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Fantastic Stay Review 

 

Fantastic Stay Review & Tutorial: Online Airbnb Guest Management

The first thing you want to figure out when starting your Airbnb business is how you will manage it. There's several options. You could do everything yourself. That way you keep all the revenue. That's how most hosts start out. However, what most hosts will find out pretty soon is that running an Airbnb business is a lot more work then they expected, in particular hosts who have multiple listings.

As an Airbnb host you're pretty much running a mini-hotel. Tasks include messaging your guests, updating your prices, maintaining your listing, doing check-ins, cleaning your space, washing the sheets and towels, resolving issues as they arise, providing your guests with local recommendations, the list goes on and on. It's almost a full-time job to be honest.

What if you don't have time to do all this?

Fortunately, there are ways to outsource all or some of the work. First of all, you could hire a cleaner and/or check-in manager. Now you don't have to be around all the time so it allows you to manage your listing remotely.

You'll still have to do all the communication and the management of your online Airbnb listing though. You could outsource all of it of course. You could hire a short term management company to rent out your space. It's completely hands-off, but you're paying a price for it, usually around 30% of your Airbnb revenue.

What if you don't want to pay 30% of your Airbnb revenue?

There's a way to outsource most of the work and keep the bulk of your Airbnb revenue though. The solution is called an online Airbnb guest management service. These services do most of the work that regular management companies do, except that they only charge around 3% to 5% of your Airbnb revenue.

The only difference is that they don't have people on the ground, which means you still have to find your own cleaner and / or check-in manager. However, you won't have to coordinate cleanings and check-ins, so once you've found these people your work is pretty much done. It's kind of like having your cookie and eating it too. Sounds pretty sweet right? So lets dive into more details about what FantasticStay can do for you.

FantasticStay: Full service Airbnb guest management

FantasticStay offers a wide range of services that will not only relieve you of most of your Airbnb duties, but also improve your revenue by optimising your prices and improving your listing's ranking in the search results.

Here's an overview of what's included for the 3% to 5% of your listing revenue.

Pricing optimisation

Pricing optimisation based on market analysis and your financial targets

Channel management

Listing management across multiple platforms syncing of all calendars

Ranking optimisation

Listing optimisation in order to rank higher in the Airbnb search result

Reservation management

Inquiry and booking request management including thorough guest screening

Guest communication

Answering questions and providing information to your guests

Multiple languages

Up to 29 languages are supported and responses are in the language of the guest

Check-ins & cleanings

Coordinating check-ins, check-outs, cleanings and even maintenance jobs if necessary

Review management

Crafting personalised reviews and responding to guest reviews

Powerful reporting

Detailed reports of revenue, occupancy rates, average nightly prices and response times

Fantastic Stay features explained in detail

Let's take a look at these features in more detail. Below I'll explain exactly what each feature does and how valuable I think it is. Some features are essential and save you a ton of time, while others are more like a nice little extra bonus.

Pricing optimisation​

FantasticStay uses real-time market data to ensure that your prices maximise revenue. They use the same software that the large hotels and airlines use to optimise their profits, similar to what third-party pricing apps like Wheelhouse use.

Pricing apps charge 1% of your revenue, so it's fair to value this service at 1% as well. It's great that it's included because it also saves you the hassle of having to sign up with multiple apps. ​

What the service does

 Collecting market data relevant to your listing

• Analysing key metrics of competing listings and nearby hotels
• Metrics include your listing's ranking, market prices (max, min, average and median) and number of properties available
• Optimising prices on the basis of the data

Channel management

What I like about this feature is that FantasticStay can list your home on multiple platforms. This can be quite a lot of work if you do it yourself and it could increase your revenue quite a bit. This feature is most useful for hosts who are located in a more quiet areas where there is not enough demand on one platform.

What the service does

• Meet your revenue targets each month
• List on all major OTAs and vacation rental sites
• Lets you keep control of the amount of nights you want to host and the number of turnovers per month

Ranking optimisation

Airbnb (and most other platforms) aim to avoid showing listings to their users that can't be booked because the calendar hasn't been updated. That's why they prefer to show listings that have been updated recently. In other words, your listing's ranking will improve if you update your calendar daily.

Fantastic Stay updates your calendar every 15 minutes. This not only helps with the search rank, but Airbnb also communicates this to the users so they will feel more comfortable booking your place knowing the calendar is updated.

Another important factor that Airbnb uses to calculate the search rankings is response time. FantasticStay guarantees responding to messages under 15 minutes, helping your listing rank well.

It would be pretty hard to achieve that fast of a response time yourself, as you can't always be online, when you're sleeping for example.

What the service does

 Update your calendar every 15 minutes to signal to Airbnb that your listing is available to guests!

• Responding to inquiries in under 15 minutes in order to maximise the chance of getting booked
• A few secret tricks that they don't want to disclose to keep their competitive advantage

This also increases the chance that you get booked, as often the first host to respond gets the booking. As for the “secret tricks,” I don't know what they are so I can't really comment on them. Who knows, maybe it's just a way to market the product :D.

Reservation management

FantasticStay handles your inquires and booking requests. They respond quickly so you won't miss out on any bookings.

In addition, they also use a screening checklist to make sure that you're only hosting the guests that you feel comfortable hosting. This adds a layer of safety to your Airbnb business and ensures that you're in control of who you host.

What the service does

 Receptionists approve and decline booking requests on your behalf, based on your preferences

• Based on experience and with your business needs in mind, a screening checklist will be created
• All guests are screening using this checklist to decide which guests to accept and decline

Guest communication

FantasticStay answers all your guests questions for you. This is the part that saves you the most time. We all know that no matter how much information you provide to your guests, you will get the same questions over and over. A lot of guests simply don't read the information.

What I like about the communication service is that they don't just communicate over the Airbnb messing platform, but also on Whatsapp, over text and even over the phone. This is important as it adds a more personal feel to the communication. ​

The 24/7 phone support feature is pretty awesome too.​

What the service does

 Answer guests' questions at any time of the day and night

• Telephone support –  your guests can call  24/7
• Respond to guests in any of 29 languages
• Multiple communication channels – SMS, platform messages, texts, WhatsApp

   

Cleanings and check-ins

Along with responding to messages, coordinating cleanings and check-ins is the bulk of the work you face as an Airbnb host. Outsourcing this part can free up a lot of time, but it's also the scariest part to hand over to a third party, because mistakes in this area can ruin your reputation on Airbnb.

One miscommunication with a cleaner or check-in manager can lead to a very unhappy guest and a crushing review. A service like FantasticStay lives or dies by delivering a consistent performance coordinating cleanings and check-ins without making mistakes.

FantasticStay realises the importance of arranging cleanings and check-ins. They have designed a system that has several safeguards to prevent missing a cleaning or check-in.

The system automatically picks up any new reservations and sends out notifications to your team on the ground.

In addition, they also provide your team with an IOS and Android app where each team member can see exactly what their task is and the details. ​

What the service does

 Booking information is automatically entered into their system

• Notifications are send out to team members using email and text automatically
• An IOS and Android app is provided to all team members that informs them about their designated tasks and additional details
• For emergency situations, a professional team is available 24/7 to help your guests solve any issues

The system is designed to prevent any Airbnb host's biggest nightmare: a guest not being able to check-in or arriving at an un-cleaned home. This gives me the piece of mind that I can go to sleep knowing that my guests are in good hands.

Review management

FantasticStay will not only write the guest reviews for you, they'll also remind your guests to write a review for you. This is great, as getting reviews is very important in order to get more bookings.

In addition, they'll also respond to your guests' reviews. Honestly the reviews aren't a ton of work, but it's nice that you don't have to worry about it knowing it's taken care off.

What the service does

 Remind your guests to leave a review

• Read all guests' review and notify the host if there's anything that requires special attention
• Leave a personal review for the guest if there weren't any issues
• Respond to all guests' reviews

Powerful reporting

If you don't measure it, you can't improve it. I know from my entrepreneurial experience that in any business it's important to know the numbers.

I have an excel sheet were I keep track of everything. Check-in and check-out date, rate, guests' country of origin, if they left a review or not, and if they did how many stars they gave me.

I even kept track of how many Airbnb cancelations I received.

What the service does 

• Collecting market data relevant to your listing
• Analysing key metrics of competing listings and nearby hotels
• Metrics include your listing's ranking, market prices (max, min, average and median) and number of properties available
• Optimising prices on the basis of the data

I can tell you, keep track of all that is a lot of work, which is why I appreciate this little add-on service. It will help you make better decision in the long term and thereby improve your Airbnb business.

Conclusion: FantasticStay offers great value for money

I think FantasticStay offers great value for money. For 3% to 5% of your revenue, they take a lot of work out of your hands. In fact, with the experience they have optimising listings and prices, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of hosts are actually making more money.

I almost doubled my Airbnb revenue after I gained some experience and learned how to “play the Airbnb game.” So if you're fairly new to Airbnb, why not use the experience and know-how that FantasticStay has, save yourself a lot of time and trouble and probably end up making more money after you pay the 5% fee.

Having said that, FantasticStay is not for everyone. A lot of hosts actually enjoy the work that comes with hosting on Airbnb. They like to communicate with their guests and doing the check-ins themselves. If that's you, then managing your listing yourself is the best choice for you. But if you feel overwhelmed and you want to save time, sign-up now and you'll get 15% of the regular price.

Yes, I want to save time and maybe even make more money