validation of ID's and
19:22
biometric scans to make sure it matches social verifications,
19:26
fraud assessment and validation, device fingerprinting, running
19:31
background checks, credit checks.
19:32
So you can go anywhere on that spectrum as you need, depending
19:35
on your, I mean, requirements, contractual and whatever that
19:37
is. So that's what Audibles does.
19:39
And then the really great news is that we previously have kind
19:43
of exclusively worked with operators that are 25 properties
19:46
and up and were integrated through many of the marketplaces
19:49
or API. But now we're really working
19:51
with quite a lot of both PMS vendors and guest apps to really
19:55
make sure that screening is embedded in their platform.
19:57
So my biggest thing is, you know, whatever it is you're
19:59
using for your guest journey, make sure that screening is part
20:03
of it. Many are powered by Autohost.
20:05
So it's just something that we're really passionate about,
20:07
just kind of powering the industry and making sure that we
20:10
help even out that playing field.
20:13
Sounds great, and where can people go if they want to find
20:15
out more information about Autohost?
20:18
So I mean definitely visit our website autohost dot AI.
20:21
We have a a big knowledge base with lots of information and
20:24
really great tips. And then following us on
20:26
LinkedIn is usually great because we had our technology,
20:29
new updates, industry news, definitely a great source of
20:33
things that we often share. Fantastic, Ella, thank you for
20:38
sharing all those five need to know facts.
20:40
I'm a little bit scared, but also I feel like I've learnt
20:42
quite a lot as well. So thank you so much for joining
20:45
us on host planet Bite Size. Thank you for having me, James.
20:48
Great to chat to Ella, Measure Borski there from Autohost about
20:52
guest screening. Yes, it was a little
20:55
frightening, but that's why it's so important to get this.
20:58
Right, if you're a. Short term rental host or
21:00
property manager? All right, that's it for today's
21:03
episode. Remember, this series is
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sponsored by House Philly. And if you'd like to try their
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That's it for today's episode. Until next time, happy hosting.