Do you want to know what Van Halen, Brown M&Ms, and Airbnb guests who do not read have in common? I will explain while sharing a full proof tip for how to ensure all of your guests have read everything prior to sending you a booking request.
It’s widely known in the hosting community that guests do not read! It’s frustrating. But, I don’t blame them. A lot of hosts are redundant and provide too much information at inappropriate times. You must consider what information is most important to communicate to the guest at which times in the booking process, but that’s a blog post for another week. Back to the topic…everyone knows that Van Halen had a total ban on brown M&Ms backstage, but do you know why? His performance stage was setup with such complex electrical and pyrotechnic gear that it became dangerous if even the smallest detail was overlooked. To ensure the venue was detailed-oriented, he would add in a frivolous (because who doesn’t like brown M&Ms!?!) ban. If he found brown M&Ms backstage, it was likely the venue didn’t follow all instructions in the provided stage manual.
As an Airbnb host, consider putting some verbiage at the end of your listing asking the guest to put a code word, like banana pancakes, at the top of their message to indicate that they read the entire listing. After doing this, when you receive a message without the secret code word, inform the guest that you find reservations go smoothest when you know the guest has read the entire listing. Most of the time, the guest will catch on and reply with the secret code word. If not, either you saved yourself a future headache or time as the guest wasn’t ready to book.