10 best tips on how to hire, train and retain a cleaning crew for your Airbnb as an Airbnb Beginner Host
What are the top 10 things for hiring a good cleaning crew?
1- Checklist
2- Airbnb-specific cleaning experience
3- Onboarding
4- Agreed upon scheduling
5- Scheduled ongoing training
6- Efficiency
7- Feedback
8- Goal
9- Unique process for your Airbnb
10-Details
Having a sloppy cleaning crew could ruin your Airbnb short-term rental business. On the other hand, a well trained cleaning team will help you maximize your potential profit and return on investment
I found a 10-Step Smart Process that has helped me to be consistently fully booked.
1- Checklist: Having a checklist will ensure the cleaner finishes all of his or her work at the same standard every time.
A checklist also helps to quickly review the process to see if any steps are missing. The cleaners will eventually complete their work correctly as agreed.
2- Airbnb-specific cleaning experience: cleaning a short-term rental is very different from cleaning a long-term rental property. In each case, the cleaning crew needs to know what they must accomplish every time- preferably before they even come to your Airbnb short-term rental.
Because running an Airbnb lodging business is competitive, the crew cannot miss a spot that might cause a bad review. That will surely impact your cash flow.
Unlike long-term rentals where you don’t have to clean the furniture every two weeks, the Airbnb cleaning process needs to clean everything every time. This is not negotiable.
The cleaning crew needs to do chores that a long-term tenant would usually do like refilling or replacing the hand soap, toilet paper, and shampoo and conditioner.
3- Onboarding: this process is important when setting up the cleaning routine.
If you do this step correctly, it will be much less work to correct any missteps later.
4- Agreed upon scheduling: You need to have the cleaner agree on the time of arrival and the time needed to complete all the tasks.
5- Scheduled ongoing training: The cleaning crew needs daily quick reminders of good news and bad news. They should be lessons learned from each other for at least 5 to 10 minutes in the morning.
6- Efficiency: The cleaner needs to follow a clearly-defined process to ensure their job is done efficiently.
7- Feedback: Have a system where the cleaner receives feedback from the team leader and you as the owner. This feedback has to be on an ongoing basis as it is tied to their motivation and performance.
8- Goal: I like to state it clearly to my cleaning crew that I want a five-star review every single time. With that goal, we establish a plan to make sure there is a detailed cleaning process to follow.
It is all about preventing negative feedback before the guests give their review. I work closely with my cleaning crew to ensure this is top of mind every single time.
9- Unique process for your Airbnb: Airbnb is different from booking hotel rooms in that each Airbnb has its own uniqueness. Your cleaning crew needs to know it and make sure they apply the appropriate process. For example, if your Airbnb is near a beach, the guests are likely to bring sand into the house. Be sure to have your cleaning crew pay attention to this.
10-Details: The devil is in the details. It’s very easy to miss a spot or two when cleaning an Airbnb short-term rental. Guest expectations are very high, and they do not accept substandard work. There is very little room to change them once the guests check in.
How to find good cleaning personnel as an Airbnb Beginner Host?
I found my cleaning crew from four sources:
1-Referrals: ask neighbors, realtors, or friends. I love to start with referral sources as it saves me time in finding a good cleaning crew.
2-Searches on Yelp: if you are out of town and don’t know any one locally, you could search on Yelp. I found a good cleaning crew from Yelp. You just need to ask questions to find the best one.
3-Searches on Craig’s list: I used to use it more often. Since many people still post their contact information here, so try this source.
4-Searches on Facebook Marketplace: this is a newer source, but I found good leads here.
I hope you will apply this 10-Steps Smart Process to achieve the highest possible rating. That will make you and your Airbnb more profitable.
Even if we try to follow this 10-Steps Smart Process, we will inevitably have some hiccups.
Airbnb has been growing steadily in the last couple years. It’s time to learn the system and make money from it. I love sharing my experience to investors like you who want to change their lifestyles.
What do you think of this 10-Steps Smart Process? What else could a host do to improve the cleaning process?
Share below in the comments so we can all learn from each other in this community.
SmartChaChing.com Secret: Focus on your Vacation Rental Cleaning Process