Fair Screening Methods that Pay: A Controversial Hot Potato

Step up to the Secret Vacation Rental Screening Glass Little People-Move Along Quickly Now!

In my last post, I described what I personally believe is an unfair business practice in the vacation rental industry: guest cherry-picking by a secret screening process used by property owners to selectively & subjectively assess guests & their “worthiness”.

Don’t get me wrong-I think that owners, like all other business people, should, and have the right to qualify their customers.

I just think that the qualifying criteria should be public & transparent to make it fair and friendly for guests.

Otherwise guests feel like, well, little insignificant people who are expendable and just not good enough.

Qualifying, eligibility screening criteria that Owners don’t want to publish are either illegal, prejudicial, or simply based in the Owner’s desire to maximize their profit by choosing the BEST reservation among competing, qualified guests.

In the latter situation, the fairest tactic is first come first serve.

Today’s post will focus on the first step towards better AND more transparent screening as a means to a friendly reservation process & more bookings.

Fair & Consistent Screening Leads to More Bookings

If you have a fair screening process, then you shouldn’t have a problem with accepting instantly confirmed reservations with payment, from qualified guests.

Seamless reservations where people are deemed innocent until proven guilty, means more reservations from qualified guests.

Why?

The “secret screening” process is adversarial.

It assumes that everyone is guilty until proven innocent through the magnifying glass.

Who wants to do business with a vendor who is automatically suspicious, thus assuming that all of their prospective customers are guilty homebashers until proven otherwise?

Remember, people like to feel GOOD, not guilty.

When people feel good, their money will follow.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

Before we go on any further with this post, it is probably a good idea to establish some street cred on this issue:

Am I just one of those pontificating arm chair hand wavers who like to tell other people what to do with nothing personally to lose?

No.

My position and passion about this issue and how I think it is impeding direct rental opportunities cost our company tens of thousands of dollars….in the short term.

I so believe in the concept of a fair & transparent online business environnment for guests & Owners engaged in direct rentals that in Dec 2003, we stopped accepting new accounts that refused to accept live, instantly confirmed reservations.

In doing so, I sent hundreds of listings to my competitors with my best wishes.

Since then, reservations have grown exponentially. Word of mouth referrals have exploded.

At the same time, customer complaints have dropped, fraud has been eliminated and guests & owners are having a lot more fun than they used to.

Policies that Qualify & Pay: The First Step to Better, Fairer & More Consistent Screening

Policies are the first step to establishing fair and transparent screening.

Publish ALL of your screening policies.

To get you started, or even thinking about this issue, I have included a set of timeless, tried and proven successful policies that are currently in action on our personal property site, as well as being extensively used by nearly 700 owners who are currently doing live, instantly confirmed reservations.

I call them policies that pay, because many of our clients have the highest revenue grossing properties in their destinations.

These policies inspire confidence and allow guests to self-qualify themselves prior to booking.

They also empower the owner with the right to cancel a guest subsequent to booking, if upon calling the guest, they find that the guest does not meet a published eligibility criteria.

Everyone wins.

Instead of blocking ALL business, only the less than 1% of non-qualified booked guests are blocked.

Some of these policies are only relevant to ski resorts, however, if you think laterally, perhaps you could come up with your own weather guarantee! A future post will focus on the issue of weather guarantees.

Enjoy the policies-they are rock solid.

In my next post, I will review the other important & transparent screening methods you can use to qualify your guests.

Thanks for reading & have a great weekend!

Sue

Recommended Policies

Property Policy	Description	Comment
Minimum Stay	See Rates table
Delivery of Instructions and Access Information	Will be sent after balance of payment is received	Door code will be emailed to you in your check-in package when you make your final payment.
Check-In Time	4 pm	Can arrange for early storage of luggage
Check-Out Time	10 am	Can arrange for storage of luggage after checkout
Cancellation	All payments are non-refundable unless your reservation can be replaced	Refunds for re-booked dates will be issued based on the rate at which the property was rebooked. All refunds will be subject to a 4% cancellation and refund fee to cover credit card expenses.
Smoking	Absolutely NO Smoking
Pets	No Pets Allowed
Housekeeping	Housekeeping is complimentary. The home will be cleaned every 6 days of your stay	Additional housekeeping is available at your expense. Please ask if you would like more information on this service
Maintenance Emergencies	A cell phone number will be provided in the unit. We have assistance 24/7.
Terms of Eviction	Any complaints will result in eviction by security service.	The chalet is is a designated quiet area, noise complaints will result in your immediate eviction
Courtesy Hold Reservations	Reservations are not held without payment. Please confirm your reservation by clicking Reserve Now	Our site takes live reservations 24hrs/day/7 days/week, therefore, we operate on a first come/first serve basis.
Resort Information	Useful summary & resources are automatically provided electronically at the time of booking!
Guest Stay Contract	when you book online, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions
Delayed Arrivals	We are not responsible for late arrivals.	No refunds will be issued.
Maximum Sleeping Capacity	14 people
Long Term Stays	contact owner for details
Minimum Age Requirement	There must be minimum 2 adults of at least 25 years of age or older to take responsibility for the group.
Late Reservation Payments	Late payments will result in automatic cancellations.	You can rebook if your dates are still available. Refunds will be issued in concordance of my cancellation policy.
Property Damage	Guest agrees to authorize damage charges up to $500 upon departure in the event of property damage	The damage deposit will be taken from your credit card after your holiday and an invoice will be provided
Liability	We are not responsible for any injuries to tennants while they are on my property or anywhere else in Big White.
Reservation Changes	Reservations may be changed in compliance with our cancellation policy.	You may lengthen your reservation if availability permits. If you would like to shorten your reservation, please note that your deposit calculated on the orignial amount is non-refundable; if you have already paid the balance, then your balance is similarly non-refundable. If you have not paid the balance,then it will be re-adjusted to reflect your shortened reservation.
Reservation Guarantee	Property Sale/Damage-We relocate you to a comparable property. If there are any rate increases associated with the move, we will contribute up to $100 CAD per night towards rate equalization.	If we fail to successfully relocate you, you will receive a full refund. Travel insurance is recommended to protect yourself against any unexpected events involving your lodging, flights or vacation-related products
Excessive Noise	This is a Quiet area. There is zero tolerance for any excessive noise. Any complaints will result in eviction.
My Web Site Guarantee	I guarantee that I will honour all rates posted on my web site at the time that your reservation request is submitted.	If any amenity changes after you have confirmed your booking with payment, I will notify you in advance and give you an opportunity to cancel with a full refund.
Refusal of Business	We have the right to cancel your reservation if you have violated any of eligibility criteria or policies now, or in the past	We have the right to refuse your businsess based on non-compliance with these policies.
Missing Items	Guests authorize a credit card charge for missing items as per my stated damage deposit policies.
Policy Last Updated	June 6th 2006
Arrival Days	Bookings less than 8 nights must arrive on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays. Bookings greater than 8 nights-arrive any day you want!	Bookings less than 8 nights will be cancelled if they do not meet with arrival day requirements
Noise Restrictions	Excessive noise from the hot tub area is not permitted after 11 pm. Occupants may be evicted subsequent to noise complaints and will be charged for damages resulting from the noise complaints.	The outdoor hot tub area can be used after 11 pm, but please engage only in quiet conversation after 11 pm out of respect for our neighboring families.
Snow Guarantee	We will refund 50% of your nightly rate for every day that greater than 65% of the lifts are closed .	Valid Jan 1-April 1 only. Guests must notify us the day the lifts are closed so that we can confirm it independently. If we cannot confirm lift closure, you will not receive a refund.
Rental Accommodation Zoning	My property is legally zoned for either short term or long term rental accommodation use

Are You Good Enough to Rent My Home ?

Hmm…Which Juicy Cherry Should I Pick?

Have you ever submitted an application to become a business’s paying customer, even though the market is flooded with similar products where no application is necessary?

Have you ever spent 2-5 painstaking days as a “potential customer candidate”, waiting in hope that your application is approved and you are deemed worthy of giving the business thousands of dollars?

In an industry flooded with choice and brimming with companies willing to spend millions of dollars just to get your valued attention, most lodging businesses would be flattered by your glance and would bend over backwards to make a sale as easy & enjoyable for you as possible.

Paradoxically, a large amount of owners doing direct vacation rentals get away with what I think is one of the most caustic and insulting business practices on the Internet within the vacation rental industry:

Customer Cherry-Picking

What is Customer Cherry-Picking in the Vacation Rental Industry?

It is when you clearly meet the owner’s published customer eligibility criteria, you are willing to agree to published terms and conditions as a condition of your booking, the dates you want are advertised as available and you have the money to pay. As a final hurdle, you must also go through a secret screening process known only to the owner, before you are allowed to book their home.

The secret screening process involves unpublished and subjective guest and reservation profiling practices intended to maximize the owner’s outcome, but that the owner is unwilling to publish in their ads or on their web site.

Sometimes you have to wait 2-5 days to know whether or not you are good enough to be a customer with a confirmed reservation.

Guests hate it because cherry-picking adds insult to injury in a world flooded with advertising focused on magnifying their supposed inadequacies.

It is another hurdle to overcome in proving their worth in the world.
It also wastes their time and just seems intuitively unfair to not know the rules of the game upfront.

How do we know?

Numbers don’t lie:

Our own vacation rental business numbers suggest that given the choice between being screened through a secret process, versus being cherished and welcomed through a transparent and instant booking process, that guests choose being cherished by a factor of 10.

Are you suprised that people prefer to feel wanted & welcomed?

Cherry Picking is One of the Owner Direct Vacation Rental Industry’s Biggest Business Barriers

Instantly confirmed reservations are now the travel industry standard.

Owners doing owner direct rentals would enjoy better results if they stomped out insidious and insulting cherry picking practices that limit their market of prospective guests.

As our prospective guests’ available time and tolerance for wasting time shrinks while their vacation rental choices increase, less and less of them will be willing to subject themselves to the time-sucking secret cherry picking process.

The number of owner direct rental supply is growing, but not in proportion to the number of guests interested in grinding through the cherry-picking and convoluted reservation process.

I predict a looming crisis in the owner direct vacation rental industry within the next 5 years.

High quality lodging supply is surging, nightly rates are dropping & are becoming more competitive with owner-direct rentals, and the travel industry is quickly merging with the the entertainment, sport & health business categories.

How can independent owners keep up and remain competitive when their own niche supply is growing faster than demand?

Start by Stomping out Cherry Picking!

Making it easier to book owner direct rentals by allowing instantly confirmed reservations within the scope of each owner’s business rules is an important solution that would help owners keep up with the mainstream travel industry.

Unfortunately, very few owners will embrace this idea, and instead choose to live in the shadow of their unfounded fears about instantly confirmed bookings.

We know that the alternative is to bask in the joy and money spewing from cherished guests who feel like their business is truly welcome and wanted, and all screening processes are published.

How?

We operate the only live booking owner direct vacation rental search engines in the world.

How Can You Lessen the Insult of Cherry Picking to Guests if You Can’t Stomach Live Bookings?

If you can’t accept the idea of not screening your guests, then at least make your cherry-picking process fair and public by publishing it on your site.

Remember-if you are screening guests by practices and rules that you are uncomfortable publishing on your web site, then those rules are cryptic and likely unfair.

Your guests know it, and deep down, so do you.

In my next post, I will share with you some great policies that we have developed, tweeked and tested over the last 14 years that have alleviated the taste of sour cherries for guests, increased reservations and that have ultimately given nearly 700 owners the confidence to try live and instantly confirmed reservations.

Until next time!

How to Get Noticed when You Can’t Outscream Everyone Else…

Have you ever had a day when:

• You go to the can, and there is no toilet paper.
• You try to wash your hands and there is no soap left.
• You dry your hands and your towel rail is loose, reminding you of a job on your long list of house jobs.
• On the way out the door, you notice the finger prints on the walls that you still have not managed to clean up
• You get stuck in traffic on the way to the bank & as you saunter up to the machine, 20 other people dash in line ahead of you.
• You finally arrive to the office, but your internet connection is down, and once it is back up again, your print job jams.

Have you ever uttered this silent prayer: “Please God, let just one thing be easy for me today.”

It is precisely on days like this when your vacation rental customers crave a vacation.

Why?

Because they crave “EASY” & want to escape stuff that gets in their way or that reminds them of their shortcomings.

This basic human need is so powerful that Staples has turned it into a brilliant marketing campaign.

Get Noticed Above the Vacation Rental Business Blathering

Diffuse the barriers between you and prospective guests.

In taking a vacation, Guests are trying to escape everything that is “hard” in their lives.

Paradoxically, finding and booking a vacation rental is usually just another necessary aggranoying hardship that they must endure to escape to Easy Street, where they can forget about their problems and nothing is difficult.

Make it so easy to do business with you that you are a refreshing and suprising relief in their difficult world.

Not only will you get the booking, but you will eventually become an interesting vacation-related story.

They call it chit chat. You call it free marketing.

5 Ways to Plant an Easy Button on your Vacation Rental Business at the Prospect Stage

1-Never make a prospect call you for more details, especially about prices. It’s just too hard.

Answer all of the questions in your ads or on your personal web site (more about that in upcoming posts) People use the internet to save time and to do independent research, without a pesky salesperson. If consumers really wanted to talk to a sales person, they would be using a travel agent.

2-Publish complete policies that are fair.

Worrying about what the terms & conditions “might be” is just too hard & stressful.

Transparently lay out all of the terms & eligibility criteria on your web site.

The best policies should evaporate all of their fears and instill confidence. (more about policies and guarantees coming soon!)

3-Get professional photos & publish them.

Reading descriptive content and trying to imagine what your place looks like is just too hard.

Booking a gorgeous looking property is an easy no brainer.

4-Autorespond to inquiries….

…….because waiting around for a response from you, or wondering if you received their inquiry is just too hard.

Your autoresponse should set an expectation of when they will hear back from you and confirm that you received their inquiry.

5-Accept payment by credit cards….

…because wondering if the property really exists, or going to the bank for a bank draft that they have to mail to you, or trying to figure out how to free up thousands of dollars of cash, is too hard.

If you are not accepting credit card payments, then you should be offering a discount for cheque or bank draft payments to compensate for a customer’s time and anxiety.

Wrap Up

Remember- you are in the business of helping people escape from the exhausting annoyances of their everyday lives. They want to get to a place where they can rest, renew and rejoice with loved ones.

Stop being just another thing that drips on their forehead and be the one that helps remove the barriers standing between them and their goal.
That in itself is so extraordinary these days that you will start some great, free, buzzilicious marketing.

Staples is doing it-so can you!

Thanks for trading your time to read this blog-

Until soon!