All good businesses put themselves in the position of the consumer occasionally so that they can consistently deliver the right service or product in the most effective way. This is a good time to look through the eyes of the potential renter. You should do this, too.

An enquiry may just say "do you have availability for these dates, what are your rental rates", but you need to read between the lines to understand what the enquirer is really asking:

We have talked over the idea of a family holiday to Disney. We have decided when we want to go, and checked on the availability of flights. Now we need to sort out somewhere to stay. We are going for the rental home option for the first time, and we are a little nervous of the mechanics of it all.

We have found a number of suitable homes on the internet. We had to work our way through a lot of very bad web sites on the way (If you do not believe me, try it!). Now we have narrowed our choice down to three or four possible homes, and we have emailed the owners of each to check on availability and rental rates.

Now we want the answers to our questions, but most important we want the answers now. This stage of vacation planning is an exciting time. We are living on adrenaline. We will be checking for new emails every few minutes. The last thing we want to do is wait to see how things are looking tomorrow. And when we get an answer, we want to be convinced that your home is the best one for us, that you are real people, and that your home really exists - we don't want to be scammed.

The first owner to reply will have a big advantage over everyone else. The renters should really wait until they have got all the responses, then compare them rationally. But people are not really like that. If they get a positive, helpful and well-constructed reply from one villa owner ahead of the others, they will develop a rapport with this person, and they will want this person to have their business.

If you are responding by email, then try to respond within a few minutes of picking up the enquiry. Unless you have your computer logged on all day waiting to receive rental leads, there may in any case have been a delay before you pick up the enquiry, so it would not do to add further to this. Don't rely only on an auto-responder to send an immediate reply - they don't add anything to what the enquirer already knows.

If the enquiry has come from your own web site, then it may be the only one that the potential renter has sent, in which case you have a big advantage. The speed of your response is important whatever the circumstances, but it is most important when you are competing with many other villa owners on a villa rental web site.