Pros and Cons of accepting a damage deposit

There are those that think that the traditional damage deposit is out of date and is actually affecting your booking process. There are those that swear by it. Now, my name is Mark Simpson. I give hosts all over the world the tools and tactics to training, but most importantly, the confidence to go and increase your DARA bookings. And the damage deposit is something that has been a hot topic in the hospitality community and Team Boostly and forums further afield for many years now. Now, I reached out to some amazing people at Super Hog to ask this very question. What are the pros and cons of the traditional damage deposit and how they are helping this industry solve it? So I'm going to throw it over. I've asked for a video response. The best of the best is coming up, so please make sure you check this out and then leave the comments below while you're watching with your opinion on the traditional damaged deposit. Is it a yay and is it a nay and why?

Hi Mark and everyone at Team Boostly, thanks very much for asking Super Hog to answer these really important questions. We talk about this daily with our property managers and also our internal team. We're always trying to find that right solution for deposits for our clients. So, first of all, the pros of taking a traditional damage deposit would be it's less risk for the property manager. It means that they don't have to fulfill the cost of damage if something was to happen, especially if they haven't got the cash flow for doing that, because if they take that traditional damage deposit, they're going to be able to just pay for the damage from that. Secondly, it's a huge deterrent for guests actually causing damage during that booking. If I knew I had £500 on the line, I would be being as careful as I could during that stay. And secondly to that, it's going to determine those guests that are booking that property for no good reason. So maybe it's criminal activity they want to do there, or maybe they're hosting a huge party. It's going to put those guests off from continuing with that booking. The cons to taking a traditional damage deposit would be that it costs the property manager to facilitate that. So clients might use a company like Stripe to do that for them and it costs them commission in both ways, taking the money and funding it. And that's obviously adding to running costs of the business. Secondly, the actual processing of it, that can take time out of a property manager's day and therefore, you know, they could be getting on with other things other than that. Guest complaints could happen as a result of taking a deposit because they're waiting for the money back after they've checked out and the host needs to go in and check the property, the cleaners need to check it and maybe the guest starts complaining. And again, that's time communicating with that guest over that. It could also put good guests off booking. And what I mean by good guests is people that are going to be genuine during their stay, but maybe they can't afford that deposit when they, when they've booked their stay because the holiday or the, or the property, you know, the reason why they're going to that property might have cost them a lot of money to do so. So they might then decide to book another property instead down the road. I this will be the least likely reason to happen, but it could happen. So how superhog are solving this? So first of all, we want to provide a full solution for our clients and our property managers and that includes obviously our screening and our upper property protection. But now we are offering a traditional deposit taking facility for our clients up to £500. But we're also giving them the option of taking a damage waiver. And this consists of asking the guest for a smaller fee up to something like £30. And that gives the guest up to £500 in a waiver, which means that the property manager won't go after them for any damage because they are essentially creating a pot of money with all of the bookings that they are facilitating in this way. And therefore they can pay for the damage out of that pot of money, which is not unlike what a traditional insurer does. They take the premiums and pay out few times and that's how they make money. So therefore the damage waiver can create that extra income. I hope this has been useful for everybody. It's been really great to come on and chat about it. It's really something that is talked about so much like Mark said says at the moment, everyone's talking about it. And Superhold wants to provide that rounded product and service for property managers to take those things away from them.

Thank you so much for checking out today's podcast episode. Now before you head and go anywhere else, before you click to the next episode, before you do that, do me one big favor and go check out boostly.co.uk trust. IPRAC are the sponsors of all of the Boostly content. And the reason why I work with them and the reason why we spread the message of IPRAC is that when a host or a company is looking to get more into Dyra bookings. The main question they have is around trust. As in will a guest trust that I am a true and real business? Will IPRAC take care of all of that? And they've got a special offer that is only available to Boostly people. But to do that you need to go to Boostly, which is B O O s t l y.co.uk trust you can find out all the information there. You can book in a demo, book in a call, and then you will get your super special offer that is only available to Boostly peoples. Thank you again for tuning in. Do go check out iprac. We'll be back again very shortly with another podcast episode, but until then, we'll see you all very soon. Take care.