By John Suzuki, VP of Sales
If you believe as I do, that clients really do care about their vacation, then it bears to reason that they probably want their vacation providers to care about their vacation too.
So in this new world of one-click decisions, how do you show prospective renters that you care when you may not even have a chance to talk with them? One clue is to look at how eBay did it, and in the process built a multi-billion dollar industry that didn’t exist before.
How did they do it? They did it with their online customer feedback system. In the example below, this particular seller, Team Babbitts, is selling a Jet Ski for $5,000, and expects a complete stranger to buy it without even taking it on a test drive. Impossible? Nope. As you can see in the “Meet the Seller” section, prospective clients can see that 99.3% of their 642 customers gave them a POSITIVE rating. Frankly, that’s about as close to perfect as you can probably hope for.
So how does a prospective client use technology to know that Team Babbitts cares about them without even talking or shaking hands? Easy. They look at how past customers felt about their experiences with Team Babbitts in the detailed feedback:
“Fast friendly service, did all the shipping as promised, snowmobile was as desc.”
“Great seller, item just as described, Thanks A+++”
“Smooth Deal, No Problems, Nice Sled, A+++”
With such positive experiences from past clients, how can you NOT buy from these guys?! You can also read Team Babbitts’ responses, which offers further evidence that Team Babbitts really does care about their customers. By this point, most people figure that “if they’re that good with 99.3% of their clients, they’ll probably do good by me too.”
This is Larry Browning of Discover Sunriver, one of the most progressive and successful companies in Central Oregon. Follow this link and click on the Reviews tab to see what his reviews are like. Way to go Larry!
So here’s the upshot: With the majority of travel now being booked online, more and more of your prospective clients are expecting access to this kind of information about you and your units online. The train is now running, and in my humble opinion, you now have two choices: Jump on, or get run over by it. My advice is to jump on. Give your past guests the opportunity to share their experiences, participate in the conversation, and publish those experiences online in as many places as you possibly can.
Welcome to the new era of vacation rental marketing.
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