understanding the difference between an inquiry and request is incredibly
important for new hosts not realizing the difference can severely and
negatively impact your hosting stats which will mean fewer bookings and could
possibly mean that your listing is removed from Airbnb all together and
that almost happened to me way back when I first started hosting almost five
years ago on today's video I'll walk you through the difference between an
inquiry and a request on Airbnb the nuance is slight but very important to
help you I've created a cheat sheet that you can print out so there's no need to
take any notes head over to my website to download it and the link is in the
description below question have you been confused by an inquiry or request give
me a yes or no in the comments below welcome to another episode of Airbnb
uncovered I'm Matt the creator of Airbnb uncovered dot com and Airbnb a super host
on this channel I uncover some of the best kept hosting secrets as well as
share with you everything that I've ever learned after hosting over 3000 guests
my tips tricks and best practices are focused on helping new hosts earn more
attract the best guess and achieve super host status faster a good thing to be
aware of is that guess probably don't realize the difference between inquiries
and requests either and this can make things a bit more confusing but not to
worry this isn't it's not a huge deal you can still secure a booking under
both but what's most important is how you handle each of them when you don't
want to host the guest now is a great time to grab the cheat sheet that you
printed from my website because we're gonna get started
an inquiry is when a guest is asking questions about your home by using the
inquiry instead of the request the guest is generally saying to you hey I'm
interested but before I book I need some more information inside an inquiry
you're going to see three options pre-approve decline and special offer
and when you see those three options you know you're dealing with an inquiry
because a request only has two options but this is where it gets weird
you don't actually mean to pick any of the three options and most importantly
you do not have to decline an inquiry if you're not interested in hosting the
guests too many declines will cause your listing to fall in search results and it
could result in your listing being delisted if you decline too many so only
ever decline requests and never decline an inquiry and this it's one of the
biggest secrets I can uncover for you but you do have to send a reply and this
initial response will signal to the Airbnb systems that you're being
responsive to your guests I mean it's also rude if you don't answer a guest
who is message to you at the very least you should reply saying something like
hey thanks for the message I'm not interested though and the system does
not track subsequent replies it's only the first one and it tracks how quickly
you send that message back to the guest this response time is shown at the
bottom of your listing and on every listing for that matter but if you do
want to host this guess and you don't have instant booking turned on or the
guest doesn't meet your instant booking requirements then this is when you use
the pre-approval option sending a pre-approval will change the status of
the inquiry from inquiry to invite it to book if you don't send the pre-approval
the guests cannot book unless they go back to your listing page then make a
request and you're still going have to approve the request so make sure
you use the pre approve when it's necessary you can also send your guests
a special offer sending a special offer implies that you do want to host this
guess so if the guest accepts your offer then you've got a confirmed booking you
you might be asking if I never have to decline an inquiry then why is that
option even there in the first place to be completely honest I I really have no
idea the only people who probably do know why it's there is the product team
at Airbnb because I've looked and searched and I cannot find it anywhere
I'm guessing it's there to provide guests with a definitive answer but you
can do that by writing your guests and telling them that you're not interested
I never decline a guest on an inquiry because I want to keep my hosting SATs
high and therefore I save my declines for requests which is what we're going
to talk about in a second a request on the other hand is when a guest actually
wants to book your home and this means that the guest has gone through all of
the booking screens since this process is pretty intensive and it actually
includes confirming payment information some newer guests mistakenly believe
that they've actually booked your place but you still get to decide if you want
to host them or not within a request you're going to see two options after
you click on the message and those options are to accept or decline and
this is a surefire way to know that it's a request here you actually have to pick
whether or not you want to accept or decline the reservation and this is the
key difference between a request henan enquiry for a request though your
response time is going to depend on how quickly you select accept or decline
versus an inquiry when it's how quickly you send the reply to the guest but you
can still exchange messages with the guest if you want to have more
information you're gonna get 24 hours to make your decision before the
request expires and your hosting stats are going to be severely impacted putt
the sooner you make your decision the better again it's all about keeping your
response time high just like with an inquiry if you decline too many requests
your enlisting will go down in search results and you could risk being
delisted this is why I normally try to get guests that I don't want to host to
cancel their requests instead of me declining it I fully explain how this
works in my three-part series on how to host the best gas and avoid the worst
ones which you can watch by clicking on the little I in the upper right hand
corner and I'm also gonna link it at the end of this video
noticing the difference between an inquiry and a request is subtle and it's
so frustrating for new hosts I get it the Airbnb system makes distinguishing
them complicated and it really doesn't matter if you're using your computer or
your phone or tablet both are mismatched from your computer a
request shows as pending and an inquiry shows as an inquiry inside the app on
your phone or tablet the request shows a countdown clock while the inquiry shows
accept or decline which is confusing in and of itself because you don't actually
accept an inquiry you pre-approve it and both have the option to decline when you
don't even have to decline an inquiry so look I get why this is a confusing topic
but please remember that everything I've covered in this video is summarized in a
cheat sheet that you can download for free from my website keep the cheat
sheet handy as you respond to guests so that you can keep your hosting stats
high and only host the best guest the link it's in the description down below
I hope that you found this video helpful and if you did please give it a thumbs
up and rate it five stars if you're asked if you want to get more tips and
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reach a bigger audience thanks again for watching and until next time bye for now
you