Welcome to another Ask Me Anything (Ask Us Anything?) episode! Each week we’ll answer your questions on STR, real estate, OTAs, and everything in between.

Anonymous STR Owner asks:

How do you manage to be so funny, beautiful, interesting, intelligent, and successful, all at the same time?

Since this question ended being a bit ambiguous, we’re going to parlay this into how guests’ Airbnb reviews – positive or negative – can help you improve your STR game.

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. To hear your voice on the show and send a question to Sarah & Annette, visit Speakpipe.com/ThanksforvisitingAMA

Thanks for Visiting is produced by Crate Media.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hello.

Hello.

Welcome back for the great episode.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Thanks Visiting.

And this is the--

Hosting Hotline.

We've got a really, really fun one for you, listeners, today.

And we promised there is a purpose behind playing this for you right now.

How do you manage to be so funny, beautiful,

interesting, intelligent, successful, all at the same time?

We have to admit we might have listened to this a couple of times.

And yes, it was a nice for the old ego, but here's what we're going to do.

We're going to parlay this into, first of all, this person that

called in did not leave their name.

So it's one of those things, are they being genuine?

Are they being sarcastic?

This probably has happened to you in some of your reviews

that you've gotten from guests.

There's some of those digs in there and you're like, hmm.

We want to talk about reviews today.

But this person, their name was Dove.

So let me know what you think about that, but thank you, Dove.

I took it as super positive and then Sarah was like, oh, maybe he's--

No.

I took it as like he was being sarcastic.

I was like, Annette, this is a really good opportunity for-- but then

when we played it, we were like, we felt really good about that.

He was stroking our ego.

And so the first thing we want to offer up to you is hosting is hard, right?

You pour your heart and soul into not only the design and the decor

and the location and how you speak to your guests, and they're checking.

And--

Things are bound to go either wrong or expectations are different

on both sides of the table there.

And so you are going to get constructive criticism.

You're going to get flat out rude, reviews.

So when you get those awesome ones, because they are the majority and we know

all of our Thanks for Visiting audience.

You guys have the majority are glowing reviews.

Do yourself a favor and print a few out and put them on your bathroom mirror

or on your bedroom vanity mirror in your office because you're going to

need those reminders when things get tough that you are a rockstar host.

Yeah, like we're going to keep this recording and we're going to play it.

We might make it into a mix if we need to, but I actually at

VRMA or Varma, Vacation Rental Management Association.

I attended one of the seminars and it was about reviews and

how to deal with bad reviews.

And this was something that the woman that was leading it said like she has a file

in her office of all positive reviews.

So when she's having that day where she's just getting beat up by a

negative review, she can go into that brag bank and look at those.

And the other thing that she offered, which I thought was really good, is

to-- those negative ones, because people in this section, it was awesome.

They were standing up and they were giving names and almost

verbatim, the negative reviews.

They were seating and it might have been a year later, and she was like, I give you

permission to let that negative review go.

So we also want to give you permission to let those go.

They sting, they hurt, but you have to let them go in order to move on.

I was telling, we get bad reviews on our podcast.

So if you haven't left us a positive one, feel free.

That's my plug today, to leave us a positive one.

But definitely let those negative reviews go.

But Sarah, what should you do with every single review, positive or negative?

Always respond to every review.

It is not for the person who left the review.

It is for the person considering staying with you.

How you respond to both positive and negative reviews tells so much about

the business owner and operator.

And I promise you, you are going to be doing yourself a favor with

your occupancy if you do that.

And we do it for every single review that we receive.

And here's what the team does as well, is every week they will share a positive

review with the team, with the cleaner.

And when we do have constructive criticism, because if we get something

that is just blatantly inappropriate or rude or what have you, we

honestly just discard those outliers.

But when you have constructive criticism, take it inhouse with yourself if you are

running the business, and see how you can spin that to be positive, just like

we did with Dove's message for us here.

I love Dove's review.

No, I do.

Thank you.

No, we needed to hear that.

But also if he came at it from a sarcastic way, it's okay because

we're choosing to take it and spin it into something positive.

So when someone leaves you at two stars, because this happened to me,

I didn't have Kleenex in my rental.

This is back of the day.

Is it Kleenex or tissue?

Tissue paper, but Kleenex.

When I grew up, my mother was just like, you can use a toilet paper.

So when I started hosting, I didn't think about it.

And you better believe we have multiple boxes of tissue throughout our properties.

You know what I mean?

But that was a great constructive, like, you know what?

One, that was something that a guest wanted.

ADBREAK

I got a very negative review meds.

I'll be honest, I didn't have table lamps on all of my nightstands.

And this couple, they were vacation rental owners.

They were big readers.

They did not want the overhead lights on at night.

And there are now lamps at every single bedside.

Annette now loves secondary lighting.

Yes, I do.

I actually have two extras.

I haven't even showed you.

I just bought two last week at Target because they were so cute.

I was like, I don't even need these, but I'll buy them for future.

I need to show them to you.

They're really cute.

But copy this stuff out, have the positives there.

But I love, if you do not leave those reviews, that was something again,

like, that was an eye-opening moment.

That was actually inside of our membership.

We had a huge discussion about that, about leaving all-- reviewing

every review that is given to you.

And let's give you a specific, for instance, let's say a pipe froze in

your house and this guest is leaving a skating review about this one-off

issue because of Mother Nature.

You could reply and say, explain what the weather was.

It's remedied.

It will not happen again.

You want to give them the steps out of it.

Let that future guests know.

We were there within three hours.

We did this, we called.

That's where you would want to give a description to the

potential guest of what happened.

They can obviously read that review, but what your rebuttal was, how you

remedied it, that's exactly what Sarah's talking about, is giving that future

guest-- you are doing marketing for the future guest that's going to book your

You brought up a good point.

Now we could have a whole episode on just reviews, but I guess we are--

Aren't we?

We are.

Do not use the opportunity to respond, to review, to vent.

No.

Okay.

Write it all out.

Yes.

Call your bestie, vent and then you get on there and you are positive and

you are constructive and you own up too whether it is mother nature or your fault.

And give it some time.

You always want to give yourself a little buffer time.

We were actually with host last week and one of the hosts was talking about

how they go back and forth and they text what their reviews would be and then

they're like, okay, you need to tone it down, but they just need to get it out.

So I know people that have a fake email and they send all their feelings to that

email address so they can press send.

They want to rage, click send.

So if you are like that, maybe you have your own Gmail where you send all

those, just make sure you don't mess up.

But you don't want to let your future hosts know that you are just--

Yes.

Yes.

Seating.

Yeah.

So with that, we hope that we've given you permission to let go that

negative review, celebrate the positive ones, and use every piece of feedback

as a way to improve your business.

With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.