How to Handle Guest Complaints and Disputes
As someone who owns a vacation rental property, the guests are the lifeblood of your business. Over the course of your time as an owner, you will have many different types of renters and guests at your property. For the most part, you will find that these guests are great people and you will not have any trouble with them. Some will become return guests and perhaps even friends. The majority will come and go and be convivial but ultimately forgettable.
However, there is another type of guest. They might be rare, but it is important to know about them and be prepared for them when you need to deal with them. These are the guests that quickly ruin a day for you.
Sometimes, it is not really their fault. They might have a complaint that is legitimate that you need to take care of, and even if you do not know how to resolve it, you still need to figure out something.
Other times, you might have guests that are unreasonable, angry and belligerent, or overly demanding.
What About Vetting the Guests?
Of course, you might be thinking that if you have a good vetting process in place, you shouldn’t ever have to deal with these types of renters. While a good vetting procedure is great and it will help to weed out the potential problems, there are always those rare ones that somehow slip through the cracks. You need to know how to handle the various disputes and conflicts that come your way.
Even more, you need to know how to do this in a positive manner so it does not affect your business negatively.
Legitimate Complaints
As mentioned, in some cases, the renter might have a legitimate complaint that you need to handle. For example, they might arrive at the home and discover that it had not been cleaned since the last renters were there because your cleaning service did not arrive. Sometimes, there are things that you can handle quickly and easily. Other times, it will take a bit of work from you or your property company to take care of the issue.
The first thing you should do in situations like this is to apologize, and be sincere about it. After all, these are people simply trying to enjoy a vacation. They might only get a week or two of vacation per year, and they do not want to spend it waiting for you to fix something. Listen to their concerns and then take action immediately to rectify the situation. Let them know how long it will be before you will be able to make things right for them, and be willing to make restitution to make things right.
The restitution should be in line with how much they were inconvenienced. In some cases, an apology is enough if it is a small inconvenience. For example, if they had a problem with the lock box, which you were able to help them with over the phone, they were probably only inconvenienced for about five minutes or so. Most people will accept the apology and move on with their vacation.
If the problem caused more of an inconvenience, you might want to do offer the family a gift card to a local restaurant, or something similar. You want to show that you are sorry and that you are willing to make things right. However, if they are still angry and it takes longer to fix the issue, be willing to refund them for the amount they were inconvenienced. For example, if they were not able to get into the home for a full day because it was not cleaned, refund their cleaning fee, or provide them with a refund for a day’s worth of rent.
Some issues will be more difficult to calculate a value for than others are. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the guest and think about what you might want to make things right. Most of the time, you will be able to come to terms with the guest.
Of course, now we have to move on to the unreasonable guests.
The Problem Guests
When you have unreasonable guests, they will not be satisfied with an apology or even a fix to the situation. Some guests will look for reasons to be angry and to cause problems. These guests can be rude, aggressive, and in some cases, they can even be insulting. It is difficult to deal with them, and many owners do have issues handling them.
Here are some tips you can use for these types of guests:
- First, keep calm and take a deep breath. If the guest becomes angry or insulting in the phone call, get off the phone. Tell them that you feel you both need a few minutes to cool off, for example. This way, you can be upset about the situation without directing that anger toward the renter.
- Assess the problem the guests have, and write it down if you need. Get the facts and then figure out how you will take care of the problem, just as you would if the guest were being reasonable. Offer the same types of solutions that you would offer to the reasonable guest, as well. Again, you should always apologize about the situation, regardless of whose fault it might be.
Go about business as normal as possible and do not escalate the situation. - Most of the time, when a bad guest leaves, they simply leave and you never hear from them again. Other times, they might write a bad review, but that doesn’t mean it is the end of the world.
- You can always bounce back from a bad review, and if you are running a good business, you can be sure that other positive reviews will help to set the record straight about your business and your services.