Five Airbnb Hacks Which Will Save You So Much Time!

Airbnb Hacks Which Will Save You So Much Time & Effort!

A few months ago we launched our Airbnb and already it’s exceeded every hope and expectation I had and it’s not even summer yet, which is kind of amazing as we live in a seaside town! In the last few months we’ve learnt a lot and I wanted to share five of my favourite Airbnb hacks which really will save my fellow Airbnb hosts a lot of time and effort!

Create A Cheat Sheet!

For every guest we leave a certain amount of things in our apartment; towels, toiletries, snack bars, porridge pots, tea, coffee, milk, sugar, mugs, teaspoons, etc. and it’s SO easy to forget one or more of these items. I created a little check list so that before each guest arrives, I run through the list and make sure everything that should be there, is there! I learnt this very early on when I realised there was a mountain of coffee pods, tea bags and 4 freshly washed mugs but no teaspoons! Luckily I noticed at the last minute, but now I always refer to my cheat sheet!

Note: If you want to read more about setting up an Airbnb, check this post.

Like Every Good Customer Service Representative, Create Draft Emails

I have three draft emails and they are life savers! The first one is a short email thanking our guests for booking in with us and letting them know if they have any questions or if they want any local recommendations. The second email is a list of recommendations, outlining great places to go, eat, drink, see, do etc. I let people know of any particularly essential hot-spots or must-eats and let them know if any of them require a reservation or pre-booking. My third email is filled with essential information for the booking; Our phone numbers, address (including directions), wifi information, parking / travel info. etc. These draft emails can be edited for different times of the year, but it gives me so much peace of mind knowing I haven’t forgotten to give them any important details, it also saves oodles of time not having to re-write the same information over and over again!

Note: If you want to sign up to be a host, you can do so here.

Hire A Cleaner

OK! So, this one might not be for everyone, but I 100% recommend hiring a cleaner to come in after every guest and work their magic. I want our guests to feel like our apartment is ‘hotel clean’ and that’s not something I have the time or inclination to do once, twice or possibly three times a week! It takes the burden away from me and instead of worrying that our guests might be messy, I let our cleaner take care of it and spend my time can be spent focused on welcoming our guests, making design tweaks to the apartment and doing my actual day job / living life. It will cut into your profits, but I know our cleaner will do a better job than I could and it takes so much pressure off me!

Bulk Buy Supplies

Before we launched our Airbnb we went to Ikea and bought a whole heap of things we might need; bedding, towels, mugs etc. And even though our trolly felt pretty full, looking back we did not buy enough!!! We only bought a couple of sets of bedding (one to wash, one to use) 4 towels (one set to use, one set to wash) and 4 mugs and 4 glasses. We quickly realised that this was not nearly enough! If just one of your mugs chip, you end up with miss-matching mugs and then you have to re-buy a whole new set. Similarly, if you only have two or even three sets of bedding, you need to be damned fast with your laundry to have it ready in time for your next guests. My point is, BULK BUY EVERYTHING! From tea bags to snack bars, bedding to toilet paper, stock up! We ended up doing a major Matalan haul which solved all our problems,  I am forever impressed with their great prices, great designs and great quality, plus if the worst happens and you have to throw something out, I’m not going to have to cry over wasting £100+ replacing ruined sheets, instead I got some beautiful 100% cotton designs for around £20-£30. My friends at Matalan kindly gifted us some towels, fitted sheets, bed linen, mattress protectors, mugs and glasses, and I can honestly say I’m so happy with everything. I can’t stress enough how many sets of everything you need, guests may only stay a night or two, but that could still work out to be 3 sets of bed linen and 6 towels in a week, a week!!! Which is a lot of laundry to manage, so duplicates and triplets of everything is key!

Transparency

Finally, this is an important one, Transparency! Be honest about the advantages and disadvantages of booking with you! For instance, if you live in a noisy neighbourhood, let your guests know, they might be super light sleepers and want to bring ear plugs. Similarly, if you are on the 10th floor and the lift is broken, let your guests know and offer to meet them on the ground floor to help them carry their luggage up, they might be fitness fanatics who are competitive stair races who love the idea of climbing 10 flights of stairs every time they nip out for a coffee. However, if they have young children, they might even cancel their stay, but that’s ok! The Airbnb website is so well searched and if you loose one booking, you’ll get another soon. As with everything in life, you can’t be everything to everyone, so be transparent about the pros and cons of your apartment and you will get bookings with the right customers! You can add these details to your Airbnb listing and if there is anything you want to reiterate in your emails, you can add it into your drafts emails when you communicate with your guests (See above). My friends, fill your Airbnb listing with ALL the information your guests could every need because it really will benefit both you and your guests!

♥

… and there are my essential Airbnb Hacks! I hope that’s of help! If you have any Airbnb related questions, please do ask me and if you want to see our Airbnb apartment, you can find the listing here. Also, a huge thank you to Matalan for helping us out with so many towels, mugs, bedlinen and treats!