Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 11 Episode 70. This is a recap of my Facebook live where I talked about how to idiot-proof your business.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
00:00 Start
01:20 One of my pet peeves
01:55 How to idiot-proof your business
02:55 Create an FAQ page
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Transcript from the Episode
I don't know about you. But one of my pet peeves working in hospitality industry for so many years is always having to answer the same question time and time and time again. And it got to a point I always remember that it got to a point in the season, where you just wish that you could just staple the answer to the most common questions on your head so that you don't have to answer them anymore.
How to idiot-proof your business
It always got me thinking how can you make sure that your business is idiot-proof in a nicer way of saying it basically. So how that anybody can understand. So I've been always been thinking about that ever since being in the hospitality industry. And what I want to explain to you today is steps that you can do to make sure that you never have to answer a pre-arrival question from a guest ever again. The most important thing that I recommend to everybody that you do is I would take some time. And I would go through all of your emails all of your inboxes and go and look for the most frequently asked questions.
Create an FAQ page
And now what we're going to do on what everybody to do to idio-proof your business is to go and create number one, an FAQ page on your website, an FAQ page on your website can be so powerful. And what I would love for you to do, say you can get down 10 questions, put the answers down. And in your email signature, go and put the link to your FAQ. So this could be some things this is pre-booking. So this could be, Do you accept pets? Do you have parking, x, y, and Zed.
Now then what you're going to do to idiot-proof your business is you're going to have questions put together for post booking, so pre arrival post booking. Now for this, it may be a little bit more detail. So what I would be looking to do what again, you need to go and get a digital guidebook. I've mentioned Hostfully many times as a sponsor of this podcast episode. You can get a free digital guidebook with Hostfully and in there, I would be putting in your digital guidebook the answers to any pre stay questions. So pre arrival. So pre arrival could be things like have you got a high chair if you've family friendly? Do you provide cutlery Do you have plastic cutlery? I'm thinking of like, you know, questions that I've maybe asked in the past. You know, is it plastic cutlery is is a glass cutlery? Do I have to bring anything for my family for my baby, etc? Wi Fi speed? Where is Wi Fi? How do I access the property is there parking is the parking space is big, small, etc. I would literally be again going through all of your FAQs. And I'd be answering them in a digital guidebook form. So these aren't the sort of things that you would put on your website. These are the sort of things you'd put in your digital guidebook that you can send to a guest after the point of booking.
Now the final thing that you need to do to idiot-proof your business is you also then need to have the post-arrival so after the guest has checked in their questions as well. So for example, if you've got an apartment if you've got a rental accommodation, you know how to use the oven How is used to cook or how to use a coffee machine. But I'd be going a little bit step further here, I'd actually go around your property, take your phone or a camera or a GoPro and just record lots of little videos, I would even take the little videos, upload them to some of my Dropbox or Google Drive, and then have them in there. And I would label them, for example, how to use the oven, how to use a cooker, how to use the washer, and then the property, you can just put a couple of little QR codes. And it will be for example, how to work the TV how to how to work it, scan the QR code to find out more. Because then once the guest is in the property, and they've got that question of how to turn on the TV, so they don't have to disturb or disrupt your evening or your day or the member of your staff have a message at one o'clock in the morning, when the Wi Fi code, they can simply just scan the QR code, and they'll be able to find the answer in the Dropbox or the Google folder. And again, by doing it once and yes, it may take a lot of time to do it once. But by doing that, then your life will be so much easier to the point where the guests will have a good experience and they don't have to disturb you by asking those questions at 11 o'clock at night. How do I turn on the TV?
So these are things that you need to be doing to idiot-proof your business so that you will never get asked the question again, the best place to start is to go for your frequently asked questions. Now if you haven't got a lot of them. Just think along the lines of your customer avatar think along the lines of what questions that my customer avatar will be asking. And then go from there. Now the beauty of all of this with a digital guidebook with a Google Drive, Dropbox folder, videos etc is that it can be amended at any point in time. You can look to readdress this in 3, 6, 9 12 months, and you can update it as you go. But by doing this, you'll get a lovely back catalogue and it just means that you will have an easier life. So go and do that.
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