Lay My Hat

TA received today:

Sam, the competition's pinching your guests
They're not being underhand. They're not spending loads on marketing. All they're doing is responding to travelers - faster than you. Why it's essential to reply within 24 hours.
Guests expect to be able to book quickly so owners who are slow to reply, or who regularly reject booking requests, risk having their listing deactivated. Don't let that become you.
How you're doing...
67%
YOUR RESPONSE RATE

8HRS
YOUR AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME

How your competitors are doing...

Two Bed Apartment in Salgados Beach-A...
Albufeira, Portugal, 2 beds
Two Bed Apartment in Salgados Beach-A...
95%
RESPONSE RATE

4HRS
AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME

NOT ACCORDING TO THE LISTING! The property above has a 55% response rate 'within a day', but calendar was last updated 3! Months ago! 0 reviews and 100% availability! The property below does have 100% response rate 'within a few hours' but also is based on owner/managers 4 properties, and two reviews; not for this property but this property has been given 5 star rating and also has 100% availability!



Villa ZEN, style villa,sea view, next...
Albufeira, Portugal, 3 beds
Villa ZEN, style villa,sea view, next...
100%
RESPONSE RATE

4HRS
AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have only just picked up on this one, Sam. TA/HL, what an arrogant lot. If they are going to criticise then b. well get it right. I'd be fuming and ready to tell them so.

I agree with ANDREW-H.
Yesterday I accepted a booking from HL/trip but the lady sent me an enquiry a few minutes before the booking. I clicked accept on the booking and it all went through fine. But this morning I got the automatic message from TA to tell me that I hadn't answered the guest.
So, I had to send her a silly message just to explain that I was replying because of the system. A corporation the size of Trip should be able to have a site where everything just clicks along nicely. These things just shouldn't happen on a professional site. Some asses are needing severely kicked, right out the door.
If they want to have a response-rate grading it's not rocket science.

We had exactly the same last week and it dropped our response time down as well.

Can totally understand your frustration Sam...it's almost as if they're trying to make life difficult for us owners. I wonder when (if?) it's all going to back-fire on them one day.

In the meantime, I was looking at OD's FAQs on "best match". Am just getting my head round this...(which many of you will have already twigged) - they will shortly be using as an algorithm for search results how many bookings you "accept" per number of enquiries. Of course these bookings will need to be done through online booking/payment to "count" towards your "score", and consequently your position in the search results.

So you could almost fully booked, reply to every enquiry within five minutes, guests could be booking for years ahead... bla bla, but if the booking is not actually made through their platform you will be penalized.

All, as usual, explained by the patronising, lying statement..."what travellers tell us they want".

costabravarent wrote:I agree with ANDREW-H.
Yesterday I accepted a booking from HL/trip but the lady sent me an enquiry a few minutes before the booking. I clicked accept on the booking and it all went through fine. But this morning I got the automatic message from TA to tell me that I hadn't answered the guest.
So, I had to send her a silly message just to explain that I was replying because of the system. A corporation the size of Trip should be able to have a site where everything just clicks along nicely. These things just shouldn't happen on a professional site. Some asses are needing severely kicked, right out the door.
If they want to have a response-rate grading it's not rocket science.

I had similar, think it was FK, I replied to or sent a quote promptly, it was in my dashboard, only the same day to receive an email that if I didn't respond the booking/enquiry would expire within 24 hours. I later received an email that they had closed the enquiry, but 24 hours still hadn't passed. I despair, and if as Tavi says, they will next be rating us on how many bookings we receive through them... What next? How much revenue we generate?