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Help your tenants to help you!

Elizabeth Weedon | 12/13/2013

Just-AskBy now most vacation rental homeowners are abundantly aware of how vitally important guest reviews have become to the success of marketing our homes. At WeNeedaVacation.com, we constantly urge our homeowners to solicit feedback from their past tenants, preferably having them submitted directly onto the listing - because vacationer entered reviews are of much greater value and credibility than homeowner entered ones.

But often vacationers will already have written a lovely note, either in a guest book at the house or in an email to the homeowner during or after their stay. Nice as this is, it makes it very difficult to then ask the vacationer to rewrite something that can be directly posted on the listing.

Here is a way to convert these valuable comments into even more valuable vacationer entered reviews. Simply copy and paste or type up the vacationers’ comments in an email to them with a nice note thanking them for the feedback – and then ask them to copy and paste their words directly into the guest review form on your listing. It will take the vacationer just a moment to do, and the resulting vacationer entered review is of much greater value to you.  Of course, using the Request Form feature from your listing makes it even easier for the vacationer as it also provides the “Write a review” link for instant access.

Do you have any other tips for soliciting guest reviews or persuading your tenants to submit their feedback directly onto your listing?

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About Elizabeth Weedon

About Elizabeth Weedon: I have worked for WeNeedaVacation.com since 2008, and I've been a loyal homeowner listed on the site since early 1998. An enthusiastic member of the Homeowner Support Team, I provide fellow Cape and Islands vacation rental homeowners with advice about online marketing and rental management techniques to ensure them a successful rental experience each season. In addition to phone and email support to our homeowners, I also create and edit much of the content on our website, as well as our Homeowner Blog and monthly newsletters. I am also the Press & PR Coordinator for the company, responsible for drafting our press releases and responding to press inquiries and interviews. I grew up summering on the Vineyard, where I have managed my family's rental home since the mid-1980's, and I'm passionately devoted to the Island. My husband and I live in Wellesley where we have raised our 2 grown kids and our Black Lab, Maisie.