Hey there!
I’ve been having this issue with my address book. It’s become a disaster from adding multiple guests’ contact info to it and now I don’t know how to organize it better.
What do you usually use to organize your phone’s address book?
Just create a spreadsheet in excel @Eduardo_Casado…Unless of course you have some super duper software you’ve developed that you can recommend 
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I just don’t keep any guest contact information – particularly on a phone. I just don’t see any need to keep guest information when they are no longer guests.
What information I do have is kept on the Airbnb app. I do write out, on old fashioned paper, the incoming and current guest phone numbers, for emergency contact purposes. Once a guest has left, the piece of paper gets recycled.
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Business information is far too important to have on your phone, an item which can get lost, fall into the ocean, be run over by your car, dropped over the balcony and so on (all of which have happened to me over the years).
It’s also important to realise that even if you have information on the cloud you still need hard copies. We have a wall safe screwed to our closet wall containing all important business information including customer details. This isn’t because of theft but in case of fire.
Customer information (to me anyway, maybe not other hosts) is an important part of the business and not to be casually trusted to an uncertain item like a phone…
Let alone some gadgy piece of software. 
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Hi Helsi!
Thank you for your insight. I see the excel spreadsheet specially useful for record keeping, but it might be a problem if you want to do anything with the contact itself… I have the contacts on my phone because I always offer my phone number in case something comes up, specially nowadays that WhatsApp can run without a data plan, it is quite convenient. But that leaves me with tons of contacts that I have little use for… Sometimes I don’t even know how to save them so it makes sense…
I appreciate your thoughts, Jaquo. Not as convenient but definitely safe!
I put them in like this:
Sally Smith guest cabin A
I delete them after awhile because they all go into my CRM
RR
Hi!
Thanks for your input. Definitely worth looking at. How do you import them into the CRM and what CRM do you use?
OwnerRes is my booking platform for my direct book website, it all happens in the background, some sorta magic called API
RR
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What do you actually want to do with contact that you are not deleting it post visit @Eduardo_Casado
Why not just delete it once the guest’s visit is over?
By law we are required to keep the guests information and submit it to the authorities (Spain). I have comprehensive notes with a contact. it is also a pain in the @** to delete contacts one by one after a while.
I don’t know about Eduardo but I send out offers during the year, 3rd night free that sort of thing. This year I am going to solicit past guests to try and book up december with one week bookings so I can go on a vacation with minimal turnovers. Information is a valuable thing. I ask all my air guests for an actual email about 90% give it to me when I dangle the carrot of a 3rd night free in the summer.
RR
Do you setup reminders to do so? How do you handle this? Thanks for all the info, River.
No I have saved phrases on my Iphone so I text the guests direct on check out day. There is a way to have the CRM send a email to the guests when they book to the Air/fake email asking for the information but I have not set that up. As for CRM’s as a realtor I have learned that the best CRM is the one you use. YOu have to set up and work on it all the time as things evolve in your business and the crm.
RR
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Eduardo, you’re asking a lot of questions but not telling us much about yourself. We always tend to enjoy learning about new members and where they host so please tell us more about yourself.
Sure thing, jaquo. My apologies!
Been bouncing around from the US to Spain for the past 6 years, but settled in Madrid. I’ve had properties in both countries listed but since I got to Madrid my family grew by 1 and could not offer a space anymore.
Thinking about moving but I needed to do some housekeeping first ;).
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So do I @RiverRock, I just don’t have the need to keep these contacts on my phone I find it much easier to have these on a spreadsheet so I can record my marketing interactions with the guest and other key information.
Also in Europe we have to be data protection compliant and ensure contacts have opted in, so I also keep a record of this.
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Spreadsheet for me, too.
I create a contact in Outlook only if the guest is (or becomes) local to us. In that case, we invite them to our big annual party. And sometimes we go out to dinner. So we become friends.
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I’ve been bouncing between the US and the UK for much longer. 
One of my favoutire places. 
I’m just wondering if you’re putting the cart before the horse here, worrying about keeping phone contacts for a business you don’t even have yet. You don’t know, for example, how many guests you’ll accommodate in which space and how many guests per year.
As I said above, I keep paper records for promotional purposes and with two apartments and usually short stays, have probably a couple of hundred or more details to record per year. It’s not been a problem.
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OK there are 2 issues here:
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how do I keep my contacts organized? Using outlook or the phone app on or any other email you might have gmail, yahoo, etc. They all have some sort of saving/merging your contacts info. usually they are good at merging info for contacts.
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why do I want the guests info saved with my contacts beats me. I will never do it. My contacts are usually friends, relatives etc. My guests are simply people who come and go and whom I don’t need in my contacts. Once the money had been paid and the reviews written I don’t need to know anything about them.
prior to their arrival you can call, message them on your phone app. Your phone app is telling you who is coming or going. Why do you need to save their info beats me.
- Edit to say I saw why you need this: there is currently no API to export your list of guests for a chosen period as an excel file. You can suggest to the developers to add this. After all every host in SPain will want this, right? Until they do it, go to your listing’s calendar and go month by month and create a list of whatever your government wants from you. You could add entries in a new spreadsheet file or you can create a “guest list” in your Outlook, whichever you want to do. It’s painful but I don’t know any other way.
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