Spotlight: Island Guest House's
Guest Satisfaction Practices

By Brynne Adamson

"Arrive as strangers, leave as friends."

Owners Mark and Joanne of the Island Guest House Bed & Breakfast in Beach Haven, N.J. share helpful tips on how to go above and beyond with each guest, which brings in good reviews and returning customers.

I talked with Mark and Joanne via telephone.

About the bed and breakfast:

The Island Guest House B & B is a historic inn that has been completely renovated by Mark and Joanne since they bought the inn in 1993. With 17 rooms and the Cottage available for rent, the inn is a great place for corporate retreats, wedding receptions, events for nonprofits like A Mother's Rest and more. Or if you're just trying to find a retreat for you and your sweetheart, staying at the Island Guest House can provide the romantic getaway that you need.

While taking a tour around the more than 100-year-old inn, you'll notice features like the garden, where you can smell flowers and drink wine under the stars; the front porch, where you can meet other guests or chat with your hosts; the Sea Glass Room, which is ideal for parties up to 25 people or for a nice breakfast; and the kitchen, where you'll see Joanne cooking up a delicious homemade meal.

The B & B is also only nine houses down from the beach, so after working remotely at the inn, you can take a cool dip in the Atlantic Ocean. Mark and Joanne provide their guests with season beach badges for free access to the beach while patrons stay at the inn. All you have to bring are swimsuits, towels, sunscreen and flip flops when heading out to be under the hot sun.

The quiet oasis of the Island Guest House Inn is one that you'll never forget, especially because Mark and Joanne are dedicated to getting to know each and every one of their guests. However, they understand the fine line between not upsetting guests who want their privacy and talking to guests who want to find out as much as they can about running a B & B. Stay at the Island Guest House B & B and see what their excellent service and fabulous food is all about.

I noticed at the bottom of your website that your inn has received the Hall of Fame Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor for 2015 to 2019. You were also voted the "Best Best Bed and Breakfast on Long Beach Island and the Mainland" by the Times Beacon in the past. How did you go about earning those?

What drives the good reviews are two things:

1. Our personalities, which makes "Happy Satisfied Customers."

Our personalities put us right up there as excellent innkeepers. At the Island Guest House, guests feel like their stay is all about them. We try to make people feel like they're family or they're right at home. A lot of people spend all year saving up because it's expensive to go on vacation, so we want to make it worth it to them.

Being here as long as we have been, we have a lot of repeat guests because we make notes about each guest to remember who they are. When we have "Pinot and Pops" in the garden, where we do a wine tasting with guests, we try to have a conversation with each guest. We have a saying we display in our kitchen: "Arrive as strangers, leave as friends."

We also take care of people's dietary needs, whether they be vegan, Paleolithic, gluten free, etc. It takes an innkeeper that wants to go above and beyond for each guest to make homemade food like that. People appreciate that we like to do what we do.

Dogs are included, too. We make homemade, organic dog biscuits in the morning for our guests' pets. We're one of the few rental places on the island that are pet friendly, which is strange because pets are family. People that have dogs are the type of guests that are lovely to have.

2. We're always updating our renovated inn.

This year, because of COVID-19, we had a lot of families come visit. Normally, people visit for a few days, but this year they have been staying for one week or a week and a half because guests want to work remotely. We reinvented ourselves by getting the best internet, so people are able to work while staying with us.

We also got COVID-19 certificates and training, so our guests can know we're clean. Since we're smaller than a typical hotel, guests can interact with small amounts of people here while still feeling safe and enjoying the beach.

We're always looking at our competition to make sure we're state of the art and up to date. We make sure to put our money back into our place to make sure it looks fresh, so when people come back, they can see that there have been changes for the better.

What are some of your marketing strategies?

We keep our ResNexus website, which has the top placement in Google, up to date. We have a lot of reviews on Facebook, Instagram and TripAdvisor. Even when we're closed in the winter, we still interact with our guests via social media. We're also constantly doing seminars on how to market with major companies.

Another thing we use is ResNexus' marketing emails. I tell our guests that if you get an email from us, look at it. We involve our guests via email a couple of times a month. If we do a video, we tell our guests how we're improving. Or we let them know what's happening on the island.

Because Joanne's forte is running the kitchen and doing new recipes, most of our guests are eagerly anticipating a cookbook from us. Joanne has been working on that this winter by putting together the recipes people liked, which we poll them via email. The guests look forward to getting their opinions in the cookbooks.

Each cookbook is going to be around $10 to $15. If guests want a recipe and not the whole cookbook, they can go online and watch one of our cooking videos on the Island Guest House website, such as our quiche video.

How do you personalize each person's stay without overworking yourself?

If you're constantly working 24/7, you're going to burn out. When we're closed for the winter, we take the time to rejuvenate. We try not to think about the inn and instead spend time with family, which helps us keep down our anxiety. This allows us to look forward to the upcoming year and to better serve our guests.

If you retire in the near future, what will happen to the business?

We do a lot less of the hard work that we did when we were younger. With our daughter learning the ropes of the business, we're comfortable keeping the inn going and letting her run it. If we sold the inn, we'd have to invest in some other real estate. Our motto in our family is: "If you do something you love, you never work a day in your life."

How has ResNexus created value for your business?

When we were looking for an online reservation service, since our other one went out of business, we were looking for one with a good reputation. The fact that ResNexus is accommodating and had a good reputation sold us. ResNexus went out of their way in doing what we wanted to have done, even if it took extra time.

We can also create our own website right through ResNexus, and if we need assistance, the support is there. We can change our website at any time we want to as well. That was something that had a major impact on who we went with.

Key Findings

Units: 17 + the Cottage
ResNexus Products used: Professional Package, Website
Joined ResNexus in 2019

The following statistics were recorded Nov. 17, 2020:

Website's Monthly Organic Traffic, according to Ubersuggest: 562
Average increase of Revenue per Available Room (RevPar) for May to Oct since using ResNexus: 10.61%
Average decrease of Average Daily Rate (ADR) for May to Oct since using ResNexus: 13.28%
Average increase of Occupancy from May to Oct since using ResNexus: 10.66%

The Island Guest House's most popular room is the Cottage, seen here, which was occupied 64% of nights from May to Oct. 2020.

Most Popular Room: The Cottage

The Cottage was occupied 64% of nights from May to Oct. 2020.

Share Your Story >

Spotlight: Island Guest House's Guest Satisfaction Practices