Eleven at night: where exactly is the car?
Last time: what do you price for first? Reviews, then profit. And Sam’s first Tucson booking lands.
Then the messages start. Eleven at night: where exactly is the car? Six in the morning: which level of the garage? Three minutes later: hello?
Most bad trips start with a confusing message. Hosts put it in four words: if you confuse, you lose. Here are the five messages every trip needs, and the one place they all belong.
The five messages every trip needs
Hosts who run trips remotely use a simple cadence. One message at each point where a guest gets stuck.
Each one answers the next question before the guest has to ask it.
More isn’t better. One host who runs every trip remotely cut out the extra messages she used to send, to stop over-messaging guests. Five is enough.
Keep the review ask in message five plain and neutral: thank the guest, and ask them to leave a review. No incentives, and no pressure about the rating.
| 1. At booking | Welcome, plus anything quirky about the car |
| 2. The day before | Bring your license |
| 3. At handoff | Exactly where the car is, and how to get in |
| 4. Near the end | How to return it, and how to extend |
| 5. After the trip | Thank you, and a simple ask for a review |
How to write them
Write them short. Bullets, not paragraphs. A guest reads the handoff message in a parking garage, with a suitcase in one hand.
Add a photo of exactly where the car is: the level, the row, the pillar. Turo expects hosts to send clear find-the-car instructions, and a photo does half the work.
And answer fast. Turo sets no exact response time; it asks hosts to reply as soon as possible, and says quick responses help your ranking. Hosts aim to reply within minutes.
Save the welcome as a scheduled message, so it goes out the moment a trip is booked. Lesson 3.5 covers the one thing that must never go in a scheduled message.
"Can we pay you cash for an extra day?"
A guest writes: can we pay you cash for an extra day, and skip the app? What does Sam say?
No. Turo calls this a gray-market transaction. Payments outside Turo are banned, whether it’s cash, Venmo or anything else. Turo charges a $150 fee and $5,500 in damages, and the host can lose the account and the protection on the trip.
Extensions go through a request in the app. The guest asks, Sam accepts, and the trip stays covered.
The one place they all belong
And that one place? Inside Turo. Turo recommends keeping guest messages there, because it keeps the record if something goes wrong, and that record helps support help you.
And any change to a trip has to be requested in the app. Turo says changes agreed only in messages aren’t valid. A promise in a text doesn’t count.
Turo shows guests your phone number on the trip page, so some will text you. Answer, and keep anything about money, extensions or damage inside Turo, where the record lives.
When more than one person answers guests, keep your tone, house rules and directions written down in one place, so everyone answers the same way. The replies still go out in Turo.