The guest is outside the building, it’s starting to rain, and they’ve sent the message nobody wanted:
“Sorry, where is the key safe again?”
The directions are technically available. They’re sitting on page 14 of a welcome PDF, between the restaurant recommendations and the recycling rules.
Good guest instructions are not just accurate. They need to be easy to find, quick to understand and useful at the exact moment the guest needs them. That usually means writing less, adding the detail that matters and removing the detail that doesn’t.
Why “clear” guest instructions still get ignored
Instructions often seem clear to the person who already knows the property. You know that “the side entrance” means the narrow gate beside the florist. You know the parking bay is the second one after the brick shed. You know the heating comes on when you press the small button twice, even though the screen appears to do nothing for several seconds. The guest knows none of this.
Most instruction problems come down to a few predictable issues:
- The useful detail is buried inside a long message.
- The guest receives the information too early.
- Directions depend on local knowledge.
- Several different tasks are mixed into one paragraph.
- The instructions explain the property rather than telling the guest what to do.
- The guidebook, scheduled message and label inside the property say different things.
- There’s no clear next step when the instructions don’t work.
If several guests ask the same question, treat it as an instruction problem before treating it as a guest problem.
Sometimes people simply do not read. That will always happen. But better wording can remove a large amount of avoidable confusion.
For the broader guidebook problem behind this, see why guests do not read your short-let guidebook.
Write guest instructions for the moment they’ll be used
A guest reading check-in instructions is probably standing on a pavement with luggage. They may be holding a phone in one hand and trying to stop a child wandering into the road with the other. They’re not studying your message. They’re scanning it for the next action.
Put the next action first
Do not begin with background information, a warm welcome or a description of the building’s history. Those things can live elsewhere. Start with what the guest needs to do.
Less useful: Welcome to Rose Court. We hope you have a wonderful stay. The building was recently renovated, although some original features remain. Access is through the main entrance, and you’ll find the keys in the key safe.
Better: When you reach Rose Court, stand facing the blue front door. The black key safe is fixed to the wall on your left, behind the drainpipe. Slide down the cover, enter the code and pull the silver tab.
The second version gives the guest a place to stand, something to look for and a clear action.
Use numbered steps for anything with an order
A paragraph makes the reader work out the sequence. Numbered steps do that work for them. A useful check-in instruction might include:
- Where to stand.
- What to look for.
- How to open the key safe or door.
- Where to go next.
- What to do if access fails.
Five steps are often enough. Twelve steps usually mean the process itself needs attention, or some information belongs in a separate guide.
Include a visible landmark
“Beside the entrance” is only useful when there’s one obvious entrance. Try details such as:
- To the left of the blue front door
- Behind the black drainpipe
- Through the wooden gate beside the florist
- Opposite the lift on the third floor
- The parking bay marked 12, immediately after the brick bin store
A parking bay can feel completely obvious to the manager who visits every week and completely invisible to a guest arriving after dark.
Better wording for common guest instructions
Small wording changes can prevent a surprising number of messages. The aim is not to make every instruction longer. It’s to make each one more usable.
Check-in and access instructions
Avoid vague phrases such as “near the entrance”, “around the side” or “you should see the lockbox”.
Less useful: The key safe is around the side of the property. Use the code provided, then let yourself in.
Better: Walk past the red front door and turn left through the narrow wooden gate. The key safe is fixed to the wall directly ahead, below the kitchen window. Enter your code, press the top button down and pull the front towards you.
Add a fallback that tells the guest what to check before contacting the team:
If the safe does not open, clear the numbers and enter the code again slowly. Make sure each number is centred. If it still will not open, message us straight away and stay beside the key safe.
That last detail matters. Without it, the guest may wander to another entrance while someone is trying to help them.
Wi-Fi instructions
Wi-Fi details should not require a search through a PDF. Give the guest the exact network name and password, including capital letters and spaces. If the router has a different password printed on it, explain which one to use.
Less useful: Wi-Fi details are in the welcome guide and on the router.
Better: Wi-Fi network: RoseCourt-Guest Password: GreenChair27
Select the guest network rather than the network printed on the router. The router is on the shelf below the television if you need to restart it.
If the connection regularly takes a minute to appear, say so. If the property has weak coverage in one bedroom, do not promise perfect coverage everywhere.
Heating instructions
Heating controls often make perfect sense to the owner and nobody else. “Use the thermostat in the hall” is not an instruction. Tell the guest which control to press, what they should see and how long the change takes.
Less useful: The heating is controlled by the thermostat in the hallway. Please use it responsibly.
Better: The thermostat is on the hallway wall beside the bathroom door. Press
+to raise the temperature. The boiler may take two or three minutes to start. Please do not press the reset button.
For more complicated systems, give the basic steps first and link to a longer guide for schedules or advanced settings. Most guests only want to make the room warmer.
Appliance notes
A full appliance manual is rarely a useful guest instruction. Focus on the one or two controls that cause confusion. An induction hob, for example, may appear broken because the control lock is active.
Induction hob: Place a pan on the ring first. Press the power symbol, then hold the lock symbol for three seconds. Select a ring and choose a heat level from 1 to 9.
Add a small physical label near a difficult control where appropriate. Keep it consistent with the digital guidebook. Three different versions of the instructions are worse than one slightly imperfect version.
Bin and recycling instructions
“Please put rubbish in the correct bins” leaves several questions unanswered. Which bins? Where are they? What colour is each one? Does the guest need to move them anywhere? On what night?
Better: The wheelie bins are behind the wooden gate beside parking bay 4.
- Green lid: recycling
- Black lid: general waste
- Small brown caddy: food waste
For stays covering Wednesday night, please place the black bin at the kerb before 8:00pm. Return it behind the gate on Thursday morning.
Bin arrangements vary by property, so only give guests the jobs they genuinely need to do. Sending every guest the full collection calendar creates noise and can lead to bins going out on the wrong night.
Also make spare bin bags easy to find. “Under the kitchen sink, in the white basket” is better than “extras are provided”.
Checkout instructions
Checkout messages often become a mix of reminders, house rules, cleaning requests and mild panic. Keep the main request short. Put the checkout time first, then list the few actions that actually matter.
Checkout is by 10:00am tomorrow. Before leaving, please:
- Place used towels in the bathroom.
- Put all keys back in the key safe.
- Close the windows and pull the front door firmly behind you.
Please message us once you’ve left.
Avoid turning checkout into a cleaning shift. A long chore list is easy to ignore and makes the genuinely important steps less visible. Handle late checkout separately. A cleaner arriving early while the previous guest is still asking for an extra hour is an operations problem as much as a messaging problem. State when requests must be made and make clear that approval depends on the turnover schedule.
Keep each message focused on one job
A check-in message does not need the full bin schedule, television instructions, pet rules and checkout process. A guest should be able to open a message and understand its purpose immediately.
A sensible structure is:
- Before arrival: Address, parking and access expectations.
- On check-in day: Key safe, door code and route to the property.
- During the stay: Wi-Fi, heating, appliances and local information when requested.
- Before departure: Checkout time and the small number of required tasks.
House rules should still be available in one clear place, but repeating every rule inside every message makes the important information harder to spot.
Treat repeat questions as useful feedback
Repeat questions tell you where the instructions are failing. Review guest messages regularly and sort the problems into four groups:
- Wording gap: The answer exists but is vague.
- Location gap: The answer is buried or difficult to find.
- Timing gap: The guest received it too early or too late.
- Operations gap: The information was correct, but the property was not ready.
That final category matters. Better instructions cannot fix missing towels, an unprepared cot or a key that was never returned to the safe. Examples of useful edits include:
- “Where is the key safe again?” Add a landmark to the check-in message.
- “What’s the Wi-Fi code?” Put the network and password in the direct reply, not only in a PDF.
- “Which parking space is ours?” Add the bay number and describe the nearby bin store or gate.
- “How do we turn the heating on?” Replace the equipment description with three numbered steps.
- “Which bin goes out tonight?” Send a property-specific reminder only when it applies.
Do not keep adding paragraphs each time someone asks something. Rewrite the instruction so the answer becomes faster to find.
For more examples of the questions that tend to repeat, see the guest questions every short-let manager answers on repeat.
Turn repeated instructions into instant WhatsApp answers
The strongest guest instructions are still only useful when the guest can find them. If the answer is buried in a guidebook PDF or an old arrival message, your team still ends up answering the same WhatsApp questions about check-in, parking, Wi-Fi, heating and bins.
letbloom.io turns those repeat questions into instant WhatsApp replies using your property guidebook, house rules and property-specific notes. A guest can ask “What’s the Wi-Fi password?”, “Which bin is recycling?” or “How do I turn on the heating?” and get the exact answer they need without scrolling through a multi-page PDF.
That matters because:
- The AI can reply in the guest’s language, even if the guidebook was written in another language.
- It works 24/7, including late arrivals and checkout mornings.
- You can update the guidebook at any time, so answers change when access codes, parking details or appliance instructions change.
- The conversation format lets guests ask for the specific detail they need, instead of reading every instruction just in case.
The underlying guidebook still needs to be accurate, but once it is, letbloom helps every repeat instruction become a fast, conversational answer. See how letbloom works.
