Lucky Pete

Hi Sarah

Its hard not to take negative reviews to heart, particularly when you have recently started a business. Whilst you can not get them removed the good thing about TA is that you get to respond and I suggest you do this (I do to every review) but I would write that response in Word or similar over a couple days and then when you have it to where you like it then post it.

Look for ways to use the negatives in the post as positives. Dont go on the attack as it generally reflects poorly on you but I would address each of the concerns raised, how you might improve on those. We have changed how we make some meals based on feedback and have thanked the people giving us negative reviews on those meals. Use it as an opportunity to promote certain aspects of your business but what ever you do dont make it personal re the guest as that reflects poorly.

EVERY place no matter how good will get negative reviews, its how you respond to those that will have the greatest impact on anyone reading them. When we travel I look at how a place has responded to negative reviews as it gives a really good insight into the business.

Once again dont get despondent about negative reviews, in fact it gives you an opportunity.

Cheers

Pete

You can set the minimum amount of time a booking can be made.

Clearly state the house rules re numbers and that additional fees will be levied if more than those booked stay. If that is the case then charge their credit card that fee.

We charge our guests 100% of the tariff at booking or 60 days out, which ever is earliest.

During check in we have them sign a small set of rules that clearly states no additional guests nor non guests visiting. That seems to work pretty well for us.

Our current TVs use a USB style wifi set up but our next ones will be smart TVs running Netflix. When we built we ran LAN cable to the TV sockets but that was a waste of money.

One thing our guests really do like is that we also ran HDMI cables from the TV through the wall to another spot in the lounge. They are able to connect their own devices to the large screens and watch that day's GoPro footage etc.

Our apartments are not cheap and guests can stay up to 2 weeks so we look at little extras like board games (monopoly) and cars like Uno go a long way as do really nice books.

We are also looking at doing some in-house dining this winter where we would deliver food cooked in our kitchen straight to them further increase our revenues. Will be interesting to see how that goes :)

For us its obviously changed each time a guest leaves then only after 7 days or on request.

We have a set of house rules that guests must sign before we check them in. This seems to help.

We set one day in the year very low for all 4 our apartments that way we appear much cheaper than our competitors when they search. When they put in their dates the actual rates apply for that period.