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Corinne Orde
My B&B is in the county of Kent in the southeast of England (UK), in a rural area near Biddenden, Benenden and Tenterden. For more details, please visit www.bressenden.uk
So far, under the new system, my scores have gone down markedly. I was regularly getting 10s until the switch, but ever since the new system started I haven't had a single 10. By contrast, on my own website, I am still regularly getting plenty of 5 out of 5 ratings with the review software provided by the diary service provider, as well as lovely comments and reviews. So there is clearly a strange bias against high scores in Booking.com's new system. In the long term, this is not going to reflect well on Booking.com itself, as it's in their interests to keep high scores on high-performing properties, so I'm guessing they will pretty soon have to change the system back to what it was before. Having said that, I don't like scales of 1 to 10, even less decimal points like 7.5. So many other systems rely on one to five stars, and that's perfectly adequate.
I agree that it's very frustrating that we aren't allowed to supply our own descriptions of our property in tour own words, but the way to make sure that bookers are aware of the fact that they're booking a room in a home where there's a resident cat, is to make sure that your cat features in some of the exterior shots. Then allergic/asthmatic guests won't be able to complain that they didn't know about the presence of the cat. You can use images to give out all kinds of clues about the kind of property it is, and pictures speak louder than words. People tend not to read rules and small print, but as a general rule they do enjoy looking at pics, and will often base their final booking decision on the look of a place, so there's a good chance they will have seen the cat and gone "Ah!" in delight or "Oh!" in horror. I've had guests who came to my house because they saw the pic of the deer in the garden. I've had other guests who came because their child wanted to meet the ginger cat.
In some ways, it's much better to get blatant lies than unpalatable truths. With the lies, at least you can politely shoot them down in flames in your replies. I love replying to negative comments. A calm and well-considered response that states the facts and corrects any misapprehensions and untruths will work wonders to enhance your own credibility and discredit your attacker. "Wow," a potential booker will think. "This host sounds much more credible and honest than the stupid oik who wrote the bad review. I'd really like to meet this host". If you're clever with words and content there is a lot of information you can impart implicitly to potential bookers in your replies to any kind of review, good ones as well as bad ones.
I have an auto debit set up on my account. The commission is taken automatically from my bank account every month and I don't have to do anything. It was easy to set up and is very convenient! Perhaps it depends on your region/country whether or not you are offered this facility.
I prefer not to allow any OTAs to collect payment from the guest on my behalf. I can understand why many hoteliers may like the convenience or the protection that it offers against non-payment, but there are many reasons why it is not a good idea in principle.
@Shirtsandsigns Having different minimum stays in different rooms is an excellent idea. Thank you very much for the suggestion. I don't know why this didn't occur to me. I will try a two-night minimum at all times in my most expensive suite, the family room, which has an additional bed, suitable for a child, and which has the most work to do at changeover. Sometimes three adults turn up (having booked as two adults) because they've seen the extra bed in the photo. Mostly this type of guests are one-nighters going to a wedding. Or two adults who are friends use it as a twin room and use both beds. A two-night minimum will act as a deterrent to this type of guest, or at least force them to stay an extra night.
If you have a three-day minimum policy, yet are prepared to take your competitors' overflow guests to fill gaps, isn't that rather unfair on potential bookers who would have loved to stay for two days at your place but were forced to look elsewhere because they couldn't afford a third night? They may be very disappointed indeed to miss the chance of staying with you and enjoying your sea view, whereas others do get that privilege who weren't even wanting to stay with you in the first place! This isn't necessarily a criticism, it's just that I'm curious how this policy works in practice.
I recently implemented a two-day minimum at weekends for my B&B because I couldn't cope with the laundry and fast turnaround, but I felt really guilty doing that. A lot of people need somewhere to stay for just one night, and I wonder how they manage. However, this is really a discussion for a different thread.
Royal Clarence, this sounds even more complicated than our UK railway pricing and ticketing system!
Being new to this game, I'm at the complete opposite extreme. Two rates only: a high-season rate from May until end of September, and a slightly lower one for all other times. All days of the week exactly the same. Weekends and bank holidays just the same. I consider my prices to be quite high, but I have more than enough bookings. I chose round numbers for the prices to avoid having to give change at checkout time, but in fact the vast majority of guests pay by card. When I started the B&B at the beginning of May, I had a special deal of stay 3 nights and get a 4th one free, but it proved too popular so I removed it. It was good at the beginning to attract my first clients and get some reviews, but now there's no point in it. The only concessions I make is to give a tiny discount for multiple nights (i.e. two or more) and also to guests on business who need to stay one or two nights every week (I do have one of those at the moment), in which case I negotiate a special deal with them with a fairly large discount.
I suspect that's the problem. It's much more difficult to provide personal care and attention with self-catering, because guests have to do everything for themselves instead of being "pampered". That in itself prevents them from being able to let go of life's responsibilities, so they're never in a truly relaxed frame of mind. Difficult to have a great and memorable experience if you still have to do the shopping and the washing up!
So far, under the new system, my scores have gone down markedly. I was regularly getting 10s until the switch, but ever since the new system started I haven't had a single 10. By contrast, on my own website, I am still regularly getting plenty of 5 out of 5 ratings with the review software provided by the diary service provider, as well as lovely comments and reviews. So there is clearly a strange bias against high scores in Booking.com's new system. In the long term, this is not going to reflect well on Booking.com itself, as it's in their interests to keep high scores on high-performing properties, so I'm guessing they will pretty soon have to change the system back to what it was before. Having said that, I don't like scales of 1 to 10, even less decimal points like 7.5. So many other systems rely on one to five stars, and that's perfectly adequate.
Hi Beatrice,
I agree that it's very frustrating that we aren't allowed to supply our own descriptions of our property in tour own words, but the way to make sure that bookers are aware of the fact that they're booking a room in a home where there's a resident cat, is to make sure that your cat features in some of the exterior shots. Then allergic/asthmatic guests won't be able to complain that they didn't know about the presence of the cat. You can use images to give out all kinds of clues about the kind of property it is, and pictures speak louder than words. People tend not to read rules and small print, but as a general rule they do enjoy looking at pics, and will often base their final booking decision on the look of a place, so there's a good chance they will have seen the cat and gone "Ah!" in delight or "Oh!" in horror. I've had guests who came to my house because they saw the pic of the deer in the garden. I've had other guests who came because their child wanted to meet the ginger cat.
Corinne at Bressenden
In some ways, it's much better to get blatant lies than unpalatable truths. With the lies, at least you can politely shoot them down in flames in your replies. I love replying to negative comments. A calm and well-considered response that states the facts and corrects any misapprehensions and untruths will work wonders to enhance your own credibility and discredit your attacker. "Wow," a potential booker will think. "This host sounds much more credible and honest than the stupid oik who wrote the bad review. I'd really like to meet this host". If you're clever with words and content there is a lot of information you can impart implicitly to potential bookers in your replies to any kind of review, good ones as well as bad ones.
I have an auto debit set up on my account. The commission is taken automatically from my bank account every month and I don't have to do anything. It was easy to set up and is very convenient! Perhaps it depends on your region/country whether or not you are offered this facility.
I prefer not to allow any OTAs to collect payment from the guest on my behalf. I can understand why many hoteliers may like the convenience or the protection that it offers against non-payment, but there are many reasons why it is not a good idea in principle.
@Shirtsandsigns Having different minimum stays in different rooms is an excellent idea. Thank you very much for the suggestion. I don't know why this didn't occur to me. I will try a two-night minimum at all times in my most expensive suite, the family room, which has an additional bed, suitable for a child, and which has the most work to do at changeover. Sometimes three adults turn up (having booked as two adults) because they've seen the extra bed in the photo. Mostly this type of guests are one-nighters going to a wedding. Or two adults who are friends use it as a twin room and use both beds. A two-night minimum will act as a deterrent to this type of guest, or at least force them to stay an extra night.
If you have a three-day minimum policy, yet are prepared to take your competitors' overflow guests to fill gaps, isn't that rather unfair on potential bookers who would have loved to stay for two days at your place but were forced to look elsewhere because they couldn't afford a third night? They may be very disappointed indeed to miss the chance of staying with you and enjoying your sea view, whereas others do get that privilege who weren't even wanting to stay with you in the first place! This isn't necessarily a criticism, it's just that I'm curious how this policy works in practice.
I recently implemented a two-day minimum at weekends for my B&B because I couldn't cope with the laundry and fast turnaround, but I felt really guilty doing that. A lot of people need somewhere to stay for just one night, and I wonder how they manage. However, this is really a discussion for a different thread.
Royal Clarence, this sounds even more complicated than our UK railway pricing and ticketing system!
Being new to this game, I'm at the complete opposite extreme. Two rates only: a high-season rate from May until end of September, and a slightly lower one for all other times. All days of the week exactly the same. Weekends and bank holidays just the same. I consider my prices to be quite high, but I have more than enough bookings. I chose round numbers for the prices to avoid having to give change at checkout time, but in fact the vast majority of guests pay by card. When I started the B&B at the beginning of May, I had a special deal of stay 3 nights and get a 4th one free, but it proved too popular so I removed it. It was good at the beginning to attract my first clients and get some reviews, but now there's no point in it. The only concessions I make is to give a tiny discount for multiple nights (i.e. two or more) and also to guests on business who need to stay one or two nights every week (I do have one of those at the moment), in which case I negotiate a special deal with them with a fairly large discount.
I suspect that's the problem. It's much more difficult to provide personal care and attention with self-catering, because guests have to do everything for themselves instead of being "pampered". That in itself prevents them from being able to let go of life's responsibilities, so they're never in a truly relaxed frame of mind. Difficult to have a great and memorable experience if you still have to do the shopping and the washing up!