Whether you should pay for someone to meet and greet clients (along with cleaning costs) in my experience, generates a lot of discussion. There are those who feel that is it not worth the money and should not have to pay for a meet and greet and there are those that think it is a great service.
When there are companies out there who can offer key collection at various locations be it airports, bars, or a safe on a wall, just stop for one minute and put yourself in the shoes of the people arriving on holiday. How many of us really want to have to find a bar or follow a map and hope they can find an apartment at the end of it? After a tiring day travelling do you really want your guests to have to do this?
One year we decided to have a break and go to visit Nerja, I have family who love it and booked an apartment so we thought it would be a good idea to go up and see them for a few days. We booked an apartment online and were given instructions on how to find the hotel which would give us the keys for the apartment. We found the hotel and collected our keys but when we then had to follow the directions to find the apartment we had difficulty finding the right road. Roadworks had blocked the road we were meant to take and we did not have an alternative, we called the number we were given in case of emergencies and luckily they managed to direct us to a road for the apartment complex. However, once we found where we were meant to park we then had to find out which block the apartment was in, the numbering system was certainly not in numerical order and we wandered about with 2 small children for a while until we discoverd that the parking was miles away from the apartment. We then managed to illegaly park whist we unloaded all the stuff you need when holidaying for a short period with young children! we then parked in the proper place. After several attempts with the different keys on the keyring we got into our apartment. If we had followed someone there and they had shown us where to go it would have saved us approx 15 minutes - which seems a lot longer with a 2 and 4 year old!!
Luckily the people had left us laminated instructions around the apartment for how to operate various appliances, they didn't leave instructions on how to find the tv remote! That was a bit of a treasure hunt! All in all though it wasn't too bad and we managed to work out how to operate all appliances. We didn't know the shortest route into town though so that was a bit of a "gut instinct" - "hope we are going the right way" - "why are we in a housing estate" - "shut up whinging children, we will get to the town in a minute" - drama!
We once had a client who didn't believe in meet and greets and was always moaning about them until he did his own bookings and one of his guests called him (on his own accord) and commented on what a great service it was and how comforting it was to have people they had physically met as a back up in case they had problems. He then changed his tune!
From a maintenance point of view just consider how many people break things because they don't know how to operate them. Trust me - our washing machines are happy that their doors are not being broken due to people not switching the machines off first before opening the doors! We have saved a few doors in our time by simply explaining that the machine needs to be switched off before you can open the door and should they experience any problems - please do not force the door - just call us! Yes - you can leave instructions but then you are relying on them to read them all - yes you may have deposits but are you going to generate returning clients because you took the cost of the door out of their deposit and they argue that the machine was broken and the door wouldn't release!
I know that service costs need to be scrutinised for holiday rentals but when considering whether to choose a company which does meet and greets properly or to choose one which has a safe, please put yourself in the holidaymakers shoes and consider what is best for them (and you in as much as you may generate another returning client) and also consider the fact that when someone is physically shown how to use something and personally told if they have a problem they should call - it does help reduce maintenance or call out costs.
In my opinion meet and greets are essential - they give the holiday guest that personal touch - a face behind the booking or an approachable person to contact if they need to. In my opinion they also personalise the apartment, the guests are aware that it is an apartment which is looked after and the person doing that is looking at them so they better respect it!!
I say yes to meet and greets - to returning clients and reduced maintenance costs.