Guest Review Link

Aloha, I'm interested in getting updates about the upcoming guest review link/form. It will be great for our direct booked guests to be able to leave a review on our website using a link that takes them there. Thanks for all you do!

Yep, we've got this scheduled for a development cycle soon!

Great, was thinking of the same thing!

It is now 2019- is there a guest review or some method of making notes about a particular guest (e.g. they prefer to use our dog gate amenity, birthdays other important dates)?

yes. You need to set up an email template that will request guest to write a review ( I get mine triggered 4 days after departure). Insert the field {BUREVIEW} - when guest clicks on it, it will open a form for them to leave a review. You get notification, open a review, look over and tick to make it visible.

Here is my template

Dear {CFIRST},

If you can take a couple of minutes out of your busy day, we'd appreciate it if you would fill an online review of your choice so that other guests can see what to expect. 

Review on our website ( this is {BUREVIEW} link)

Review on Google  ( link to GMB)

Review on TripAdvisor ( link to TA)

Did you book with us direct? If so, great! You got the best price! If you booked via a 3rd party site such as AirBnB, HomeAway/VRBO or TripAdvisor - they mark up the owner's rate anywhere from 7 to 17%! Vacation home owners advertise on all those booking portals, but you can find individual property websites (like ours) and social media pages. By booking direct from owners, you could have saved {BXSVCFEE} on your stay! < this is custom field I have for service fee amount>

Please know that there are real people behind owning, caring for and maintaining vacation properties like ours, so you are not "renting an AirBnB" - you are renting someone's vacation home, 2nd home or future retirement dream home. These mega booking sites do not own vacation homes - folks like us do.

We offer returning guest discount (when booked direct with us, good at any of our cabins) and friends/family referral discount.

Thanks again, and if you have any questions or concerns, or need information, please let us know.

Signed

You don't use vrbo/ha?

who, me or OP?

Your template does not have a line for vrbo/ha reviews

That's probably because VRBO/HA no longer allows non-verified guests to write reviews. They recently closed that off like AIr does. So linking to the reviews page on your VRBO/HA listing will no longer work unless the guest has a verified booking on VRBO.

I do not need link for VRBO reviews in this particular template. They get the link to post a review on VRBO from VRBO automatically.
Also, the goal of this template is to emphasize booking direct with me next time so that they don't have to pay VRBO fees.

Yep make sense. You need to have a training class for others, BlueMtn. 😉

It feels like I am doing that on volunteer basis. Day in and day out I get pings on FB messenger from people in various groups asking OR questions.

I am in many groups and my observation is that many people are somewhat intimidated by the set up process and do not use OR to even half of its capability. Are there any videos or slide shows stepping people through basic set up, defining property and amenities, hooking into major OTAs( and I don't even mean channel integration - just icals), setting up auto responders with templates, rental agreements etc.

Even in Smoky Mountains Owners group where many use OR I still notice that many basic features seem to be not understood or under utilized.

Am I that one user that every IT implementation has who knows just enough to be dangerous? :-) LOL

Proper support - articles, tutorials, videos - is our number one problem by significant margin. We have some major updates coming on that but tend to be slow on actually delivering on that side. Our main www site is years behind. The Features/Tour area is laughably out of date. 😥 Frustrating but fixable!

I would focus on tutorials and videos before articles.

A lot of the stuff is out there - articles, forum threads, etc.

I am a writer by trade. There is two parts to documentation 1) content and 2) getting people to that content.

The main problem I am finding in setting up, is it is a fishing expedition to find applicable explanations and grasp stuff to apply it. You would spend less time explaining some stuff to forum questioners, if you organized 80% of the stuff most people need to get set up. The search box for support is a messy way to figure out how to do things.

The forum model is weak, as once something is a few weeks old, it rolls off from view. You should manage Forum threads with people looking back, in mind.
-- Add a NEW forum category on top "Helpful Articles about OwnerRez", where you can put threads to past articles and past forum really useful posts that might help people. Make it Read Only. People know how to find the forum.
-- Add a NEW forum category called "Setting Up Your NEW OwnerRez Account". Put it second. If things get in it that don't apply, move them to the proper forum category.
-- Forum category "General Help and Questions" is the most popular, so maybe rename it to "Help With Your EXISTING OwnerRez Account." Make it the third forum category. Again, If things get in it that don't apply, move them to the proper forum category.

But I do not think this is just an OwnerRez problem. Any sophisticated, complex product will take a lot of thought. That is why some spend hundreds in a one-time setup cost. It has some merit, offering it as an option.

This has been around for awhile, guess we overlooked updating this post:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/review-request