Screening Guests / how to better avoid problem guests
We've been operating for just over a month now and we've had some good and some bad experiences with guests. I'd be grateful for some advice on how to put procedures in place to better avoid problem guests:
- Should we look to take a deposit upfront? We currently rely on the booking.com damage deposit policy (not so easy to get money back). I would hope holding the deposit ourselves would encourage people to respect the property. I do have a Strip account so I guess I can set this up.
- Guests have not been responding to my messages. This can be frustrating as I don't know if they're turning up or not. Also I do ask for the reason they are staying and to provide all guests names and ages, but often I don't get a reply or sent the information I requested.
- Can I set my listing to enquiry only, so I can then either accept or decline the booking based on the information they provide?
Thanks for any help.
Richard
Etc... be creative
Great thanks very much for this. Although I'm not sure I understand what you mean by No manual confirmation?
I haven't setup my templates yet as I've just been responding to each guest individually. But this is definitely something I'm going to use going forward.
If the guest fails to provide guest information or passport info how do I cancel the booking? Do I simply cancel using the check the box 'payment has not been received'? (even though this may not be the case) as the only other option is 'guest has requested to cancel'?
Thanks
Richard