Airbnb Cleaning: Vanessa Higgins on Best Practices, Pricing, and Scheduling.

Since its launch in 2008, Airbnb has been on an almost consistent upward trajectory. Despite numerous regulations to stunt the business's growth in different regions, the company reached a valuation of 35 billion USD in 2019 with over 2.9 million hosts.

Our founder, Vanessa Higgins, was invited to speak at the first-ever Maid Service Summit organized by ZenMaid. Her talk focused on how cleaning businesses can take advantage of the growing short-term rental property industry, using Airbnb as the reference point. This article summarizes the contents of the presentation, which had over 6,000 views on Youtube. You can still watch the video below.

Why should businesses consider Airbnb cleaning?

1. It's a growing niche: The thing with Airbnb is only some cleaning companies can offer it. Turnover cleaning generally requires thorough, deep cleaning; with Airbnb, the cleaning times can be short and last-minute. This type of job's fast pace and unpredictability is not for everyone.

This makes it a win-win situation because oversaturation will not be an issue, and with the steady growth of the number of Airbnb listings, your business will not have to worry about running out of clients. 

2. Airbnb jobs pay better: The charges for Airbnb cleans are typically slightly higher than average. Unlike weekly clean clients, Airbnb hosts might require you to tidy their homes up to six times a month, resulting in a yearly income from turnover cleaning alone that is thousands of dollars more than regular ones.

3. With Airbnbs, cleanliness is necessary: Sometimes, your regular home cleaning client could cancel for one reason. The same goes for most other types of clients. But with Airbnb hosts, a neat home is necessary to boost their ratings and get them to "plus" status. So there's a lower risk of canceled orders in this niche.

How do you market your business to Airbnb hosts?

If you're still reading, you don't mind the many challenges turnover cleaning for Airbnbs brings, and we commend you for that. So how do you get these hosts to know and work with you?

• Word of mouth: Nothing beats self-promotion and networking to get the clients you're looking to attract. You can find short-term rental property hosts on Facebook forums, task-assignment apps like Properly, and related sites like Angela Brown's Housecleaning360.

• Optimizing your website and business cards: It will help to include your turnover cleaning services on your business cards and use SEO to make your website visible for web searches related to Airbnb.

• Investing in Google Ads: As always, good ol' Google ads will get your housekeeping agency right in front of the hosts you want to connect with, and it'll only set you back a few dollars.

How do you create the ideal turnover-cleaning strategy?

Before you start turnover cleaning, you need to strategize so you don't get into the industry unprepared and meet surprises. Here are the three key things you have to do:

1. Make the critical decisions first:

Before you start, ask yourself questions like "How many Airbnb properties are we going to work with?" "Will we offer only cleaning services or include errands and laundry?" This helps prevent overwhelm and lets you determine how many dedicated staff you must assign to turnover cleaning. And yes, you read that right. You will need a dedicated Airbnb team. But we will get to that soon. 

2. Develop your pricing:

You can offer only turnover cleaning services or turnover plus laundry or errand services. It is great to have a list or spreadsheet of your different housekeeping services and their costs ready for clients to go through. Ensure you set rates worth the work you and your team put in and constantly update the prices of supplies in the market.

3. Always keep your customers in the loop:

With Airbnbs, your customer's growth equals your growth. If you offer excellent housekeeping services, your client will get better reviews, and their ratings on the Airbnb app will increase. That will translate to more bookings for their homes and more jobs for you. It's a win-win situation, and good communication is the only way to achieve it.

Ensure to send evidence of any situation out of the norm in their rented homes. This constant communication will build your client's trust in you and your cleaning company.

4. Schedule everything:

The best app for scheduling Airbnb cleanings is Zenmaid because it offers all the necessary features for seamless management. Syncing your customer's calendar to yours, using shortcuts, and being as descriptive as possible in your invoice are best practices you would want to follow.

Why do you need a dedicated Airbnb cleaning team?

It would be best to have a dedicated team because Airbnb cleaning differs from standard house cleaning services. You need to train your team to handle trashed homes and take pictures and videos of anything out of the ordinary. This is so you can send this visual evidence to the host to hold the visitors responsible for any damage they caused on the property. Team training should happen periodically to update the protocols involved in these services. 

Employing a full-time manager for your Airbnb cleaning service would also be wise. This is because of the job requirements: scheduling, quality control, troubleshooting staff inquiries, communicating with the host on supplies, property management, etc. It's a lot of work that the manager needs to do perfectly to ensure your business provides quality service. 

Your team should also have a checklist of everything each Airbnb job requires to ensure they don't skip or forget anything. From carpet deodorizers to spotless sheets, a list and the necessary protocols would go a long way to cement your maid service in the hearts of your clients.

Conclusion

If you want to enter the turnover cleaning industry, ensure you have all your plans laid out. It will be an added perk if you have people within your network who can solve household problems like plumbing issues, electrical faults, etc. They could prove invaluable in your quality service delivery. Regarding Airbnb services, being proactive, observant, and communicative will endear you to hosts.