Whoops - caught me out RR...meant to say that I say 24hrs!!
I didn't do 12 as we often get emails in the early hours of the morning...and as much as I love 'em I'm not working nightshift!!
btw - got an email yesterday that said this; I would also like to let you know we are so pleased with the way you have done everything, very professional, friendly and efficient, unlike some other experiences we have had on the island!
I was quite taken a back...(and pleased) but it does go to show some owners/agents give a very poor service. One of the problems they experienced was not having been sent directions...and it was 24 hours before they were due to travel.
I try and do it immediately as well. Rarely more than a few hours, and I often get people thanking me for the quick response.
I have (thanks to a suggestion on here) got my "no availability" reply set up as a signature, complete with suggestions of other places to try, so it takes literally 30 seconds to reply to these, and I often get replies thanking me for the help which is nice.
MG the newsletter opt-out idea is an excellent one, i might steal it
Yup MG, that is effectively what I'm doing and if I get a second enquiry, it gets complicated going back and forth between all prospects.
Its sub-optimal in these situations, but they are much rarer than the enquiries that don't respond.
I'm definitely open to alternative strategies, and constantly tweaking.
e-richard wrote:
It makes me feel better about the non-responders, but I'm now wondering, is 24 hours too short ?
I suppose it depends on the lead time to a certain extent. I took a couple of bookings for summer 2009 this week - both the enquiries had originally been made a good few weeks ago, one even asked loads of questions, then nothing, I'd assumed they weren't interested, but in the end, they booked. I guess they didn't thing there was any rush when booking so far ahead.
e-Richard, I don't reserve on the first exchange, but only if they show interest. Or give them 'first-refusal' if we get another booking. We've got 'first-refusals' live for August 2010, which is a serious pain.
Martha - this is our small print at the bottom of all our initial enquiry reply emails. Wouldn't stand a chance if things got serious about spam (opt-in rather than opt-out is the official line), but no problems so far, and no-one's said 'no':
We send out an occasional newsletter (approx. twice a year), with information on Chalet Chimère (including special offers), What's On in Leysin, events in the Lake Geneva area and Snow Sports information - if you don't want to receive this, please let us know. Your email address will always be kept confidential.
I think effectively telling people to reply to you within 24 hours is far too short. If I got that, I would feel that I was being told 'book quickly or we don't want to know' and I would be less inclined to book there.
Some people take weeks to make a decision for many reasons: they may not be able to check their email regularly, one half may be travelling on business and unable to check your website to see if they like the look of the place, they may have a complicated itinerary to sort out and need other legs to slot into place before they can decide on your place (after the case with Americans) etc. etc. They just need to know that there is a risk you will take another booking in that period.
As long as you are clear with potential guests at what point a booking is a booking, there should not be any aggro on either side. I just held a week next summer for a month for people who need a child to get back to school to find out exam results dates. I was comfortable with that because at that stage we had not got any summer bookings. I then got an enquiry for the same apartment/dates a few days after I had offered to hold the dates - I had made a commitment to the original enquirers and kept to it. They booked as soon as term had started.
I think you need to make it as easy as possible for people to book without seriously inconveniencing yourself or risking loss of bookings. When it comes down to it, we just say, the first person to pay gets the booking.
Margaret wrote:I think effectively telling people to reply to you within 24 hours is far too short. If I got that, I would feel that I was being told 'book quickly or we don't want to know' and I would be less inclined to book there.
Actually I'm not quite as bad as that.... there is a sub clause I omitted to tell you where I do ask them to email me back if they want to think about it bit more. My intention was to quickly eliminate the tyre kickers. I hadn't realised it may be a put-off.
On reflection, Margaret's point about just being clear on what constitutes a booking, is good advice, so I'll tweak (yet again). Thanks to you and others for the thoughts.
We manage enquiries for about 120 properties and average 200 emails a day in the busy booking season + calls. We usually respond within 3 hours and love to get the occasional response thanking us for the prompt and professional reply. We are a small company - just 3 of us in the office - so it gets a bit busy at times!
Our view is that every lead is a warm one and should be given individual attention, however, like Martha I have a bunch of Outlook signatures set up to handle repetetive questions. For example, we don't rent any weekends in the high season and get tons of enquiries about those.
Every email signature has a link to our blog for renters so they can sign up for a newsletter, which is double opt-in.
Just got distracted cottageguru by your blog but going back to the original thread within an hour usually, does everyone have phone alerts for when an e mail arrives ? not terribly computer savvy here
I can have them, but it does cost me, so I only turn them on when I don't have internet access reaily available. I do get an SMS alert when someone books directly though.
me too - with both sites I'm on (OD and HL). I actually find it a boon...except when I forget to switch the mobile off at night and they come in at 3am!
