

Surviving Hosting On Airbnb When On Vacation - amiadsoto
http://blog.booksuperhost.com/surviving-hosting-airbnb-vacation/

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prawn
Make sure any respondents/agents have the same passion for your listing's
reputation and reviews otherwise it can make for a poor situation.

My best Airbnb experiences have been when an owner/family has been the
contact. The worst have generally been where there was an intermediary - some
have been exceptionally rude. Had one in Milan where a woman just waved her
hand mid-sentence, couldn't be bothered answering my second question (do you
have the keys so we can lock up when we go out), gave me a set of 8 keys
without explanation and walked out. The apartment had no info sheet or
anything. Would've taken her 30 seconds to point out what needed to be locked
and which key matched which lock. It was lucky that I held her up to clarify
because she'd given us a set of keys for a different apartment.

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iamkoby
I can definitely relate. Had been using Airbnb around the world a lot. This is
why we put a strong emphasis towards quality of service. As a paid service we
know that if we do badly you won't hire us again. We do our best as if it was
our own listing. We give fast an accurate response, and we are always there
for more clarifications. And our guests love us, so we must be doing it right.
You can read in our website some of our testimonials.

Koby, co-founder of SuperHost

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kordless
Congratulations on your recent entrepreneurship! I owned an ISP in the 90s and
PAID an answering service to answer calls after office hours. Two of us would
carry the dreaded pager (one of the first SMS devices out) and we'd coordinate
who would get the call. I'd take the 2AM calls usually - being the owner and
all. A strange thing occurred over time.

A few of the ladies at the answering service started doing simple tech support
for the customers. Reboot your modem/computer/check your password. Said they
were bored and it was interesting and didn't mind. Ended up giving them
accounts for free. The call volume was noticeably lower after that. A few
hours without doing dialup tech support is like a slice of heaven.

I feel like this is sorta like that. You can answer a few of the more common
questions, maybe get your users to fill out details (maybe a standard form
that prints to a handout for the guests even) and use those to populate your
agents screens when a call comes in. Stuff outside the scope of the info you
gathered gets kicked to the user. They don't get a completely free vacation
time, but it's better than it was. Don't promise it'll be 100% interruption
free. That means you need to change your marketing a bit, but it's still kinda
cool what your offering

Best of luck! Pools of knowledge are going to be big.

~~~
iamkoby
Thanks for sharing!

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amiadsoto
Hi, I am Amiad, the co-founder of SuperHost. I'm here to answer any questions!

Thanks

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Mithaldu
Your website starts with two questions asked by customers, then claims it will
take care of them for you by answering professionally. However it does not
explain for those two examples, how they would be answered. Let's assume the
answers are not as simple as "instructions on top of washer" and "look on
google maps". How would you answer them?

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amiadsoto
Great Question. Thank you.

When we answer our guests we either do it by phone and resolve their problem
or question, or by message on email/airbnb platform. We find that our guests
are very satisfied by the level of detail that we put on our answers. For
example our directions from the airport are a full page with both public
transport options and prices and other more private options like shuttles and
taxis.

I hope that answer your question. Feel free to ask me any other question you
may have.

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nik_0_0
I don't think that really answers the question. There will evidently be
questions that require the owner's actual interaction. (Eg. Q: which light
switch controls the outdoor lights; how much water do I give your plant?). The
only thing I can think of is getting some information beforehand from the
owner (which at that point may as well be given to the renter).

This solution is great for general area questions, but guests will likely
still have specific questions about the actual building they are in (how do I
turn on the hot water, etc). How will you deal with that?

Edit: Koby's response just popped up as I was composing this; I like the idea
of learning from previous responses!

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iamkoby
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback!

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HorizonXP
I've been hosting on Airbnb for the last 8 months, and I've had plenty of
guests while I was away/on vacation.

You really just need to screen your guests better.

~~~
iamkoby
First, screening your guest is a task that takes time and effort as well. We
are offering to reduce the work needed for the really low price of 1%.
Moreover, it's not just guest support, but you can also accept new guests
while on vacation, allowing even back to back guests. It's almost turn-key
service.

~~~
HorizonXP
With a Lockitron and HomeJoy, I can accomplish most of this myself.

I'm not dismissing the idea, I think it's great for people that need to have
their Airbnb monitored. However, you're the equivalent of a property manager.
If I'm renting out the room or apartment I live in, I don't see the value. If
you're talking about helping out people who have multiple properties on
Airbnb, then I could see the potential market. I doubt it's going to have a
major upside though.

But hey, prove me wrong. :-)

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alecsmart1
I hate it when blogs don't have links to the main site. Am visiting your site
in an in-app browser. There is no url bar where I can change the url nor is
there any link on your blog. Please add!

~~~
iamkoby
You are right. Mobile version did have a bug, hiding the navigation bar! Thank
you for noticing! We will fix it asap!

