Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian. I'm Annette Grant,

and together we are. Thanks for Visiting and this is the Hosting Hotline.

If you wanna get your hosting questions answered here on the Hosting Hotline, go to hostinghotline.com, ask your question, and we'll answer it here on the podcast, and you'll help so many other hosts across the globe. Today. We are going to help Amy.

Hi, Sarah, Annette. Uh, my name is Amy and I'm calling from Canada. Thank you so much for all of your amazing hosting advice that you share. I've listened to every episode of your podcast and, um, I've been hosting for, for three years now, and, uh, I owe a lot of my five star reviews to, to you. I wanted to ask, um, how you handle TVs and streaming services? In your short term rentals, um, what kind of TVs or streaming devices do you use? Do you provide live TV or just offer streaming platforms? Do you put TVs in every bedroom or is it just in a certain space? And how do you streamline the experience while keeping things secure, like avoiding guests logging into their own accounts, downloading apps, or accidentally leaving credit card, uh, info behind. Um, we currently have a Fire TV and um, a Fire Stick TV and a Google TV, and we just offer Netflix. And um, in the past we've had guests. Um, we've had guests make purchases or stay signed into other apps, um, or even leave, you know, some credit card info behind. And I'd love to make things simpler and safer for everyone while providing, um, a great setup. Um, thank you for everything you do. I, I'd really appreciate your insight. Thank you.

Thank you for being a listener, Amy. All episodes, I mean, we're reaching 500. I know that's a lot of time with our voices.

Hey. It's education. It's five star reviews. It's, it is, it's hopefully profitability and amazing guest days. Let's start with where the TVs are in the, the home. We always offer one in the main living.

This space, this is a, this is something I learned being a better hospitality provider over the years, because growing up I didn't have TVs in bedrooms, and when I had roommates, or now that I'm married, like we just, I've never had a TV in the bedroom, so when I started, I didn't, well, my first short term rental was a studio, so that was easy, easy, no questions. Right? But the next four, they, they still don't have TVs in the bedrooms, but I met a host Brooke, and one time I went over to her, one of her properties, it was years ago, and she had one in every bedroom and it was her like badge of honor as her, like, that was like what made her special, and she showed me how many times that guests would comment on TVs being in the bedroom.

Mm-hmm. I, um, I originally did not have them in the bedrooms either, and then that was more of a financial reason and then started to add them because guests would ask about TVs in the bedroom. Because if you think about at a hotel

Yeah.

They all have, when you're laying in bed

Yeah.

You're, you're laying in bed, you're watching tv. Honestly, with the price point of televisions now, they are so accessible. Uh, I would hate for you to lose a reservation. For, uh, someone not having, uh, TV in the room. And what you have to remember too is let's say you do have a, I mean, even if a property sleeps too, they might wanna watch two different things. Um, you know, I don't know how many of you out there and a couple, like, you're not watching the same thing. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. And then if there's kids, if there's other folks, like, depending on how many people are in the party, you do wanna give them options. Maybe there's kids and they wanna watch a kid's movie. Maybe there's adults they wanna watch, um, a different different show. But those are things that, again, I think it is a stance that you take whether you're gonna put them, um, in the bedrooms or not. Or maybe you put it in some of the bedrooms and not in the others. People prefer not to have them. But again, they're also very easy to,

well, and just remember unblock staying elsewhere at a short-term rental or a hotel. Usually you want a nicer stay than what you get at home. And for some people, having TVs in the bedrooms might be a luxury that as a host, like you said, it's just financially easy to provide these days.

Right. Or it's a treat for you during, um, your vacation where you might, uh, stay up late and watch movies.

Right.

Or if kids normally don't have devices in their room, it might be a treat for them to have in their room. But again, I do feel like, uh, the, the investment in TVs can drops considerably. Ask Sarah. I feel like that every time we go into Costco, I'm like, Sarah, you can get a 90 inch TV for, for like, like a couple hundred bucks. I'm, first of all, I can't believe how big they are. And then

so big,

like every time we go, they're like bigger, bigger, bigger. And then the price is less, less, less. Yeah. Which is crazy.

So I think the TFV, what we would do is if you can afford it, put TVs in the bedroom. That's what we say. All right. Amy, we are like you and we for units that we own. We provide Netflix, and that is the only streaming that we provide. Now, everyone listening out there, I know some of you proudly offer Hulu Live or YouTube live for co-hosting clients. I've had clients who are gonna die on the hill of, they wanted to offer every streaming app to their guest, and it was something that I would be willing to make special arrangements for, for the guests sitting at those properties 'cause it meant so much to the host. So I think it's a personal preference, what you offer your guests. The most important thing though is, is that you state it in your listing somewhere clearly marked.

Mm-hmm. And clear if you don't have any sort of live television. I know for, there's basically two things that that's really important for, for number one, there are still live sports that happen on local networks and then also news. So, uh, that is something, for instance, like my dad, he watches the news and he watches a lot of sports, so that would be very, very important to him and his stay.

And think about the brand of your, of home you're hosting. For example, when we were out creating the outline for this episode, if you are in a college football town like we are and you have a large home, maybe they're not going to the game, but they wanna be in Columbus, Ohio for the Buckeyes, and you tout that your home is like, you've got a chef's kitchen, you've got lots of rooms. I think it would make sense brand wise for that home to have some sort of live TV. Where they can watch the game.

And to something like, let's say it is just during football season, you could have YouTube TV for the four months. That's what I did to watch the games at home. Yeah, because it's, it's, it's an investment. Expensive. I mean, honestly, YouTube TV is more expensive than a TV. It's so much money. No, I mean, it's like you could get the four months of YouTube TV, you could get that 90 inch uh, TV at Costco.

Right.

But that, but, and they also have those, they used to call 'em bunny ears. What are they, what are they? Now you can, that's actually,

you can add an antenna and a channel scan to get local stations, but your team is going to need to be trained to troubleshoot and it's not as dependent. Or not not dependent. It's not as,

reliable.

Reliable, thank you, as some sort of streaming application.

Yep. And also, please be aware. These streaming services, what you offer it is dependent on your ADR, your length of stay, right? What is your guest value? What is, um, the overall experience of your home are? If you're a family friendly home, then I probably would have Disney+. You know, there's little things that in your marketing and of course now like Disney+, you can get Disney+ Hulu, ESPN. There's so many bundles out there that you could do. I would just encourage you look at the overall revenue of the year, look at your guests and you know, just make a decision. Decision from there. And they are also. Very easy to add and subtract.

Let's get to the meat of Amy's question, which is how do we create a safe, streamline operation process for offering streaming services to our guest? Here's what I know, and Annette and I did deep dive, so if anyone out there knows this because we don't have the answer, we are wondering, is there, there are so many apps and pieces of tech for the short term rental world. It's like, is there one for the short term rental world where it can attach to your reservations via,

like the door lock.

Right? Where like in hotels, you know when you show up to, is it a Marriott? I think it's a Marriott, and it says, welcome Annette, and then you can log into your own streaming services. You have to log in all of them that they provide, and then. Once you check out it, resets it to the next guest and it'll say, welcome, next guest, right?

We cannot find that current technology. I know people are working on it. Um, I just don't know for individual homeowners. And then also we, we did a, in our research too, there's like hotel mode on TVs. Yeah. Uh, on TVs. But it's really, Amy, it's not exactly what you're looking for. It's more about reducing all of the options, making sure the volume can't go over. A certain which maybe you are interested in that, that might be frustrating for, um, for the guest. But this is where, um, having some SOPs for your team will be important. So I'll let Sarah dive in.

So, first of all, on the TVs, you can make it on your settings, whether it's a Roku or a fire, or any of those TVs, you can make a pin. You can create a pin so that people can't make purchases without knowing the pin. And this might limit your guests from being able to freely make purchases. Where they'd have to reach out to you to get the pin, and then they make the purchase on their own card, right? Like, so that's kind of a, that's kind of an operational thing that you have to answer for yourself. Do you want your guests reaching out to you to get the pin to make these purchases, you know, whether they're on their own prime, prime account, or Netflix account, what have you. Here's what we do, Amy, is when every guest checks out, it is part of our inspector's checklist to turn the TV on, log them out. Of any streaming services that they've logged into and make sure that we are logged back into the Netflix account that we provide.

Right. And the key about this, you should be checking your TVs. Every single turnover anyways. Whether it's you, whether it's in your inspector, whether it's something that you are, um, compensating your cleaner for helping you with. The reason you want to check every single television, whether you provide Netflix or not, is a make sure they are working, make sure they're connected to the internet.

The remote batteries aren't dead.

Yeah. That is the most frustrating thing. When Sarah and I go to short term, we try like. I don't wanna explain to you the TV issues that we've had, um, in the very recent, uh, history Madden maddening, where multiple people did not believe me. I know how to work a TV and I was right. Well, that's, we'll save that for another, another story. But you don't want your guest being the one that finds out that wifi or the TV is not working. It is a simple. Less than three minute task. It is just like checking your smoke detector. I mean, it's not just like it because that's a huge safety issue, but these are things that you bake them in and they just become habitual. And it's, it's what you do. And again, if you have four TVs, you just go to the TVs, you turn 'em on, make sure they're to wifi, make sure everybody's logged out. If you, if you have something, make sure they're logged in. It just becomes part of the process. And I'm telling you that three minutes per television. Will save you hours of potential customer service, of fielding calls, trying to walk somebody through via a phone call on, you know, logging out, logging in, trying to troubleshoot. So even if, if you're doing this on every single turn, it's going to, it still will save you time in the long run.

You can also, Amy, I would still do what we do, which is have it as part of your inspection process, post guest stay. But you can include it as part of your checkout instructions to remind guests to log out of any streaming apps they've logged into so they can protect their information and, and their profiles. I hate it when someone's on my profile and they put something random on it, then my algorithm is all messed up.

Right? So I think that's one of those things, like, it's, it's a nice friendly, like, you know, you can remind them, yeah, it's not necessary, but it's like, oh yeah, I do need to log out. I don't want people, you know, seeing what I was watching last night.

Put it on your, if you've got a welcome, welcome book with checkout instructions, or maybe you've got a, a fridge magnet with checkout instructions, or if you're leveraging OTAs like Airbnb, you can make a special checkout instruction that is just friendly reminder, make sure you're logged out of any streaming services you don't wanna stay logged into.

Yeah 'cause if you log into Sarah's, you're gonna see garbage. You are garbage reality.

Yes.

TV shows like it is.

And if any of you wanna talk about Vanderpump Rules or the Valley,

no, what's that game show you like? They did a scavenger. You made me watch it and it was like, I want that time back

traitors. You guys, I need you to email us at hi@thanksvisiting.com. No. If you're a reality TV fan, I like documentaries. That's reality tv.

You're right, but it's documentary.

Hey, mine are documenting the lives of just interesting humans

documenting the trash pickup.

Oh, judgy. Okay. All right. Well with that. I am Sarah Karakaian

I am Annette Grant, and I watch amazing shows. We'll see you next time.