Cleanliness, communication and flexibility have always been the hallmarks of an optimal customer experience, but the pandemic has turned their application on its head. Find out how to continue building a customer experience based on personal relationships, respect, loyalty and satisfaction in this unique environment.
A perfect cleanliness
While cleanliness has always been an indisputable pillar of the short-term rental customer experience, the COVID-19 scare has dramatically increased traveler demands, requiring owners and managers to implement strict and time-consuming cleaning measures.
If these hygiene measures are indispensable constraints to be respected, making these precautions visible helps to reassure your travellers. It is important to show that disinfection efforts are constantly being made to ensure their safety. For example, you can place stickers on the most frequently affected areas such as doors or cupboards, ensuring that they are disinfected regularly, or leave a card notifying the date of the last disinfection of the accommodation.
Reassuring communication
By communicating them clearly and precisely, these new measures will reassure your travellers by promising them a risk-free stay. In this context, these measures can make the reception cold and sanitize the entire customer experience. It will take creativity and sometimes even a little humour to turn these new constraints into a positive experience, without overlooking their importance.
Ultra-personalized email and SMS
It's obvious, email and SMS communications are more than ever essential tools for managing your communications with your travellers. They allow you to maintain a personalized communication while reassuring your customers at each step of their journey. These two channels will allow you to reassure your guests by notifying them of all the measures you put in place to guarantee their safety during their stay.
In addition, these tools allow you to automate these communications, which frees up your time to focus on creating a unique stay! Indeed, by integrating your CRM with your PMS, you can automatically personalize your communications with booking data. You can also trigger certain messages to be sent at specific times during your travellers' stay.
A clear and informative website
Add an information banner on all pages of your website. This should redirect your potential travellers to a page dedicated to your measures in the current health context. Make sure that this page is regularly updated with the latest requirements. This way, you ensure that your visitors are immediately reassured, otherwise your direct bookings could be compromised.
If you have written any, include a section in your FAQs dedicated to your customers' recurring concerns about COVID. This not only reassures your visitors, but also shows that you care about their feedback and concerns. Finally, capitalize on this detailed content by adding their links to your social media bios.
Dynamic social networks
Chances are that the first impression you give to your customers is on social networks. In this sense, these communication channels offer you the opportunity to allay the concerns of your potential guests before they book. It is essential to regularly publish positive and informative content about your health crisis management. For example, you can publish photos or videos of your disinfection protocols, or highlight local activities adapted to the health context.
If this is not yet part of your communication strategy, collaborate with members of your local tourism ecosystem such as restaurants, activity providers, guidebooks, etc. Share their content and together forge a unique and seamless value proposition for travelers.
Increased flexibility
The health situation is constantly evolving, and your communication needs to evolve accordingly to optimize your travelers' journey and strengthen their loyalty. The changing nature of the crisis also requires you to be more flexible in your processes: you need to be adaptable to uncertain travel situations, potentially cancelled flights, and your cancellation and refund policies need to be more flexible to ensure an optimal customer experience. Strict policies will only discourage your reluctant or worried travellers in the face of constantly uncertain travel conditions.
In short, to maintain an optimal customer experience in this health crisis context, you need to rely on the ultra-personalization capabilities of your management tools to support a reassuring communication strategy for your travelers.
