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VRS225 - Vacation Rental Emergency Planning Made Easy

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Back in 2016 at the first VRSS I did a session on Emergency Planning.

It wasn’t that well attended – there were other workshops that may have been seen as more interesting….Tyann Marcink was talking about photography and there was a great session on social media marketing.

Both of which were much more exciting than thinking about bed bugs or hot tub folliculitis!

We had fun in that session though, brainstorming situations that might occur the creating standard operating procedures to deal with them. And those that attended left with a wider perspective on the scope of things that could go wrong, and some practical ideas to deal with them.

Regardless of how scintillating the topic may or may not be, it’s hugely important.

Everyone who rents out a home will have an emergency to deal with at some time. It could be something as simple as a cleaner failing to turn up or an appliance failure, or as serious as a national epidemic driving owners to want their country homes to hide away in.

Whatever the emergency potential you should have a plan in place to manage the process of handling it.

Knowing how to respond to guests, what to do next and the third parties that will get involved is the key to being secure knowing that you have any scenario covered.

Since I had a situation of my own recently where my whole attention was focused on one thing – and that was not my vacation rental – I have immediate experience of the benefit of having these plans in place.

So, I had to cancel an overseas trip (to VRMA Europe) and missed several work deadlines, but my cottage rental bookings were seamlessly delivered. All because our standard operating procedures kicked in.

In today’s episode, I talk about the ‘what if’s’ – those situations we never want to happen, but know they do.

Whether it’s something completely unexpected like a tree branch falling on a guest’s car, or a snowstorm that closes a road, or an illness in your own family that takes your attention from your guests’ experience.

Then I share what you can do to make sure there’s something in place for every event.

You’ll hear about:

  • Why the plumber may say no to a request for emergency service (and what you can do to become a priority customer)
  • The process of bed bug management.
  • What you should have in place to counter a claim of hot tub folliculitis
  • Standard Operating Procedures and what to put in them.
  • How to create a power outage kit.
  • Why you need to include a rebate/refund policy in your SOPs

Who's featured in this episode?

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