|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Setting the House Rules and making your guests aware of your expectations is the best way to prevent conflict situations. The House Rules ensure your own and your guest’s comfort and safety, and clearly state your legal responsibilities in case of disagreements and claims. They also establish procedures to be followed in unpleasant situations (like theft, damage, etc.), which saves a lot of time and discussion.
It is necessary to have a short list of the House Rules in writing, placed somewhere on a visible place in accommodation or included in the preliminary information sent to the client. This makes a formal impression but proves useful at the moment you need to refer to them. It is also important to show necessary tact and not to exaggerate in setting the rules too strictly or in too much detail, since your guests need to feel welcomed and trusted upon their arrival.
You should investigate all the possible risks you run while providing accommodation services and inform the clients on your liability in case of accidents (e.g., fire, household technical problems, incidents on the trail, in the swimming pool, etc.) and force major (e.g., flooding, landslide). Of course, you need to do everything possible to reduce these risks and diminish their consequences via making regular inspections, arranging proper insurance, providing the list of phones numbers of emergency services and presenting safety rules. These measures are extremely significant, as indemnification for injures and deaths caused by your failure to organize the business is likely to be higher than you can ever earn in a lifetime.
Your responsibility for different types of security incidents (e.g., theft) should be known to the clients, and the easiest way to avoid disappointment is to provide them with basic security advice. If you encounter a minor situation that can be resolved by yourself without interference of the police, it is better to be discreet and get the things settled in a confidential way. By neutral discussion of the matter you might discover that there was a misunderstanding, e.g., that the children were involved or thatan unintentional actiontook place.
You have to think of measures to protect the comfort of the other guests if somebody misbehaves and violates the order and peace in the facility (e.g., by loud music, shouts or noise after midnight). Most important is to make clear in advance which kind of behaviour will not be accepted. Nice appeals in, for instance, funny pictures, for keeping the place clean and neat might help you prevent a mess and create a friendly atmosphere ensuring cooperation of your guests.
The established procedures shall allow you to protect your business financially in case of damage to or loss of your property. Usually it is done by covering the costs for repair or replacement of the damaged/missing items. You should have a list of the items present in each room, with declared value of every single one of them. The form of such an inventory should be chosen very carefully not to insult your guests. So, for example, on the top of such a list you can make a statement “Dear guest, for your convenience, each room is equipped with the following items: ......... “and at the bottom you can add: “Please inform us if one of these items is missing or broken.” Check the rooms for these items after the guests have left if you have their contact addresses or do it during check-out. This will increase the possibility to recover lost items and may eliminate the problem of collecting the money.
It can prove useful to make an additional list of small problems most likely to occur and procedures to solve them; this may help you react quickly and appropriately if something actually happens. So, for instance, if a key is lost, the costs of both key and lock replacement must be considered.
It can be important to include in the House Rules some specific requirements or conditions of your accommodation. It can be the Opening Hours, if you combine the accommodation business with some other activities or do not work on Sunday. Make sure that your guests are well informed; it will help prevent inconveniences for your clients and protect your own comfort.
|
|
Guests Feed-Back during Their Staying | Questions to Section 4: Dealing with Guests |
|