"Harvesting" guest email and phone numbers -- automated?

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Hi all - There are a variety of reasons why it would be nice to have an “off-platform” (i.e. spreadsheet, Google doc, or other database of some kind) consolidated list of all previous guest information. In particular their name, phone and email, and where/when they stayed with us. We are launching a new listing and are hoping to reach out to previous guests and offer a large discount or other incentive to build some positive momentum.

Of course, a free and automated way to obtain this would be great, but I’m guessing this is the sort of thing one must pay for.

With 2000+ stays over the years, the thought of doing this manually is a bit daunting.

Did some Googling and this particular search tends to bring up a lot of irrelevant search results – hence I draw upon the HiveMind at this always-informative-forum. Thank you.

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When you direct book the discount is built in, the 15% the guest is not paying AirBnb.

I do not have an automated way to harvest the information because with AirBNB guests I do not have their actual email and I would not try and gather that information through Air. I text the guest at check out and ask for the email, dangle the carrot of a discounted future stay… I have my text copy saved and do it on my computer but it is all manual.

RR

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I save the name, email address and phone number of every guest in a good old fashioned book. Most guests also take my business card so that they have my details for when they want to re-book or book for a friend.

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Yes, the 15% (or greater depending on what you do with taxes…) is substantial, but we are talking about a much larger discount.

Asking the guest for their email is an option but one I’d prefer to avoid (plus the lack of automation…especially for guests many weeks/years ago).

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The old fashioned method might be the only way forward here, but it seems like this should be something some script could achieve fairly easily. I think the root difficult is that the guest’s personal email address is never given to the host (understandable).

Extracting the phone number automatically from current guests should be fairly do-able. Unfortunately with past guests, the phone number is shown as “unavailable” so I might be out of luck here.

I suppose a personalized message to previous guests via the Airbnb platform might be the best I can do for past guests.

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Try leaving a visitors’ book in the rental with a column for email address.

Another reason for keeping a manual note is because you can add details of the guest for next time. For example “plays golf” or “daughter Jane lives nearby” or whatever. That’s great for the personal touch.

It takes less than a minute to jot details down.

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A spreadsheet offers many advantages over handwritten lists: searchability for one, and the ability to continually add information - especially with repeat guests. In addition, copying and pasting things like guest phone information is always 100% accurate.

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