Maximize Your STR Guest Experience with Tyann Marcink Hammond of TouchStay

well welcome back everyone to the short-term rental riches podcast I'm happy you're here again and I've got another special episode for you all another special guest today we have tyan Marsing Hammond officially known as the queen of guests experience for touch day welcome to the show tyan thank you Tim really appreciate you guys having me here yeah we're excited and I'm excited to have a queen of guest experience on the show this is this is the first for us royalties so we can dig into this

a whole bunch of different ways I know you've been in the industry since 2007 which is about as early as you can go you know I mean Airbnb started what in 2008 or something like that or it did it did yeah when I started um my first listing was verbo and everyone had you every listing was manually looked at by them and it was a holiday weekend so it took three days for my listing to appear on top of that if you wanted to upload photos

digitally you could but at that time most people actually mailed physical photos to oh my gosh it's literally like very much like Craigslist and Craigslist was a platform that you used as well to Market so uh very very different than what it is today um what's really interesting though is back then you know I took most payments by check and now we've swi this now we're doing more and more checks as well uh so it's it's kind of fun seeing some back around yeah interesting interesting

well I know you have your own short-term rentals that sound really unique and I want to I want to chat with you about those but before we do uh you're with touch St and so can you give our audience just a little brief background about touch day and what and how you work with them for those of you those of you out there that don't already know touch day so touch day is a digital guide book um basically think about that manual that you've got in

the three- ring grinder back at your property that talks about the property it might have coffee stains kid boogers a little bit of spaghetti sauce on it and you really don't feel like uh making it fresh and new every single time you turn the house because that is a little difficult and sometimes guests even put it in a place where it's safe out of the hands of kids as well and then your cleaning crew has to go hunt it down too because it's got really good

important information for your guests about the property about the area information safety things house rules things like that but what touch day is is the Dig digital version of it that you can actually send to your guest as soon as they book so they have the information on their phone they access it by any device any web browser all you're doing is sending them a special link to them and then they can have that information ahead of time so that means your guests that are the

huge planners like we have big family reunions right now we're booking groups of 50 to 80 people or more and that digital guide book is so so important for them to figure out where are people going to sleep what are the house rules what's the safety information what are the things they're going to do in the area and they're planning all of this out so you've got your planners and then you've got the folks that oh about a week or two ahead of time they start

looking at the types of things but they do want to book things they do want to know about the property it's right there waiting for them and then you have the Travelers like me who Rock up already on my way and wait a second what was that address again again um oh yeah I'm at the door what's the lock code again and your your touch Day digital guide book you have sent it to them it's on their phone they can access it easily they know what

to do and it really really helps too to set expectations so that they know what are the quirks of the house what do they do in case of emergency but the key is with a digital guidebook whether it's touch day or some other way that you're doing it uh you definitely need to communicate to guest why they need to open it so for example I know Tim I told you I've got several properties been doing this for 17 years in my 18th year now and I

was that hobby host who would forget to tell my guests the code and they'd be calling me literally standing on my doorstep saying Tian how do I get into the house um what it does touch day also has memo where I can send triggered texts and emails and give my guests the information with the right method at the right time and direct people exactly what they need and to do and what they need to know and just increases their guest experience so they have better time

they want to spend more money with me they're buying more things they're adding more nights and increases my reviews too so it's a major impact on not just my profitability but also on the time I spend managing my guests because it cuts out so many over and over repeated questions again and again because I'm answering those questions before they even ask yep that's that's the name of the game isn't it yeah exactly that is the name of the game um and yes things have changed a

lot over the years uh and and so have people's patience levels or their attention spans I guess you can say um and so we know we send stuff out to our guests all the time and there's the people that study up and then there's people like uh myself and sounds like you that do it very last minute you know before we get to the door so what are some ways maybe you you mentioned we can send via text and email but what's maybe the timing that

someone might want to get this information out in front of their guest um or do you have like a sequence a preferred sequence that you might recommend I do actually if you go to my website so tyan mar.com blog you'll find my entire communication flow for my big houses and we're at about 25 different touch points so between text email if phys AAL card we actually call them after arrival now 25 sounds overwhelming um we don't do that many for our other brand properties in historical

Wine Country in Missouri that's less it's a different Target guest it's a different booking window but you the key is is number one you need to send more than two messages so last year touch day did a guest communication study and found that over two-thirds of guests are receiving two or fewer messages and that's not enough and when once we correlated how many messages and Communications that casts are receiving to the amount of money they're spending once you hit three or more they're spending more money

with you when you hit six or more the amount of money they're spending with you even doubles so between extending stays they're adding upsells things like that so more communication actually means you're also doing less so what I tell folks is one you want to send them information right away upon booking and then you want to send it again depending upon the booking window it might be 30 days out it might be 10 days out definitely want to send it again about 3 to five days

out and then I would send it again the day before or the day of and one of the things we do is I time my messages according to what they're doing in their planning phase since I've been around so long and I've looked back at reviews I've looked back at questions what questions are they asking me when are they asking me this and I time things to when my guests are wanting the information and I only send a little bit of information at a time answering

one or two questions at a time and always sending them back to my touch Day digital guide book but throwing in fun things too so like two days before arrival they get a text saying we're really excited about your road trip to come see us here is our road trip playlist and we have a Spotify playlist list embedded in our in our touch day guide book that they go see they enjoy it they've got music for their drive it's fantastic and then one other thing Tim

is the type the method of the message that you're sending is we found in the guest communication study that guests want emails and then when it's close to the arrival and during their stay they want text messages because nobody wants to check email while they're on vacation and then afterwards they want to switch back to email so it's really interesting se you know listening to what it is your guest and traveler wants and when they want it and how they want it great great insights and

some great tips and Nuggets in there um you've got to you got to live up to that name don't you tyan that queen of but you've got it figure it out you know um it really timing is a huge thing the method of the message is a big thing so sending text message closer to the check-in I like that um I'm curious your thoughts on on so it's sounds like some of your properties are are really large you have really large groups coming uh maybe what

touch day is found in terms of a lot of our audience it's across the board right we've got a lot of people tuning in that have really large homes and then we have a lot of people tuning in that maybe have small like Urban Apartments and they have business Travelers coming uh what would you say to the differences between the type of guests and maybe the way someone might want to change their guide book or maybe change their Communications depending on you know that maybe that

business traveler versus the the vacation traveler sure so for our business Travelers and our other brands um we do more texting than email and because one they're booking very close to this day sometimes a day before or the day of arrival and when they're already on the Move we know that text messages are going to be the best thing I believe Studies have found that text messages are opened usually within 90 seconds and they're probably 9 8% of them are opened as well so it's real

important to send that information also the way you word your messages is really important especially with text messages and I would say of course emails also because a lot of people are reading them on their mobile devices so think of it as do you want to send your guests in a giant wall of text that they're going to not be able to read past a line or two and then they're going to give up because their brain says I do not want to process this right

now now or are you going to send them one or two me sentences at a time if now if you're going to be a longer message you want to do that hit that return sharp return button put some space in there that way their brain can process it better uh and when you send messages one to two calls to actions at the most I try to keep every message to only a single call to action the most important one this way they are not having to

process a ton of information but I am also always always sending them back to the digital guide book so for instance we have a message that says hey it's really great all the formalities are out of the way now it's time to have some fun here is our tips for the shows and attractions if you want to buy tickets click here for more information and then that directs them back to the guide book with all the information and how to access our concierge service and everything

I love it I love it great insights again um so in in touch day you guys have the ability to include these other services and potential upsells and things as well can can you talk about that part or how you're going about uh upselling reservations yeah so touch day has all kinds of different things you can actually embed into it so touch day think of it as anything you'd put in a PDF or Word document you can actually put into a touch day guide so you

can even embed Google forms jot forms playlists that I mentioned uh all kinds kind of photos videos and then you can link out as well so for instance I do a Sherie board on arrival that guests can order so five days before arrival and this is for both the business Travelers and for the vacation Travelers they get a text saying hey if you'd like to order a shuer board to have on arrival when you guys get there at the house you've got the next two days

to order it here's a link and that link goes directly into my touch day guide book there's a job form in there that has you know the size they can choose I've already got it set up that they'll pay for delivery they can easily buy it with their credit card or PayPal their stripe I job form has all kinds of different payment options so that you're not having to have on accounting yet another payment option you can probably find what you are to use and then

all you can have that process go through so there's all kinds of different ways you can do upsells it's touchs is just it's yes there's a structure but it is so flexible in a way way that you can be creative and do all kinds of different things with it uh for instance I actually have um my integration with my PMS my property management software to where guest details flow into my guidebook so it has their name it has personalization it has their check-in and checkout time

it has all these different bits that says hey you're my guest I know you I'm expecting you I'm welcoming you already and I'm using the most important word to that guest which is their name I love it great great insights and great to know that touch day integrates with I'm sure quite a lot of PMS systems out there these days uh all helping to make the guest experience that much better I love it okay so for the newbies out there that maybe don't have a digital

guide book yet or maybe they've got one or they're looking to get one what would you say like some of the most important things um well let's do this what would you say people are leaving out most of the time that maybe they want might want to include are there any things that come to mind yeah so what so when you sign up for touch day we actually start you with a template with pre-written content so you're not looking at a blank page so you don't

you're not looking at me like oh my gosh what did I leave at what did I forget to tell my guests that's super important because we've got the structure there that you can then put your own info in change it up add to it as well I think one of the things that people forget to put in there is that they forget to think about the three most important most asked questions that their guests asks you so it could be different for you Tim than for

me especially with your properties like say in Brazil or in Colombia you know your guest especially if I was a guest coming from the us to come stay at your property there's questions that I want to know like okay what do I need to do about money is is it cashless do I need to you know bring cash with me is there what's the safe place to get cash while I'm there what's the transportation like you know those might be those types of questions that are

super important to your guest whereas my guest it's like okay are there any best stops for our road trip down you know Route 66 to get to your place and I'm like yes you have to stop at Uranus because the best fudge comes from Uranus and then you got to go in there and yes you have to laugh at all the really funny jokes using the word Uranus and kids and fudge and I mean just total Hab a blast so you know you have to think

about what is it your target guest what your traveler is wanting to know and then make sure you've got it in your guide book uh so it's it's one of those things is okay yes we start you with a template your structure so you're not having to to really think hard but the cool thing about about touch Day 2 is that you can get it started and be sending it to your guests within an hour I mean it's that easy we make sure everything is the

kiss Method Keep it super simple and then you're always wanting to update it get an idea we've got a secret Facebook group called The Touch day rock stars and folks are in there sharing their guide books and ideas where you know I've swiped a couple ideas from other folks like I have a welcome letter to my guest but I also have a doggy welcome letter telling the doggies okay you know tell your person XYZ while you're at our house so there's all these different things you

can get from um other creative minds that are in in the group and the cool thing as I said with touch day is anything you can think of you can practically do so touch day is not just a property guide house manual you can we also use it as a guide for standard property appearance for our cleaning and maintenance I also have one that is our team Field Guide so for instance has all our backup lockbox codes it has all the information about the utilities and

emergencies and our maintenance it has the Wi-Fi networks and codes for when we need to troubleshoot something I mean we also have a guide about our Property Management Services so when someone says hey we're super interested in you managing for us I can send them that guide that talks about expectations and Roi and our services and all our houses there's all kinds of different things that that you can do um a lead generation guide so when you go to my website you'll get a popup that

says hey do you want our guide to free things to do in the area just give us your email address so I get their email address they get our guide really great trade uh so when you're looking at starting it doesn't matter if you've got one property or a thousand Properties or anywhere in between it's something that I do warn you though it's very addicting it's so fun great tips Diane um really really great points there too I mean knowing who Our Guest Avatar is is

essential right um and a lot of creative ways to to find out more information about that now I mean we're in the digital age we have lots of ways we can we can research but really monitoring the feedback from our guests the way they send the messages when they send them picking up on all those little cues that you mentioned I think is one of those key components to just great Hospitality um let's see so we're in the digital age we've got all these Cool Tools

um we can do a ton with touch stay and really boost our Hospitality as what it comes down then we get better reviews and then that helps our property we we uh at the end of the day have higher revenues we sort of we're not doing that much written anymore are we how necessary do you think it is to still have a guide book printed out in the property or some printed information so we stopped printing the whole manual scsh years ago I even went down

to okay I'm just going to print the the things that aren't going to change about the house uh and then made a little book of that and then after that I'm like why am I even doing this so now we are we have a one page it is laminated and it is on a magnet on the fridge where everybody goes so they can see it and this page has the most important information so number one emergency information so calling us in calling emergency services right under

that is the address of the house because you cannot expect every single guest to remember the address of the house in case of an emergency so this is part of that safety thing and then next to that is the QR guide or QR code to our touch day guide so it says to find out more information about the house our favorite restaurant things to do just scan here and they can scan that code and access it right away and then at the bottom is our checkout

instructions super simple just a couple to do but it's also putting it right there in front of everybody so that when mom tells her teenagers hey we need to do checkout can you check what it is you know the ne the teenager who has been at the fridge how many times that day plus a couple times at night has seen it it's there they can't say Mom I don't know she's like it's on the fridge and they can go look and they can take care of

oh yeah I need to take my trash out from my bathroom and pick up the 10 bazillion water bottles I have all over my room so it's no experience whatsoever with my teenage boys not that know that uh but it's it's the thing of again understanding who your guest is where they're going for the information and then you're communicating it in the way that they can best understand and then Tim you mentioned you know people are going away from the written I would say yes and

no so so in touch day yes you have written but you can also do videos and photos and we highly recommend putting videos in there with the text as well uh that way photos or people who their brains process by written word is it's there for them and those people who like to process things by video it's there for them so for instance when I read instructions I want to read my husband on the other hand he wants a video because his brain processes it that

way a lot better so with touch day you can do both things and hit the different ways that people like to communicate great stuff tan uh lots of good tips and I think one of the nice things too is that these things are pretty easy to do I mean like we record a little video and it can be really personal I mean our our phones record amazing videos these days uh and we can add really nice touches uh to our stays no pun intended um so

I love that I love the one pager we we also do that with the one pager and the fridge great location pretty much everyone sees the fridge right unless they're they're dining out every meal of the day so good stuff there um so touch day we're we're before we end we'll we'll make sure everyone knows where to find out more about you and touch day and all that good stuff but I want to chat about your properties real quick and I love that you have properties

and are working uh with within the company as well because you have that hands-on experience right uh and things are changing they are different very different from when you started in 2007 so can you tell us a little bit about your Brands and your short-term rals yeah so I've got my big houses down in Branson Missouri at Table Rock Lake like I said earlier I started 2007 I signed the contract at I was seven months pregnant at the water park saying yeah we want to build

a house and had my baby and two months later set up a four-bedroom house in 5 days with a two-month old on my hip and the first guest came an hour after we were finished uh so that means I am one of those people that will list dirt so I am very much you tell the story you mark it I try to have at least 30 to $50,000 in bookings before a house is even finished and actually ready uh so I've taken that and gone forward

with it um as I established my other brands I uh ended up with a drug house for one house had to get rid of the druggies um rehab the house and turned it into that Town's very first short-term rental and then I had some money burning in my a hole in my pocket so I decided to buy a bank um this bank is the only Bank you can legally launder in the Ozarks it was a 1902 Bank building with two original vaults and I repped it

into a four bedroom 2 and a half bath vacation rental um sits in Missouri Wine Country and you can come ride the Katy Trail the longest Rails to Trails in the country at 237 miles and you come stay with us visit Wine Country the first dedicated Wine Country in the United States there in Augusta uh Napa Valley was number two just so you know for your little bit of trivia and then um we started to grow in Branson so we've got uh we we're at 14

large houses down in Branson and I believe we're at 9 in wine country I live by Wine Country so I'm also I started out as a remote host learned how to do it that way I treat everything as a remote host we've got two teams um well I say two teams but it's me my husband his daughter and her husband the four of us to manage all these properties and then we got boots on the grounds with cleaners on each of them so going and knowing

all the struggles of raising three small children while you're hosting and growing and then later becoming Boutique property management and working with family not killing your husband and making it through um High season so it's it's a lot of fun one of my favorite things this summer we decided to do was hand deliver Donuts to guests after arrival and the number of literal hugs and stories we get from our guest it just it fills my heart up and I'm like this is what I want to

do this is what I am doing I'm so glad I'm doing it and then when you get those guests that um aren't your favorite guest I I I remember and I look back donuts donuts donuts tyan donuts okay mm wow you certainly have uh your hands full and you have for a long time it's awesome so kudos to you for for everything that you've accomplished and it sounds like your your brain are amazing um you mentioned some some interesting things there one thing uh getting reservations

for example before the property is even complete uh that is an interesting one because I know you know for my personal experience construction timelines aren't always on time uh can you just elaborate a little bit more on that and how you kind of make sure you're not um let's see renting the property out before it's ready I guess yeah so um it it is tough especially when you're dealing with construction and so what we do is we we look at who our Target guest is what

kind of booking window that is what is the demand where is construction supposed to be finished when can we actually get in and set up how's it how long is it going to take to set up because you know all those Logistics of everything is like oh it just it's a lot and so what I do is one especially in Branson is I make sure that calendar is open but doesn't start opening until I am 100% positive that it's going to be ready so for instance

our latest houses were built um they were finished last summer and they were supposed to be done by June 30th that is what the we were told we were promised and that is right smack in the middle of High season right before for the holiday and so I said you know what we're opening the calendar from August 1st on July will be a maybe because we we're not going to book something without knowing 100% we can have a guest and then I went ahead and listed

them in the spring because people are going to start looking a lot earlier so for instance right now we're actually booking summer 2025 because I know that's what my target guest is looking at and booking so they need to have that availability so that they're going to find this and then as people inquired we can let them know hey it's it's not going to be ready that we know of 100% for sure if you want to wait then you know keep us on your call list

or we can put you down and let you know if it's going to open up and then as a time gets closer and we we know when things will be done we can start opening the calendar a little bit more a little bit more so there is that you know watching waiting being aware of of who your guest is because I wanted to capture the next Summer's guest already and plant the seed and hey here's a cool new house here's what it's going to look like

let's make sure our family knows about it so we can consider that one too whereas the immediate ones um for that very close time in July I'm like nope not going to book yet not till it's open open and then once we know the moment it's okay we know for sure on Friday we'll be able to have access then I can open up the C the calendar More MH so good planning and and knowing your guest avatars again knowing the booking Windows yeah if you're um

you know larger homes very often have a bigger Longer booking Windows right so great stuff there tan gosh I wish our episodes were normally like three hours so we could just keep chatting but they're they're typically pretty short so um I've got one more question for you and then we'll we'll make sure everyone knows where to find you and to learn from you because you're full of wisdom the name of the podcast is called short- terminal riches and a lot of times when people hear the

word riches they think of finances and that's the only thing they think about but we know that life is more than just finances so curious if you have anything in your life that you've changed recently maybe a new habit or something new in your life that's enriched your life but in a non-financial way yeah so this last year I got connected with a community a community of women who are badasses so we call ourselves the house of baddies and we aren't local at all we're from

all over the country and we all have that same drive and Leadership and love for people that we've all connected we've got all different personalities but having that community that I can go to with these women who just understand where I'm at life and who are a huge support of each other it's just it's amazing to have that so I encourage anyone whether your Comm you find your community is it local is it more family is it others that you've connected with online or through your

travels but having that Community to help you um emotionally mentally physically spiritually all of that is so important awesome I love it fantastic advice okay well we talked about a lot um so we talked about touch day and what has made you the queen of hospitality and you had some really good nuggets in there it's understanding our guests uh you talked about timing with our messages which is crucial all the amazing things that we can do with touch day how can people find out more about

you and if they're interested in learning more about touch day where's the best place to go okay so for touch day you're GNA go to touch day.com uh free trial sign up when you're ready to convert over um to sign up for a subscription use the code Queen just q n Queen let that'll let them know that I sent you over and you get a discount on your first uh year or the first month whatever you guys sign up for so touch day.com um on socials

Instagram's touch day Welcome Facebook I think is touch day so is Twitter me personally I am tyan marn at all of the social so Instagram Twitter Tik Tok Facebook LinkedIn all of that um you can also find my properties on Instagram and Facebook at Branson family Retreats and then at Missouri house that's the German spelling h u s and then of course my website tyan marin.com and you can see my total Tech stack um tools my press um all my information there and then my properties

are at Bron family retreats.com and Missouri house H us.com would love to have you guys awesome well thanks so much tyan and I look forward to staying connected all right thank you Tim take care I've dedicated years figuring out how to manage my personal portfolio remotely and it wasn't always easy and it took a long time but now my amazing team can professionally manage my properties without me and good news our team can also manage yours let us save you the stress and headaches and some

money by offering you an industry low fee to find out more about partnering with us head to Str Str riches.com hit the property management button answer a couple quick questions and meet with me personally that's Str strr riches.com rest easy knowing that with my team your properties will be in excellent hands