Anticipating Guest's Problems

(so they don't become YOUR problems)​

The best complaints are the ones no one needs to make!
Taking some time to think through the myriad things that could go wrong, or questions guests may have during their stay, will give them an excellent experience, and will require less daily attention from you.
It's impossible to anticipate what every guest will need, a little common sense planning goes a long way.

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Broadly speaking, problems that guests run into can be broken into three categories...​

Category 1

Problems that can be anticipated and be solved before they occur

The goal should be to move as many potential problems as possible into Category 1. Many of these items can be solved by setting up the house correctly (as described in Furnishings to Kill For and Locks for a Seamless Check-in). These will take care of basic questions like, “hey what was the password to enter the house again?”, or “I forgot my toothbrush. Do you have an extra or can I buy one nearby?”

Category 2

Problems that you can plan ahead to fix over the phone

Category 2 problems are the types that can be fixed by simply pointing the guest in the right direction (provided you plan ahead). They occur infrequently enough that it’s not worth clogging your listing or welcome book, but just frequently enough that you don’t want to have to make a special trip home just for them. Here are a couple of the problems I’m glad I built in solutions for:

Problem: Guest locks themselves out of their room
Solution: Have a bank of lock-boxes somewhere in the home, with easy to remember passwords (one per room). If a guest loses the key to their room, you can point them to the lock-box without needing to come home.
 

 

Problem: The toilet gets clogged or a guest spills a drink on the floor
Solution: I found that guests were generally more than happy to clean up any messes they made – they just needed the tools to do so. Keep the cleaning supplies, toilet plunger, etc is a location you don’t mind the guest accessing.
Category 3

Problems that require the host to drop whatever they are doing and attend to the issue in person

Category 3 problems are the ones you hope you never have. If any category 3 problems come up, try to think of ways to move them into category 2, or better yet, category 1 problems. Examples I ran into included:
 
Problem: The guest arrived and found someone else was in their room
Solution: I came home to smooth things over between the guest (who was in the wrong room), and the newly arrived guest. Going forward, I added little chalkboards to the front of each room, and wrote “Welcome [guest’s name]!” so there wouldn’t be any confusion. This coarse of action moved the problem likely category 3 to category 1.
 
Problem: The guest arrived to find their room hadn’t yet been prepared
Solution: I came home and quickly prepared their room. I contacted the housekeeper to find out why they hadn’t turned the room, and we cleared up the root cause of the communication issue that result in them neglecting to get the room prepared in time.

 

To move a problem out of category 3, think carefully about exactly why the guest experienced the problem in the first place, why they needed to contact you for a solution, and why (at the time) you needed to be there in person to solve the problem. Remember, you’re goal isn’t to be “right”. If the guest does something you find to be “stupid”, the most useful answer probably isn’t to only select “smarter” guests. Instead, try to determine how you can best help a tired guest who just got off an eight-hour flight six times zones away not run into the problem in the first place, or quickly find the solution without contacting you.