How to make sure a guest will never rebook with an OTA again

Before we start this episode of the podcast, I just want to give a special shout out to our sponsors, Hostfully. Now a lot of you will know about Hostfully as being the digital guidebook leaders for hospitality business, but they are also an award winning PMS property management software. Right now you can go to hostfully.com.

And you can get a two month.

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Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee cause it's so hard and the tea is loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. If you want my respect you'll better butt direct.

Mmm.

Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.

Hello, my name is Mark Simpson and I give hosts just like you the tools, the tactics, the training, but most importantly the confidence to go and increase your direct bookings. And today in this episode of the Boostly podcast, what I wanted to do was to break down why now more than ever we have to be super realistic in how we are going to increase our direct bookings. And it all brings me back to the booking process. Now if you haven't already watched my five step video on the booking process, the steps ages that every guest will go through before making a decision to book with you, I do recommend that you go and check it out. If you head to boostly.co.uk YouTube, you'll be able to check out the video that I created on that I show you step by step guide. I even created a podcast series on it in series two. Go to boostly.co.uk podcast to go and check that out. But we've got a bit of an update and it's like an updated version of the guest booking process and it's where we're at right now and the reason why it needs to be updated is some of the latest stats that are coming out from all in rooms from price labs for beyond pricing and what we're noticing right now because of the way that policies and government policies are changing pretty much on a daily basis at present all over the world is that they lead time. So from the point of making a booking to arriving at your front door is getting shorter and shorter and shorter and it's only going to get shorter. What that means is that you're going to be witnessing, if you haven't already, you're going to be noticing a lot of really short booking spans pretty much maybe one or two days out. And what that is doing to the direct booking movement is that for example, if you have got a guest who has never been to your area before and through, whatever the motives may be, whether they are going to go on a staycation, maybe they're just going to pop 45 minutes up the road, maybe they're just like, I really want a break and they just want to just go somewhere. What you'll find is that they may start their booking process 72 hours out or four days out, or five days out, which is really, really rare. If it wasn't for the whole Covid and everything going on, this probably wouldn't be the case. But it's happening. Some people are even doing this 24 hours out or 48 hours out because they are so worried about the cancellation policy. And you know, I know that you may have a really flexible cancellation policy right now. I know that you may be really going down that worry free route. But people don't yet know this. People are still thinking, well if I book it, I have to pretty much guarantee that I'm going, otherwise I might lose money because it's what's being presented in the media and social media, etc. So what that is meaning is that if you're going to somewhere that you've never been before and you've only got a short span, then what you're really looking to do is the Amazon prime approach, which is search it, find it, book it, just like that. And where in the past people may have gone down the whole route, okay, well I'm going to go to Google, I'm going to do a couple of searches. I might type in accommodation near here or you know, I might type in X, Y or Z. What you're noticing is that they're just going straight on their phone, straight on their app and the apps that are there, booking.com and Airbnb are going straight in. So unfortunately what you're finding is that people are going in, find it, book it and particularly on, on apps such as, you know, Hotel Tonight, which is owned by Airbnb or Airbnb itself, you know, booking.com have struggled here. Airbnb have definitely put profited. And you can see with their latest surveys and their stats and their findings that they are releasing, is that they are not struggling, coming out of severe lockdown. So what this means is that somebody, a potential guest that would normally maybe book direct, is going straight into the app and making the booking. So as far as getting the guest at the first time, that booking process is getting harder and harder and harder. Unless you have got a really good pay per click campaign where you are actively on Facebook doing retargeting ads, you're spending a lot of money in the original long tail keywords on Google Ads. If you've got a very active email campaign going to entice new guests, anybody who signs up to a lead generation on your website, et cetera, unless you're doing all of those things consistently and spending a lot of money at the process, then we're just going to have to get realistic here and to assume that the majority of people that are going to be booking with you, they are going to be coming through v OTAs. But that doesn't mean that this is where you just got to concede defeat. If anything, what we should be doing is really focusing on our systems and our structure to make sure that you then become their point of call. Now, what can you do? Number one, a guest books via, say, Airbnb books via booking.com. yes, they redo their email address, but what they do give you is they give you their mobile telephone number. So what I would be doing to every single guest that's booking between now and definitely, you know, the next couple of months would be sending them a WhatsApp or inviting them onto Telegram, whatever your preferred messenger platform of choice is. I'd be looking to do that straight away, getting them on a WhatsApp message straight away and start that communication. Now, what you're doing then is you're taking them off platform, you're taking them off Airbnb, you're taking them off booking.com and you're getting them on your one on one communication. Now, whether you, you know, you do this yourself or if you're lucky enough, or you've got a team that you can maybe outsource this to, I'd be looking to do this as soon as possible because what's going to happen is maybe 5 out of 10 of your guests, they're just going to come and stay one time, but you never know who the other five may Be they may be coming for work, you know, with you know, certain lockdowns. Specifically in the uk, the only people that can really travel is, is business people at the moment. So it could be coming for work and they may be coming more regular. So yeah, you may have lost that original booking to an ota. But if they need to come back or even more important, if they've got anybody else in their office or their team that is going to need to come in to your area for a, for a work appointment and they need a place to stay, then you've got that point of contact. So the, the WhatsApp point or messenger communication is going to be really key moving forward. So what would I recommend you do? So number one, before stay quickly send a WhatsApp and introduce yourself. If you want to have a pre filled in template on your phone in the notes section. Whether you've got an Android or if you've got an Apple phone, totally up to you. To make your life easier, if you want to go uber personalized, a little voice note or even a video message really does give a face behind the business. And then what you'll do is just before they arrive, maybe 24 hours before they arrive again, this is all manual, this isn't automated. Send a quick message just to say hey, just to make sure you, you know you can get into the property. Okay whatever you do for that extra guest experience then you can tell them you know whether it is that you've got, you've got all the, the gear in your apartment and you're able to turn on the heating before they arrive, you've got music going or whatever say just to let you know we've got some for the arrival. If you have a welcome pack, let you know that we've got a welcome pack. If you stock up teas and coffees and you know that nobody else in your area does just say hey, just let you know we we've pre filled your tea and coffee for you, we've got a couple of bottles of water for you X, Y and Z. Just let them know, give them already that sort of five star guest experience and then when they get in so you know, whatever time they tell you that they're going to check in, just make a note on the day and just say hey, did you get in okay? Have you found everything? All right, if you've got a digital guidebook which you should all have by now, in fact, let me know as you're, as you're watching this video with me in the comments. Below, doesn't matter what platform you're watching this on, let us know if you've got a digital guidebook and who you've got a digital guidebook with. And so just say, here's your digital guidebook. It will show you how to turn on the WI fi. It will show you how to turn on the cooker, whatever, tv, air con, whatever you've got. Send it to them and just let them know this is how they do all the bits. And then just say, I'm really looking forward for your stay. Please, please don't forget to honestly review us or, you know, leave us a lovely review at the end of it. So put that into their mind. It's a Danny from Optimize My BNB tactic, which is fantastic. And again, after checkout. And after checkout is the important one. And this is where 9 out of 10 of you watching this video. So the hundreds of you that are going to be watching this video with me now or whether you're watching back on the replay, this is where you're going to fall down because you're not going to send this. This is a really important one. It's going to be either a voice note, video message, text message, whatever it's going to be. And just say, good luck on your onward journey or safe trip back. We've really enjoyed having you, the team, have let me know that you've left a place in a fantastic state. So thank you very much for that. Please do remember to leave us a review on whatever platform you booked us on. You know, mention Airbnb, booking.com or whatever to say, you know, it really helps us. But. But what's really important is that next time you come back and stay with us, please book with us directly. We put a higher rate on the OTAs because we have to pay them a high commission cost to be on their platform. So if you book with us next time, you'll get a better rate and we've also got some better incentives. So just tell him if you've got earlier, check in, later checkout, if you've got free parking or whatever when you book direct, then let them know at that point because it starts to plant it in the brain. And then just say again, if you want to keep in touch with us, here's a link to our email list so we can send you special offers or tell you about latest availability, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, you can drop it all in here. But the most important thing to leave it with and to do this 24 hours later. So again, Make a note. And then this is the important one, just put hey, name. And again, it can be text, video, video message, voice, note, and just say, just wanted to find out why you came to stay with us if you haven't done this already. So just say if, if they've come to stay with you for business, send them a message and just say, hey. So we were just thinking. I was just thinking and I just want to send you a quick message. Are you planning on coming back anytime soon? If so, send me a message and I'll. I'll more than happy to arrange some dates with you. Or are you coming back? Or do you know anybody in your office is planning on coming here now? Again, because it's business. Maybe they're key workers for the nhs, maybe they're truck drivers, maybe they're, they're doing shift work, maybe they're stuck. For whatever reason they're coming back or they know someone who's going to be coming back in. Plant that into their mind and just say, hey. So just to let you know, if for whatever reason, anybody from your team, friends, co workers, family, comes and books with us and mentions your name, then as a thank you from me, we'll send you some in the post or we'll send you Amazon vouchers. Again, think about the time of the year that it is right now, it's coming up to Black Friday sales, it's coming up to Christmas, it's coming up to all of the things. So if you can give them a little incentive just to say, hey, mention us, they mention you, then we'll send you X, a 40 pound 50 gift voucher or whatever through the post would be a real nice incentive to them to go and recommend you. And this is everything that you can do on the back of an OTA booking. So you've done nothing to try and change them from being an OTA to a direct booking, which is one of my big tactics that I share with you. Just go onto YouTube and type in how to turn an OTA book into a direct one. So it's not even doing any of that. It's literally striking up the conversation. But getting them, where's my phone? Getting them off their platform and onto this, which is, which is super important. Getting them onto your platform, onto your service, into your world. And, you know, it doesn't have to be done on a mobile phone. The beauty of WhatsApp and Telegram and all of these other devices and software now is that it can be done on your desktop, on an app, on your Tablet, your team, you can all have access to the same device, you can have all of access to the same login. It can be easily, easily done. Yes, it may take a little bit of extra time, but once you start sending the messages and you start having the same ones, then you can just save the templates in your phone and it's just a case of copy and paste. If it's going to be a voice note, you can do it while walking, you can do it while, you know, driving. If you've got hands free, you can, you can literally do it. And it's so, so simple to do. So bear this in mind that with the lead time from point of booking to arrival getting shorter and shorter and shorter, you have to maybe concede to the fact that if you haven't got all these systems in place and you're spending a lot of money on PPC pay per click ads, then you will have to concede the fact that that first booking may have to go via an ota, but nobody should have any excuses of once they've booked from you once via an ota, but the second and third and fourth time that they come back to you or any referral to should never be through an ota. You know, I talk about this a lot in the Boostly academy. You've got to make the OTAs work for you and not the other way around. And this is a point in time right now where you need to be listed everywhere. You need to have a PMS in place, a channel manager in place that's firing off everywhere. Every single website that you could possibly be listed on be there, because you never know where people are going to be looking. But once they've booked, you've got to do everything in your power and this is a free, simple way of ensuring that when they come back, it's to you directly. Okay, this is part of my new series for the Boostie podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you want to go find out more. Boostly.co.uk forward/podcast as always, Boostly is B O o s t l y.co.uk podcast if you want to be a part of of my daily WhatsApp channel again, boostly.co.uk daily boost every day I send blogs, articles, help, advice, voice notes into our channel. So it's not a group chat, so it's not spammy or anything like that. It's a, it's a channel. So only I can send a message. You will get it and then you can either deal with it, click it or save it for later. But I send it every single day. It's via WhatsApp. And you know, it's, it's a, it's a great little place for us to keep in touch. Find out more by going to booster.co.uk dailyboost if you've watched this live with me, thank you so much. If you are watching back on the replay, leave a little hashtag replay. Whatever channel this may be on, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, I don't care. Just leave a little hashtag replay because it really does intrigue me and interest me to know where people do watch this back. If you're on the audio and if you're on Apple, please do leave a review. Make sure you subscribe. If you're watching this on Stitcher so you're part of the Team Android again, please do leave us a review because it massively helps us drive up the ranking. Thank you so much. We've just literally passed 30,000 downloads of the Boostly podcast, which means a lot. I'll be back again in the next episode to give you more practical and actionable tips and tactics and advice and giving you the confidence to go and increase your direct bookings. Thank you so much for watching and I shall be back very shortly.