Picture an ordinary evening. Someone has finished work and dinner, the phone is in their hand and they have an idea: a weekend in the mountains or a few days by the sea. They open a search engine, then several pages one after another. They do not compare in detail, do not read carefully, do not take notes. In their mind they sort out which place "looks right for us". This article follows exactly those minutes and shows where the owner of a small property can make them easier or, without meaning to, interrupt them.
We will not quote percentages for how many guests travel with a phone. They are not needed: it is enough to look at your own enquiries and remember how you searched for a holiday the last time. Most likely you, too, did it on your phone, in the evening, alongside some other task.
What are these few minutes
At this moment the guest is not in deep-research mode. They are in screening mode. The page gets a quick assessment on three questions that are rarely said out loud:
- is the room what I need: for how many people, what it looks like, is there anything that bothers me;
- what range is the price in: not the exact sum, but whether it is within what I have in mind at all;
- how do I ask: is there a way to ask now, without calling a stranger and without writing an essay.
The more of these questions get a quick answer, the more likely the guest is to stay. If none of them does, they may close the page, often without knowing why, and not come back.
Where the path is interrupted
The obstacles are small, but they add up. Here are the most common ones, with a question for you about each.
- Slow loading. A page that takes long to load over mobile data loses the guest before they have seen anything. Ask yourself how large the photos at the top are.
- Photos in no order. Twenty shots in one pile, with no way to tell which room is which. The guest is not looking for beauty but for an answer to the question "is this the one we would sleep in?". Link the photos to the room, not to a random album.
- A price that cannot be found. If they have to call to find out whether it is affordable at all, some guests will not call. An indicative "from" price, where you are ready to state one, spares them that hesitation. There is a separate article on this topic in the blog.
- A phone number that cannot be tapped. If the number is an image or plain text, the guest has to write it down and dial it by hand. One tap is enough.
- A long form. A form with ten fields on a small screen is work. How many fields are needed is covered separately in the blog.
- No answer to what happens next. After sending, the guest wants to know that the enquiry arrived and when to expect a reply.
None of these obstacles is a big problem on its own. The problem is that the guest has no reason to struggle with any of them when there are five more similar places right next to it.
One evening, step by step
A sample scenario, invented for illustration, not data from a real property. A couple is planning a weekend in a guest house in the mountains. At 21:10 they open the site on their phone. The first photo is visible straight away. They scroll to the rooms and see three, each with its own photos and a short description: how many people it is for, what it has. The "from" price is next to each room. After five minutes they have decided that the second room suits them. They tap "Send enquiry", fill in dates, number of guests, name and phone, and note in the free field that they are travelling with a dog. They see a message that the enquiry has been received, that it is not a reservation and that they will get a reply the next day. They put the phone down. The whole path took about ten minutes and nobody made a call.
Now imagine the same evening with one change: the price cannot be found and the number cannot be tapped. The couple does not come back tomorrow and you never learn that such an evening took place. That is why this problem is hard to notice: a lost guest leaves no trace.
How to walk the path yourself
Set aside twenty minutes one evening. Take your phone, turn off Wi-Fi and open the site over mobile data, as a guest on the road or on the sofa with poor coverage would. Do not open the site "from the start", but from where guests come from: the search engine, the Facebook page, a link. Then answer in writing:
- how many seconds passed before I saw the first photo;
- did I find the room I came for without scrolling;
- did I see what range the price is in;
- can the number be tapped;
- how many times did I touch the screen before sending the enquiry;
- what did I see afterwards.
If possible, also ask an acquaintance who does not know the property to do the same. They will go wrong in places where you would not. Every wrong step is a point to fix. A similar review is described in more detail in the article on fifteen minutes with the phone.
What changes in how you see your site
If you look at the site as a path, not as a shop window, the order of priorities changes. First come speed and clarity of the most important things. Only then come the extra pages, long descriptions and decoration. A small property cannot compete with the big ones on the number of photos or the power of advertising, but it can make the path short and honest.
Where ISKA Website can help
If your site is still being prepared, ISKA Website shows the rooms with photos and, optionally, a "from" price, the services, the gallery and the offers, and it has an enquiry form. An enquiry is not a reservation and does not hold a room; one of your people confirms it. You manage the site yourself through ISKA: draft, review and publishing, with the option to go back to a previous version. It is offered by individual quote. Whatever tool you use, the path from the phone should look the way it is described above.
What to do this week
- One evening, walk the path from a phone over mobile data and write down the obstacles.
- Fix the cheapest things first: make the number tappable, make the first photos lighter, make the "from" price visible.
- Shorten the form to the fields you really need.
- Check what the guest sees after sending and when you promise them a reply.
- Repeat the review after a month. If enquiries come from several places, review those too.