Managing your Airbnb inbox can mean the difference between a successful vacation rental listing and an unsuccessful one.
According to Hosty, “People are excited by the prospect of traveling, which is why they want to find the perfect accommodation in no time at all. What they don’t want is waiting around for hosts to respond as it reduces the quality of their experience, hence why Airbnb measure hosts on their response rate.”
Your response rate is arguably one of the most important aspects of your listing, and your Airbnb inbox management strategy is a big part of that. While there are lots of different Airbnb inbox management techniques, there are some simple steps you can take to ensure that your inbox is kept clear and your response rate is high!
Before we get into these steps, let’s first examine what Airbnb calls your ‘response time’. According to our partner iGMS, “To calculate your response rate, Airbnb uses the following formula: responded inquiries within 24 hours in the past 30 days / total number of inquiries received. To keep your response rate up to standard, you need to reply to your guest messages within 24 hours. If this is the case, you can expect to have a 100% response rate.”
The iGMS article went on to explain that when Airbnb considers your listing for superhost status, “the platform takes into account your response rate for the last 365 days. It needs to be 90%+ within 24 hours to obtain the badge”.
Combadi says that “Hosts should respond to inquiries within 24 hours to avoid getting penalized by Airbnb. Nevertheless, most Airbnb hosts only take as fast as 12 hours to reply.”
This leads us to our first point…
Airbnb Inbox Management Strategies
1. Set a Reminder or Create a Notification Alert
Half of the battle with your response rate is to remember to check your inbox in the first place. Make sure you either allow notifications from your Airbnb app or set a calendar reminder to check your inbox! Even if you check it every day at the same time, it’ll be within a 24-hour period and therefore, your response rate will be very good!
2. Have A Clear Checklist of Questions
Knowing the questions that you want to ask your potential guests really speeds up the process. If you know what information you need then it’ll streamline the process and you can go from the inquiry stage to the booking stage much quicker.
3. Stick to Your Standards
If you’re not willing to rent your property to people who have not verified their profile, then stick to your standards and politely explain that being ID-verified is part of your booking requirements.
4. Prepare Responses
Having a set of pre-written responses will save you some serious time if you’re dealing with a lot of inquiries. Your first message can be something like this: “Hello, thank you for your inquiry! I just have a few quick questions – how many people are in your party? I charge a security deposit of $__, please let me know if you still want to book my property. Are you in the area for business or leisure? I see that your profile is not verified, please could you verify your profile. Once I have heard back from you, and depending on your answers, I will approve the booking!”
5. Sign Up for a Property Management Software Service
We’re partnered with a whole bunch of PMS services including iGMS, HostAway, and Hostfully. On these platforms, you can manage your Airbnb inbox with ease. Programming automated responses, managing your response rate, and responding to every inquiry are so much easier with a PMS service. Give it a try!
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