How do Property Reviews Affect a Vacation Rental Brand Image

When vacationers are looking for their desired holiday home, after the images and property description, property reviews are one of the most important things you can present potential guests with. A vacation rental with no reviews can often be considered just as bad as one with negative reviews.

Validation by past guests is so important for brand image; not only it does it confirm credibility but convert website visitors to inquiries and in turn, bookings. Displaying positive reviews of your property on your vacation rental website is an excellent way of enhancing your brand identity and dramatically increasing bookings.

To shape an understanding of how property reviews affect a vacation rental brand image, we have put together some ways vacation rental managers can use reviews to an advantage.

Collect Together Positive Reviews

If you don't currently have any reviews on your vacation rental property, now is the time to start reaching out to past guests. As mentioned above, no reviews is almost as off-putting as bad reviews. One way you could do this is by creating an email campaign that kindly asks past guests for feedback on their stay. This is a good way of finding out any areas with room for improvement and any positive reviews can be used on your vacation rental website. A testimonials page will work to show potential guests your credibility and reflect positively on your brand image.

Tip: Create a follow up email template that you can automatically send out to guests when they check-out of your property. That way, you can respond to any negative reviews before they go online.

Never Ignore Negative Reviews

Ignoring negative reviews will only reflect badly on your vacation rental brand as it will imply that you have an unresponsive customer service team, the key is to respond in a calm and timely manner. Approaching the unhappy guest in private to resolve the issue will help diffuse the situation before responding to the review in public. This will show potential guests your commitment to satisfying past customers and will set an excellent customer service standard.

Tip: Google Alerts makes it easy for you to keep on top of reviews of your property on the web. It sends you an email whenever it finds a new or updated on the web that matches a particular search query. The trick is to setup a Google alert for your vacation rental websites’ url (e.g., “http://www.parisdeluxerentals.com”) and for its name (e.g., “Paris Deluxe Rentals”). You can then choose whether you receive an email daily or weekly letting you know your vacation rental business was mentioned; the sooner you respond to reviews, the better.

There we have it, just some of the way property reviews can affect a vacation rental brand image. Please feel free to comment in the box below any of your experiences with guest reviews.

If you are interested in operating your own vacation rental website complete with a beautiful reservation system, we will be more than happy to help. You can request a demo from our website or call us directly: +34 512 702 104

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