Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / The 5 Automations Every STR Host Needs to Scale

Transcript

The 5 Automations Every STR Host Needs to Scale · 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 Host Planet and Housefully.
• 0:06
  My name is James Farley, the founder of House Planet, and our
• 0:08
  goal is to share everything you need to know about buying and
• 0:11
  managing short term rentals. Today's guest is Dip and Gala
• 0:14
  from Lynx, and he'll be sharing the essential automations that
• 0:18
  every host should use. OK, real talk now for all you
• 0:22
  hosts out there, you know that moment when you guest messages
• 0:25
  you again? With.
• 0:26
  Hey, what's the Wi-Fi code? Or you're.
• 0:29
  Staring at five different calendars?
• 0:31
  Wondering if you've accidentally double booked the cottage?
• 0:34
  Yes, we've all been there. That's why here at Houseplanner,
• 0:38
  we recommend Housefully. It's basically your rentals
• 0:41
  Control Center. It handles bookings across all
• 0:44
  the big platforms, syncs your calendars to ensure there are no
• 0:48
  double bookings, automates guest messages, and even creates these
• 0:52
  really slick digital guidebooks that stop all the repeat.
• 0:55
  Questions. Honestly, it.
• 0:57
  Just makes your life easier and keeps you, your guests, happier,
• 1:01
  helping you achieve those all important five star reviews.
• 1:05
  And here is a little bonus. If you're a Houseplanet
• 1:07
  listener, you can get $500 off onboarding for Housefullies
• 1:11
  property management software and 30% off digital guidebooks for
• 1:16
  life. Just hit the link in the show
• 1:18
  notes and use the codes Planet 500 for the PMS and Houseplanet
• 1:23
  GB for the guidebooks. And if you'd like a.
• 1:26
  Proper walkthrough. There's also a link to book a
• 1:29
  demo with Frank Bosey from House Felipe.
• 1:31
  He will show you how it all. Works less stress.
• 1:35
  More bookings sorted with House Felipe.
• 1:44
  Dippin, thank you for joining us on Host Planet Bite Size.
• 1:48
  You're going to share the five most effective automations that
• 1:52
  STR hosts should implement. So take it away with automation
• 1:57
  #1 no thanks, James, for having me quick.
• 2:01
  Five automations that I think every host should have it and do
• 2:05
  it. And they're very easy to
• 2:07
  implement it #1 no brainer. Door locks, thanks to COVID,
• 2:13
  that made kind of table stakes. Now in our industry, if people
• 2:17
  are there without automated door locks or static keys or key
• 2:20
  codes, please don't do that. There was a lot of software
• 2:22
  available to automate all different kinds of door locks,
• 2:26
  make it simple for your guest. That's your first impression.
• 2:30
  We do last four digits of the guest phone number and automate
• 2:34
  through various locks. So I would say that's number
• 2:36
  one. Second, I think one of the low
• 2:38
  hanging fruits and easy to implement is texting the guest.
• 2:44
  Especially I'll give you a use case for all the listeners
• 2:48
  moment they open the door. We know in today's world when
• 2:50
  they open the door, right? And that's your first check in.
• 2:53
  We can set up automated triggers saying when they open the door,
• 2:57
  please send them an automated text message saying welcome, Mr.
• 3:00
  Guest, to this this beat site bundle.
• 3:03
  Here is your Wi-Fi details just simple because the first time
• 3:07
  they step in, they're looking for the Wi-Fi.
• 3:09
  Before that, you might have sent it via emails and all.
• 3:12
  Don't care. It gets buried down.
• 3:14
  Give the small piece of information in the right moment
• 3:17
  goes a long way. Yeah, Todd, which is very near
• 3:23
  and dear to me. I love it is we've experienced
• 3:27
  this in Disney and Marriott's and other hotels, but you know,
• 3:30
  we're not doing this that much in our vacation rentals.
• 3:34
  And you know, Airbnb host is to welcome guests with a warm TV
• 3:38
  screen with their first name or, you know, some personalization
• 3:41
  on the TVI cannot tell you how many times I've seen kids are
• 3:45
  like, oh, daddy, your your name is on the TV, right?
• 3:49
  And that just sets the moment. Again, forced impression counts.
• 3:53
  Setting up the TV is easy, but they walk in, their name is on
• 3:57
  the TV. Basic Wi-Fi information, all the
• 3:59
  stuff is on the TV. Any TV can do that in today's
• 4:02
  world. And that's a very easy, very
• 4:04
  warm, very good personalized differentiator if you want to do
• 4:09
  it OK. My 4th 1 is temperature control
• 4:14
  or thermoset automation. My top reason is hey I love this
• 4:19
  planet, we should do everything in our means to become green.
• 4:24
  Hate when the ACS or the heaters are on for days and nobody's
• 4:27
  checking on it. The energy cost is high.
• 4:30
  We're damaging our earth. The horn of automations are
• 4:33
  available where you can set up rules saying during occupancy
• 4:37
  set the temperature between 18 to 24.
• 4:39
  When it's not in occupancy, make it in power saving mode.
• 4:43
  Get a lot of proactive alerts if the temperature is out of range.
• 4:46
  In the northern parts of the world, people leave door and
• 4:49
  window open. You don't want your pipes to
• 4:50
  freeze. It will send you an alert that
• 4:52
  hey, after the reservation the doors was open, the temperature
• 4:55
  is now really low. Proactively do something
• 4:58
  otherwise your pipes are going to freeze and so on.
• 5:00
  So I think the 4th 1 thermostat automation, there's a lot of
• 5:06
  options available and I think everybody should do it just for
• 5:09
  the planet Earth. Very cold and near to me as my
• 5:14
  mission and number 5th is very generic.
• 5:18
  I kind of learned that from my plumber.
• 5:21
  Very surprising because once we were joking and we had some, you
• 5:25
  know, as a host you always have some issues and you need a
• 5:27
  plumber to kind of fix it. And I was chatting with my
• 5:31
  plumber and he's, I notice whatever quote he gave me, I
• 5:35
  would end up paying more to him because he had an amazing
• 5:38
  ability to upsell. Once his foot is in the door, he
• 5:42
  will point out two more things and say, hey, I can fix this for
• 5:45
  you. I can fix that for you.
• 5:46
  Your is additional. Your is twenty $5000 more.
• 5:49
  And in that moment you like not just do it, right.
• 5:53
  Same is with our guest. Upsell is key.
• 5:57
  I cannot tell you we have people who upsell the same amount of
• 6:01
  booking value and that all comes to you, right?
• 6:05
  You need to understand your market and on your audience and
• 6:09
  you have to upsell something, right?
• 6:11
  You're running a business, you have a capture audience in terms
• 6:15
  of guests. What can you upsell to them,
• 6:18
  right? A lot of tools available from
• 6:21
  only check in late, check out gap night automations.
• 6:24
  These those are simple things, but we've seen upsells from
• 6:28
  beach rentals, you know, private chef rentals if you're on more
• 6:31
  on the luxury side to conscious service grocery delivery.
• 6:36
  You have to take it as a core mission that hey, you know what,
• 6:39
  whatever my customer is, I'm going to upsell by 10 to 15%
• 6:42
  something and that will make a huge difference.
• 6:45
  And it's not about just revenue and upsell.
• 6:49
  The actual guest also loves the service.
• 6:53
  If you are attracting a lot of kids, if you're, you know, host
• 6:56
  around Disney and you're attracting a lot of families and
• 6:58
  kids, you know, if you deliver groceries, the parents would
• 7:02
  love it. If you are right in a very busy
• 7:04
  beach, which is known for fishing or for fishing charters,
• 7:08
  right, People would love beach shrinkers and fishing charter.
• 7:10
  So upsells a little generic grid is very important as a tool for
• 7:15
  our host to do it. So this I will repeat it again,
• 7:20
  door locks, text on opening the door for the first time just
• 7:25
  with quick Wi-Fi information, personalize with guest name on
• 7:29
  the TV. So TV is turned on with nice
• 7:31
  music and the guest name is on the TV.
• 7:34
  Thermostat, automation, eco friendly, energy saving, helps
• 7:39
  you know with energy cost reduction for the owners as
• 7:42
  well. And then fifth, upsell, just
• 7:43
  upsell something. I don't care what you do, but
• 7:46
  you have to upsell. 5 superb tips there.
• 7:49
  Different really, really great. Let's kind of dive a little bit
• 7:52
  deeper into a few of them. Now.
• 7:55
  I've just actually fitted the the new door locks at one of my
• 7:58
  rentals and I've got to say it's a real game changer.
• 8:02
  It's much better for the host and the guests prefer it as
• 8:06
  well. And I think there's a real great
• 8:08
  Security question here as well, because you're not worried about
• 8:12
  keys, you're not worried about keys maybe being copied by
• 8:15
  people who shouldn't be copied them and all that kind of thing.
• 8:17
  Unique to every single guest. And I guess there'll be hosts
• 8:20
  and property managers out there thinking, oh, I don't know about
• 8:23
  this. Like, how do you implement one
• 8:25
  of those door locks and, and how much do they cost?
• 8:29
  What would you say to people who are a little bit maybe unsure
• 8:31
  about adding them to their rental?
• 8:33
  Oh, no, I mean, in today's world, there are more than 40
• 8:36
  different smart lock manufacturers.
• 8:38
  You can find a cheap Chinese lock for 50 to $60.00 and you
• 8:43
  can find a really nice looking expensive lock for $500.
• 8:48
  Just go buy anything that fits your door and fits your budget.
• 8:52
  Make sure it is connected to the Internet so you can manage it
• 8:55
  over cloud. If you are small managing one or
• 8:58
  two properties, maybe you can get by by using just the you
• 9:01
  know lock manufacture app. But as you scale up, you have
• 9:06
  employees, you have multiple doors to manage.
• 9:08
  The app that the lock manufacturer has is not
• 9:11
  designed. It was predominantly designed
• 9:13
  for you as a primary homeowner, was not designed for a rental or
• 9:17
  Airbnb type situation. At that point you look for
• 9:20
  specialized software that will work with all your booking
• 9:22
  engines, reservations and they would work with all different
• 9:25
  kinds of locks. Because the reality is as much
• 9:28
  as you want to fit 1 lock type or one lock brand to multiple
• 9:32
  doors, that's not going to be possible.
• 9:34
  And every home is unique. That's the value proposition
• 9:37
  that we have. Every unit, every home is
• 9:39
  unique. So you should find service
• 9:41
  provider that can mix and match all different lock types.
• 9:44
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 9:45
  And I love tips two and three there, which, you know,
• 9:49
  welcoming the guest on the TV screen.
• 9:51
  But also if you've got the door lock as well, like you say, you
• 9:54
  know exactly when the guest is arriving so they can get a text
• 9:57
  straight away. And with both of those, you were
• 9:59
  saying let them know the Wi-Fi code immediately because of
• 10:02
  course, that is that is the first question that that the
• 10:05
  guests asks. So in terms of automations, tell
• 10:09
  us a little bit more about links.
• 10:11
  How can your platform help people in this area, right.
• 10:15
  So we as links, we've been in the industry for more than 10
• 10:18
  years with, you know, thousands of customers all across the
• 10:22
  world. We offer multiple products.
• 10:25
  We do, you know, lock management, thermostat
• 10:28
  management, TV management, all the hardware devices that are
• 10:32
  required. And we're more like BYOD and
• 10:34
  people like what is BYOD? I heard BYOB for us it's BYOD,
• 10:39
  which is bring your own device. So you're a homeowner.
• 10:42
  You could have any type of locks, any type of TV, any type
• 10:44
  of thermostat. We work with all of them.
• 10:47
  We directly integrate with all of them.
• 10:48
  And then we connect it to Airbnb.
• 10:50
  We integrate with Airbnb VRBO or if you're using 40 different PMS
• 10:55
  systems, we work with all different PMS systems as well.
• 10:58
  So you can connect with that and just automate everything and
• 11:02
  then create advanced, really advanced workflows.
• 11:05
  You can create advanced user management.
• 11:07
  If you have a bigger team and you want to give specific access
• 11:09
  to people, you can give access to homeowners.
• 11:12
  If they want to control their temperature or lots, they could
• 11:15
  do that as well. Excellent.
• 11:17
  And how much does it cost? I guess it depends on like how
• 11:20
  many extra bits of tech you have.
• 11:22
  Correct. We are very much Ala Carta
• 11:24
  bundle. You can just go with simple
• 11:26
  basic lock or you can go full suite.
• 11:28
  I want TV and I want locks and I want the whole, you know,
• 11:31
  beautiful experience of garage opening and I want the whole
• 11:34
  upsells and everything. So it the price varies a lot,
• 11:39
  but there we have pricing options for every budget out
• 11:42
  there. So let's make it that way.
• 11:44
  Excellent. And just tell us the website
• 11:46
  address. Where do people need to go?
• 11:47
  www.getlinksgetlynx.co.com dot CEO and do check out the TV
• 11:55
  solution. We've got amazing reviews around
• 11:59
  it. People love it.
• 12:01
  You can throw a welcome video so you as a host can say, put a
• 12:04
  video saying, hey, I am this host, you know, build that human
• 12:08
  connection in today's world and say, hey, I'm your host.
• 12:11
  Thank you for staying with us. You can put Wi-Fi information
• 12:15
  area guide box upstairs on the TV.
• 12:18
  You can cross list your other properties on the TV and that
• 12:23
  enables your direct booking engine as well, right?
• 12:25
  So if you're managing 10 units, every TV you showing it's a 7060
• 12:30
  inch. TV's just showcase other
• 12:32
  properties of yours so they will be more attracted to book yours
• 12:36
  directly next time. Fantastic.
• 12:38
  Sounds like a great solution. And we'll put all the links in
• 12:40
  the show notes so people can find out more information
• 12:43
  different. It's been a real pleasure.
• 12:44
  Thank you for joining us on host planet Bite Size.
• 12:47
  Thank you James for having us. And hey, happy holidays, it's
• 12:50
  holiday seasons now. All right, that's it for today's
• 12:52
  episode. My thanks to Dibin for joining
• 12:54
  us and sharing those essential tips.
• 12:57
  Remember, this podcast is brought to you in collaboration
• 13:00
  with House Philly, which is trusted by short term rental
• 13:03
  professionals. Across the globe.
• 13:04
  As a House Planet listener you get 2 exclusive offers $500 off
• 13:09
  onboarding for House. For this property management
• 13:11
  software, just use the code Planet 530% of digital
• 13:15
  guidebooks for life use the code Host Planet GB.
• 13:19
  To grab these deals, click the link in the show notes or head
• 13:22
  to housefully.com. For more free education tips and
• 13:26
  trends from the STR industry, visit Houseplanet dot Club,
• 13:29
  where you can sign up for our newsletter, listen to our
• 13:32
  podcasts, and download a suite of ebooks for hosts and property
• 13:36
  managers. That's it for today's episode.
• 13:38
  Until next time, happy hosting.