My Guests Have No Hot Water And I’m 2000 Miles Away…
Let’s go back to Christmas Eve where families are getting together, drinking their egg nog, snuggling by the fire and then you get THAT CALL. My cabin, which is 2000 miles away, had a water heater that JUST.STOPPED.WORKING.
Yap that was me! One of my cabin's water heaters literally went out on Christmas Eve and you know what makes it even better? My second cabin’s water heater went out on Christmas Day! No - literally that actually happened!!! So here I am with two sets of families at their cabins, no hot water, and it’s Christmas - and I’m across the county. Neat. I’m dead serious! Talk about a great slap in the face into the short term rental world.
I always heard that day would come. It had been all roses until this point minus a light bulb out here or there. But here I was, with my family as well, trying to figure out how to not ruin two other families Christmases and save myself from two terrible reviews.
So I excused myself from my dinner table and went into the other room to gather my thoughts. Okay Megan, what do I do now? Well, what would I do if that happened where I live? I don’t know how to fix a water heater and neither does my husband, although he may go out there and hit it with a screwdriver for a while. Next logical step - call a plumber. Ring.Ring. “Hi Mr. Plumber, Merry Christmas by the way, I need help…” “Sorry lady, we are closed for Christmas!”. Yap, no help. So I called 3 more plumbers - SAME THING! Now panic was starting to set in. But I kept calling and I found a company who had an emergency plumber on call. Was it expensive for those calls? Oh you bet! But did they fix my issue? YES!
And, to top it all off, my guests at both of my cabins still left me 5 STAR REVIEWS! That’s even without any hot water for a full day! How did I manage that? Well, from the moment the issues arrived and I was notified I apologized profusely and communicated consistently with timelines for getting the water heaters fixed. My guests were not left in the dark at any time. They were so grateful for my prompt response as they know things break, too. Now, what if they weren’t so nice and were acting like a real Karen. Well, I would have done everything I did above and either offered a partial refund, bought their dinner, or some other gesture to try and ensure they enjoyed the rest of their vacation. The key was that I cared, took action, communicated, and rectified the issues.
The bottom line here: you will have issues come up but don’t dread them because it’s a fact. Things will break. Calls will interrupt your dinner, your kids birthday party, etc. But, it doesn’t take long to make a few calls, communicate with guests, and have it fixed. And those slight interruptions pay dividends in cash flow!