Escapia Blog - Vacation Rental News and Trends

Blogging VRMA: Customer Service

By James Sells, Dir. Client Services

Jodi Taylor Refosco from Taylor-Made Deep Creek and Denny Honsey from Catalina Vacation Rentals gave a great talk at the VRMA conference on Customer Service called  “From Yelling at You to Boasting About you: How to Deal with Difficult Situations and High Maintenance Owners and Guests”.

They shared many great tips and humorous examples (the cockroach story was great) during their session. Some of the things they covered that I thought were really great ideas and reminders to those of us in the Customer Service world are:

• Assume responsibility for misunderstandings
• Stay Positive
• Listen to the guest carefully, let them vent, and read between the lines
• Use the 2 Person Rule – if you are the second person to talk with a guest, take charge of the situation and resolve it.
• “I want to help you with this situation” – always use the words “We” or” I”.
• Anticipate needs/volunteer necessary information
• When you are discussing the situation give the guest 2 choices (always make the one you want them to choose more enticing)
• Have a specific goal when negotiating. For instance if you are negotiating a discount, make sure you know the maximum you are willing to do.
• Keep Track – once a problem occurs, record it
• Do not find the nearest exit when you see an angry guest come into the office

Do not let someone determine your behavior. When you are around behavior you do not like is the best time to exhibit behavior you want.

L- Listen attentively without interrupting, encouraging the guest to voice all of their concern

E – Empathize – Let the guest know you “understand how they feel”. It may be appropriate to acknowledge that you would also be upset in their situation

A – Apologize – Sometimes a simple apology is all guests really want. An apology is not necessarily an admission of fault, but an acknowledgment that the intentions were good.

R – Restate the options/Resolve the Problem. When a guests complain they want results. If their request is directly in conflict with policy, offer alternatives. (Avoid  actually saying “policy” to guests)

N – Never Try to Prove Guests Wrong. Sometimes guests may offer undue criticism; you might even determine the guest actually caused the problem themselves. However, attempt to prove guest wrong never leads to satisfactory solutions.

Helping VR owners prepare for generational change

 by Bill Furlong, CEO

A Seattle-based family practice lawyer I know recently sent along their quarterly newsletter.  They included a link to a Seattle Times story (that was syndicated via the Minneapolis Star) about what owners of vacation homes should do as they think about the family cabin changing hands to their kids some day.  The story may be a useful resource for vacation rental managers and the owners of homes they manage.

On caveat...my lawyer-friend notes that the story quotes Minnesota attorneys and that you should get legal advice from someone based in your home state.

Change Is The Constant

By James Sells, Dir. Client Services & Installation

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
 - General Eric Shinseki

“You don’t have to like change in order to take advantage of it.”
 - Seth Godin

Both of those quotes hang on the wall in my office where I can easily glance up and see them throughout the day. The reason I need to be reminded of these points is because like most people, I don’t really like change. Change is often difficult, stressful, and unpredictable. And at least routine offers the illusion of control, right?

I also like to be reminded of these points as I interact with our clients throughout the day. I often get asked for ideas on enhancing their business, new streams of revenue, or discussing why something does or does not make sense.

Like it or not the game is changing and as the quote above says, you can either choose to adapt or choose to be irrelevant. But either way, you are making a choice.

To that end I thought I would share a few of the topics that I tend to discuss regularly with vacation rental managers. Take these thoughts and ideas, reflect on them, improve on them, and discuss them with your business partners, staff, and owners. But don’t choose to become irrelevant. Burying your head in the sand and hearkening for “the good old days” is the quickest way to get there.

The internet is here to stay:
That might sound silly, but I'm amazed at the number of companies and industry insiders that refuse to embrace this. Like it or not, the internet and online shopping, research, communications and transactions are not going to go away. In fact they will become more and more integrated into every aspect of our lives over the next few years.

A recent study shows that at home broadband access has jumped considerably over the last few years with the biggest increases in the 65+ age groups. (here)

And significant amounts of each group are booking travel online. (65% or higher for each group.)

This means that not only is SEO and driving traffic to your site important, but third party bookings are going to become a larger staple of your business. People are shopping around and comparing prices and if you can’t give them a competitive price or the most bang for their buck, they’ll go elsewhere. I know plenty of agencies that get third party bookings for guest’s that have stayed with them in the past. They’re shopping around and if you aren’t proactively marketing to them and they look elsewhere for their next vacation, you’ve lost their business and they are no longer your guest.

Ratings & Reviews are now the norm:
While it might be a relatively new thing within the vacation rental industry, eBay, Amazon.com, Netflix, and Expedia (and other travel sites), have all been doing it for a while now. Zagat has been doing it for even longer, though offline.

It’s funny how a review on Amazon is now more influential than a paid for professional review.

What this all means is that people have come to expect it and your business is going to suffer if you don’t have them. Don’t think so? Our data shows that the ratio of bookings for units with reviews is 41% higher than for those without reviews. Read that again. Then read it again. (*Data is based on agencies that use Escapia’s Ratings & Reviews.)

You cannot afford to miss out on this. Yes you will get a negative review or two, but we have found that in the vast majority of cases the negative reviews actually legitimize the positive reviews. (I.e. People get a little suspicious if you only have 5 star reviews.)

Social networking sites are your friend:
Not only can it contribute to your SEO efforts, but sites like Facebook and Twitter have become mainstream over the last year. Companies now use them as recruiting tools and people share opinions and ideas with their entire networks in 144 or characters or less. And being that each of these applications have components for all of the new phones (iPhone, Blackberry, etc.), people can update them from virtually anywhere.

When someone types “Having a great weekend at a house on the beach in NC” it instantly gets in front of hundreds of people. And inevitably someone is going to ask them where they’re staying.

This is the new way word of mouth travels. Embrace it. It’s free advertising. Create a Facebook and Twitter account and invite your prospects and guests to follow you. Post Last Minute Deals and marketing campaigns on your accounts that point back to your website and blog.

Integration is critical for saving $$:
This is nothing new but I’m still amazed at the number of agencies that manually update dashboards and websites or run on multiple systems. Their rationale is that it saves them money. But what is it costing you in opportunities?

You could be spending your efforts on pleasing your guests, updating your website content, writing a blog article, creating a marketing deals e-mail, growing your network, or any number of things that will potentially drive revenue or increase your market share instead of manually updating that third party marketing site because it saves you a couple of bucks each year.

Yes, change is hard and sometimes intimidating. But it also presents a great opportunity to grow your business and provide your guests with a better experience. And if you are one of the few that embrace the change early, you will also differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Yield Management Webinar - Next Week!

 

By Kris Lande, Product Marketing Manager

Last week we wrote about the Yield Management presentation we hosted at the VRMA West show in Portland. 

As the presentation in Portland was such a huge success, we'll also be hosting a webinar on May 26th at 12 pm PST for those of you who were unable to make it to the session at VRMA.  During the webinar, we'll be discussing ways to maximize occupancy and booking revenue by adjusting your rates based on the supply of inventory relative to demand, lead times, last minute deals, premium pricing, and other factors.  Based on the great response from attendees at VRMA West, we can ensure you this will be a very beneficial webinar.

To sign up for the webinar, click here.  We look forward to seeing you online!

Yield Management Presentation at VRMA: Right Prices at the Right Time

By John Suzuki, VP Sales

I recently had the honor of giving a one hour presentation on Yield Management at the Vacation Rental Managers Association Western seminar in Portland, Oregon with Dr. David Fischbach of BeachFront Only Vacation Rentals. It was the first time Yield Management (aka Revenue Management, Dynamic Rates) was ever presented at VRMA, and I later learned that many vacation rental managers viewed it as one of the most relevant and thought-provoking presentations given during the seminar.

I am pleased to offer you a 30 minute video overview of the presentation. Keep in mind that Dr. Fischbach's comments are based on his use of the yield management capabilities in Escapia's software. It is a very timely topic which may be controversial today, but will most certainly become a competitive necessity. Why? Because the technology to enable yield management for vacation rental managers is now out of the bag... through Escapia.

I welcome your comments.  If you'd like to learn more, I will present the entirety of the presentation on May 26th in a web seminar. Please visit our website to sign up. I also want to encourage you join us at the VRMA National Conference Washington, DC in October. With so much happening in the industry these days, it's a powerful opportunity for you to learn the latest and greatest and network with managers from across the country as vacation rentals transition into the mainstream of travel. We'll be there. I hope you will be too.

Blogging VRMA East: Surviving and Thriving in a Recession

 by Bill Furlong, CEO

Steve Milo, an Escapia customer and owner of VacationRentalPros in Venice, Florida presented tips at the VRMA East conference in Charlotte about how to survive and thrive in a tough economy.  Steve did a blog post here several weeks ago with some of his tips.  Here is the full list of compelling ideas to weather the economic storm – ideas that total over $150k in savings for VacationRentalPros.

Increase your cancellation fee:  Steve raised it from $100 to $300.  And made it after 48 hours instead of 30 days.  Cancellations dropped by 50%.  And cancellation fees projected to generate over $20k of revenue in 2009.

Electronic contracts:  Roughly ¼ of managers in the room appear to use an electronic contract.  The sooner you can deliver a contract to a guest, the more likely the booking is to stick.  Helped to decrease Steve’s cancellations by 50%.  Doing it electronically saves postage and staff time (Steve estimates $13k per year in savings) and storage space.  The service ensures automatically that the signatures happen in the right place.  Follow-up emails are automatically sent if the contract doesn’t get signed.  Cost of the service Steve uses (EchoSign.com) is $99 per month.  And, note that it is very green friendly since no paper is used.  95% of guests will and can do this – 5% of guests don’t have a computer.  But the rest can.

Keyless rentals/no check-ins:  No staffing required for check-in.  Allows managers to have a wider geographical range of properties.  Guests prefer not to have to go to two places at arrival and departure.  And the keyless entry systems let you see who was the last person out of a unit so you can monitor things.  No need to copy keys, search for lost keys, etc.  Steve charges owners for the keyless system at the setup and it is a profit center for them.

Restructure the booking fee:  Change it from being calculating on just rent to rent plus all fees.  Steve uses a 4.5% booking fee.  If you have $300 in fees per booking, you can add $15 per booking.  Across thousands of bookings, that adds up.  For Steve, it will amount to $300k in 2009.  Don’t roll it into your rent – that might boost your rent over your competitor just because you roll it into your rent and your competitor doesn’t.

Use Adobe docs for quality control and housekeepers:  No more manual paper forms.  Can keep historical records.  Find info in seconds.  Need Adobe at $299 one time license to make unlimited forms.  Housekeepers do it through wireless internet in the units so you can get the documents very quickly.  Estimated 2009 savings of $12k.

Restructure and rebid travel insurance:  Steve did a competitive bid.  Increased his T.I. split by 10%.  Also changed the basis for how travel insurance is calculated to be on all costs (sales tax and booking fees).

Rebid credit card merchant fees:  Steve’s fees were 2.55% in 2008.  He rebid it and got to 2.19%.  You must analyze merchant statements every month to understand the “true” bottom line “hidden” fees.  Annual savings of $15k.

Automate welcome to guests:  Steve created automatic “text” welcome emails to guests 72 hours before arrival and pre-recorded welcome phone calls (12 cents per minute per call).  Lock code, directions, FAQs, etc.  Eliminates staff time of calling people.

Email drafts and auto responders:  Created over 200 templates to tackle everything so staff doesn’t have to start from scratch.

Audit your phone bill:  Replete with excess charges.  Rebid it out.  Costs are decreasing from technology (VOIP).  Avoid long-term contracts.  Estimated savings of $6k per year.

The presenters provided a rich amount of detail in the session beyond what you see below.  It was clearly very, very helpful for the audience, which was very engaged in the discussion.  A great example of a VRMA session with enormously valuable ideas and information for attendees. 

VRMA Presentation and Roundtable Sessions Sneak Peek

Guest Author Post by Steve Milo, Vacation Rental Pros Property Management

The upcoming VRMA (Vacation Rental Managers Association) spring seminars are focused on sharing information on how to deal with the economy.

 

There are 2 roundtables on the economy in which owners can candidly share advice on how they are handling reservations, discounting and owners in this economy.

 

The Eastern VRMA Seminar is scheduled for Charlotte NC on April 1, 2

The Western VRMA Seminar is scheduled for Portland, OR on April 29, 30

 

I am working a presentation on "10 Tips to Survive and Thrive in a Slow Economy" for the Charlotte NC seminar at 2:40 pm on April 1st.

 

These 10 tips are projected to add in incremental revenue over $150,000. Two tips that seem to be generating a lot of buzz are the way we are using EchoSign and Adobe technology to literally create a paperless office.  I will have Ed Linsky from my Operations and IS team at the Charlottee presentation to give specific details on how to set these systems up.  Going to a paperless office saves a tremendous amount of staff hours, postage, paper, toner and filing cabinets - and is a very "green friendly" thing to do.

 

We are an Escapia client, and two tips might be especially valuable for clients of Escapia as they are a quick way to drive incremental revenue/profitability.

 

So, as a preview to the presentation I'll be giving at VRMA East, here are two tips:

Good vs. Great

By Bryan Boice, National Sales Manager

In my role at Escapia, I’m lucky enough to talk to highly successful vacation rental management companies every day. One question I’m often asked is: what separates the “good” vacation rental companies from the “great” ones? Here are my observations:

• Great companies encourage decision makers: If you don’t empower your employees to make decisions, you’ll be working IN your business instead of ON your business. I see this every day with business owners scrambling to finish 1099’s, call back customers, and troubleshooting office computer problems. They’ve got no time or focus for big picture items. Empower your employees to make decisions so you can focus on making your company great. Otherwise you and your company will forever be stuck in the “trenches”.
• Great companies use technology: It seems fairly straightforward, but without technology, you’ll be hard pressed to survive in this economy. Great companies acknowledge the use of technology for marketing, reporting, property management, and so on. Find partners in technology that can help ensure your business keeps you ahead of the competition. Note: this doesn’t mean you need to spend a ton of money or time. I’m assuming most of us are not in the technology business – we’re in the business of servicing guests and owners.
• Great companies distribute properties on listing/booking sites: Here’s the analogy: think of your website as a fishing line in a lake trying to snag a fish (a renter). Is spending most of your time and money on making that one lure more attractive to SOME of the fish the most effective thing you can be doing? Most successful companies don’t think so. They’ve dropped LOTS of lines with lures in the water. Those lines and lures are distribution sites (HomeAway, FlipKey, Perfect Places, etc.). Lots of fish (renters) see them and our data shows great companies are catching plenty of them.  
     
• Great companies OWN the owner-guest relationship: You’ve got two sets of customers to make happy for a successful vacation rental management company: owners and guests. However, so many of us let our property owners run the show. When you take on new owners, sell them on your services then close them on your expertise. Don’t let them dictate rates and policies when you know the market and the customers. Owners who understand this are the one’s you’ll want to build your business on.            

Do you have what it takes to be great?

Crisis Breeds Innovation

By James Sells, Dir. Client Services

I recently read a couple of articles (here & here) focused specifically on the current climate of the North Carolina VR market. However they offer some interesting ideas and food for thought that the rest of us in the industry should consider.

I’ve talked to several different agencies of varying sizes over the past month and they’ve all said essentially the same thing, “Bookings are down significantly”.

Here are some ideas worth considering, obviously you will want to tweak these to match your own individual market, business, and clientele.

• Smaller booking fees of $25 or $35 tend to have more cancellations. Larger deposits (even just 5% of the rent on a $1000 booking), have fewer cancellations overall as those renters have more skin in the game.

• Some agencies are starting to offer flexible financing for renters who want to spread out the percentage down payment, typically due well before arrival.

• Some agencies are looking at offering partial-week rentals without the usual advance booking.

• More guests are booking later as discounting becomes more prevalent. There are a lot of bargain hunters willing to gamble that the rental house they want will be available when they want it. Are you willing to offer incentives for booking now? How about last minute deals?

Instead of hunkering down and trying to weather the storm, the great companies out there use a crisis as a reason for innovation.

The Vacation Rental Business: Saving Time and Dime Online

By Parag Vaish, Vice President of Marketing

You may be hesitant to take your vacation rental business entirely online, but with today’s economy and internet savvy vacationers, it’s become incredibly cost-effective, productive, and convenient to do so.  The following tips for making your property rental business a success outline how shifting your focus to the virtual world will help you get the most from your time and money.

Advertise online. 
Most renters would rather not sift through an assortment of fliers and brochures; they’ll use the internet to search for a vacation home.  Online ads are easy to create, quite affordable, and more effective than costly print advertising, which – even if it looks outstanding – may unfortunately go ignored.

Sign here… and e-mail it back to me. 
Thanks to an act passed in 2000, electronic signatures are legally binding.  This means you can and should “create, sign, change, and store all of your rental documentation online.”  Not only is it quick and easy, it’s good for the environment!  What will you do with all the extra space you have when you store you store your fax machine and filing cabinet?  And the extra time when you can quickly get documents signed without driving across town?

E-check, please. 
If you can create, sign, and transfer all of your rental documents online, it only makes sense that you should be able to accept and document payments as well.  Check out one of many secure e-check services, which you can use individually or in conjunction with PayPal.