How can we recover bookings after a very poor holiday let review?

[holidaylethelp]

Any advice very welcome and am prepared to be flamed! We have a holiday let in Norfolk near Cromer, quite a long way from where we live. We have always loved it there and put everything we had into buying a small holiday let about 3 years ago. We got a agent and cleaner and it is rented out for about half the year, in quiet times we go and let family and friends use the house. Our cleaner has always been a little hit and miss, at the start of the summer the feedback we had was good mostly 5 star reviews, but as the summer has gone on we have had some really negative feedback saying that the kitchen and bathroom were dirty. We offered compensation and spoke to the cleaner - the guests were happy. We told the agent we wanted to get a different cleaning company and they said they would start looking for alternatives. We have now had an absolutely dire review from the next guest posted on the booking website, saying items in the house were broken and it was very dirty. The agent is annoyed as they contacted the guests on the day they arrived to see if everything was alright but they did not respond. My wife went to see the house today and it was dirty and items in the house had been broken - for example broken scissors, dvd's snapped in two - of course items do get broken and we expect that but we would never leave broken items in the house and always replace items and never charge the guest for breakages, Sometimes guests hide damage (probably thinking we would charge them) and we do not have the chance to replace the item quickly. This guest of course has a right to complain, holiday time is very precious and I am upset that their stay was not perfect. We have sacked the cleaning company, but I am so sad that we put so much into the property, have had many happy guests, and now no one will rent the house going forward because of this awful review. Any ideas how to approach this?

I don’t see how you can improve it when you don’t live near enough to check it properly after every single stay. Relying on a third party to manage it is always risky with these sorts of lets unless the third party works to consistently high standards.

I live in a touristy area and two of my friends have beautiful stone built holiday cottages that are on their small holding farms that they let out all year long. Both of my friends are seriously OCD about cleanliness and used to get 9.9 ratings on Booking.com as they spend changeover day cleaning and washing, so they’re rarely available to meet up with me on those days. These days all their bookings are repeat customers or word of mouth so they don’t need to advertise.

Did you read my post? I do my own cleaning, I run my own business. I was pointing out that cleaning isn't minimum wage in tourist areas.

Snippy responses even when it's totally unwarranted.

Around here it's minimum wage. Nobody wants to do it.

How do you know what the guests paid??
Holiday lets aren't particularly cheap and of course guests should expect basic cleanliness and functioning amenities. It's hardly entitled behaviour to expect such! And if the OP hasn't made a mistake here, who has??

I guess the employment provided by letting agents and cleaning companies in these areas is totally lost on you.

But I agree the owners should be spending more time there and therefore spending in the local economy. We have a holiday place, on a holiday park so not taking property from any locals, and do make an effort to spend in local independent places.

Be careful the cleaning company are not relying on the previous occupants to do most of the cleaning for them.
And how long are the actual cleaners given to do this property before doing another ?
Communicate your standards clearly to the company.
To add, they will realise you live far away. Do some odd unannounced visits from time to time before let’s turn up. It will keep them on their toes if they realise you will do that.

Until last year we had a holiday let that was also nowhere near where we lived, agree with everyone else about answering reviews and explaining. We got a cleaner separate to the management company and met them and sort of informally interviewed them and also made regular trips there ourselves to keep an eye on things. Getting the right cleaning team is key as they also let you know when things are broken/need replacing etc.