3 Easy Steps to Automate Guest Communication (My GO-TO tool)

What’s up guys, in today’s video, we’re gonna be talking about three easy steps that you can take in order to automate and outsource all of your guests communication for your short term rental property.

This way guests communication will be completely off your plate and you as a short term rental investor, or property manager for that reason, will be able to have this completely off your plate and not need to worry about the day to day minutia of actually responding to guest messages. Now, responding to guest messages is a really important part of the business. We’re in the hospitality business after all, but it’s not necessarily super high leverage. It’s not like you’re gonna make a whole bunch more money by respond to guests yourself, as opposed to having someone else or a different tool or system do that for you. And it’s also pretty inconvenient, let’s face it, guess communication is not something that you can just schedule in and do it at a specific time that works for you and your schedule. It happens whenever the guests needs it. And oftentimes, that’s at inopportune inconvenient times that really impact your overall lifestyle. So for those reasons, I generally have people that I work with start to outsource and automate their guests communication, as soon as possible. It’s really one of the first things that we’ll look to get off of an investor or property manager, again, off of their plate after cleaning, cleaning being the very first thing that you want to get off of your plate. So with that being said, let’s talk about how you can actually get guests communication off of your plate in three easy steps. Now, the first piece is going to be automation, you really want to use tools like host away or different guest messaging software’s now host always a very robust one, it’s actually a channel management software. Even Airbnb nowadays has a lot of automation that you can do with your guests messaging, and quick replies that you can add to your messages so that there’s template messages, you just click one button, and you can send it without having to type it out. Because for a lot of the questions that guests are going to ask, you’re gonna have the exact same response every time. Like, for example, how do I get access to the Wi Fi. So you want to automate as much as possible, we have a comprehensive list of all the automations. And the quick replies that we set up for every property for things like check in instructions, you know, after the first night, we also like to check in with them see how their stays going. The night before they check out, we also like to give a pre checkout message. And then after they check out a post checkout message asking for a five star review those sorts of things. And so you can automate a lot of that stuff, then we have quick replies that we use for a lot of the other stuff that is just questions and gets messages that come very, very often, like how do you turn on the sauna? Or how do you access the Wi Fi or things like that. And so that’s gonna be the first step. But that’s not going to get guests messaging off of your plate entirely, that’s just going to make it a lot more efficient. Now, the reason I recommend starting there is because one, it’s better to do things efficiently than to just hand it off. But number two, before you outsource anything, my recommendation is always to automate everything you can to make the process as efficient as possible. So that way, you’re not paying more for outsourcing just to have someone do manually what could be done by automation. So that’s gonna get you all the way there with your automation, but then it’s a matter of actually outsourcing. And so that’s where you really want to do two things. Now, number one, it’s going to be Systemising. The role if you don’t already have one, you want to build a set of standard operating procedures are essentially an Operations Manual, if you will, for your guests communication team. And that should consist of some different tools for them to use as well to access key information about the property. Because anyone that you hire on to do gas communication for you isn’t going to know all the intricate details and the ins and outs of your property the same way that you do. So you want to document those things. So it’s easy to then hand off the roll. So after automating with software, the second step is then to Document Document Document Document, you want to have everything laid out in detail. So I recommend having a standard operating procedure, which would just be basically a Word document that outlines exactly what you’re expecting for the role, how their their tonality should be how they should generally go about problem solving, things like that. And you’ll also want to have something like a property detailed tracking spreadsheet, where they can track all the different details about where the track is located, how to turn on the hot water, you know how to turn on the hot tub, all these different things. And then another document separately for you know, frequently asked questions, if you will. So that way, what’s really nice is that as you bring in guest communication person on board, they’ll then only have to ask you certain questions one single time because they’ll be able to constantly add to this frequently asked question document whenever they answer a new or novel question to them, so they can save that detail for later. And then once another guest asks it six months or a year from now, they can just reference back to the doc I like do these in Google Sheets because then it’s easily searchable as well. So that’s just an added bonus there. Then the third and final step when it comes to getting guests communication completely off your plate is actually outsourcing so that you can have a completely hands off for yourself. And that’s going to mean finding someone likely a virtual assistant who’s going to actually take care of everything that automation can’t take care of. And they’re gonna use those systems and that documentation that you created to be able to transition into that role really smoothly. Now for finding this person, there’s a few things that I want to look for. Guys just want to take a quick break here to say that for those of you watching, who want to build cashflow, and long term wealth by purchasing Airbnb ease and short term rental properties, there’s a link in the description right down below for a free training that will walk you through my exact strategy for investing successfully in Airbnb ease. Now, if you’re not ready to actually buy properties, and you want to get started managing other people’s properties on Airbnb the same way I got started and build a full time income managing other people’s properties, there’s actually another free training linked in the description down below as well, that will be a really great fit for you. So whether you want to invest in short term rental properties, and actually build amazing cash flow and long term wealth by acquiring the assets, buying the properties themselves, or you’re looking to earn a full time income, managing other people’s properties on Airbnb, we’ve got some awesome trainings that are linked in the description down below, that’ll definitely help you out. When you sign up for the trainings, we’re also going to send you a few other tools and resources completely for free just to help you get started. Again, the links to sign up are in the description down below. And both trainings and all the tools are completely free. So make sure to register for the trainings, links in the description down below. Now for finding this person, there’s a few things that I want to look for number one, I want to look for someone that just has the availability to manage guests communication in the peak times. So the most important times in my experience to have guests communication on lock is going to be in the mornings for a little bit in the evenings and on weekends, that’s generally going to be the most popular times. And so if you’re just hiring one person at the beginning, then you really just want to have someone on evenings, maybe mornings and on weekends. So you can take 90% of the workload off of your plate. And then you only have to manage guests communication for maybe a couple of hours during the day, when it’s not going to be as inconvenient for you. So that’s the way I recommend structuring, you can also just hire two people right off the bat to get full amount of coverage that you’re going to need for, let’s say about 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And so that’s what you’re going to want to do. That’s what you want to look for. And reliability and availability are two of the most important things. Now the third most important thing is obviously going to be a really good strong fluid comprehension of the language in your area. So for me, that’s English. In our area, we have properties in Canada and North America, we’re going to be using people that have really, really fluent English communication skills. The fourth thing that I always look for is just good problem solving skills, because there’s always going to be issues that come up from time to time that needs solving. And it might just be a non issue like the guests just not being able to figure something out, in which case, the guests unification person has to have the patience and the wherewithal and the ability to help that guest troubleshoot whatever issue they’re facing. Or there might be actual issues like you know, a cleaning not being done up to par or they’re being missing something. And they need to be able to think on the fly and actively problem solve and coordinate between the different people on your team, like for example, the cleaners or the maintenance people to get those problems sorted efficiently and effectively. And then the overall strategy for hiring for this role is I like to use a service called dynamite jobs. It’s a job board that you can post on it costs a few $100 to post on there, but in my experience, it is well well worth it. Because generally, I’m looking for people for this role in Eastern Europe. That’s where I found for English speaking tends to be really, really good because they’re in a relatively close timezone. They’ve got incredible English skills, and they’re willing to work for a more reasonable wage than what you could get in most of North America. So I personally think that Eastern Europe is just a fantastic place to hire for and dynamite jobs is purely for remote job posting all the jobs on there completely remote. And recently, when I posted for this role at our company, we got a couple 100 applications for the role and we’re able to sort through them. Now my process for that is I like to have a basic application after a really detailed and thorough job description. I have a basic application they complete for the shortlist of candidates, I’ll have them submit video applications where it’s essentially taking the place of a first round interview, where I’m going to ask them a few different questions get them to respond in a video. And that is really, really important because it allows me to gauge their their actual English communication skills. A lot of people can fake it on the written application by using things like chat GPT, or different kind of faking tools like that to kind of cheat cheat tools like that. And so I don’t like to rely on that to gauge their English communication skills. But I also don’t want to take a whole bunch of time out of my day and do first round interviews with a whole bunch of people and schedule that in. So I find that video interviews for that first round are super, super effective. They can just use loom or similar service to record a video interview, send it over and that’s going to take place of a first round interview then for my shortlist. So at this point, it should really be narrowed down to maybe three to five candidates. That’s when we’ll actually take the time to do a zoom interview. ask them specific questions and make sure they’re a good fit for the role before offering them for the position.

So again, dynamite jobs is a service I like to use for that. But you can also use other services like Upwork, potentially even Fiverr. And then there’s other job posting boards like indeed, that you can post on as well. I’ve just personally had the most success so far lately with dynamite jobs. So that’s my process for getting guests communication completely off of your plate. If you have questions or if you want to learn more about this, then just let me know in the comment section down below. As always, if you want to learn more about how to invest or manage other people’s properties, if you want to manage other real property, or invest in your own for short term rental and do that successfully and effectively, and check out the free trainings that we have linked in description down below. Also, last but not least, if you’re new to the channel here, or you just aren’t yet subscribed, I know a lot of you guys watch these videos every single week, but just haven’t yet subscribed to the channel, make sure you press that subscribe button so you can stay up to date with the two new videos we post every single day or every single week rather on this channel. And then finally, my last request for you is just going to be to hit that like button if you liked this video, if you got value from it, please give it a like in the in the section down below there. Other than that, that’s all I got for today. Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.