As the world and global workforce goes increasingly digital, short-term rental operators have a wide range of digital apps and platforms at their disposal. Here are five solutions that you might consider for your operations.
Textline
Do you feel like your guests and owners are texting you 7 days a week, 24 hours a day – or text messages sent to your company are going unresponded, because your property manager is on his/her off day? Textline allows you to manage text messages sent to your company as a group – and allows you to separate business from pleasure. Responding to customer text messages quickly and efficiently can mean the difference between a new booking or a lost lead, a happy customer or disgruntled customer.
Text messaging is also visual meaning that customers can text your team images. Offering visual cues can help speed up the guest reservation or and maintenance ticket process, while helping to prioritize requests as they come. Texting also allows brands to utilize automated messaging to quickly inform guests on frequently asked questions or status updates on their ticket. Text automation also means that customer experience teams can work more efficiently by juggling multiple requests simultaneously.
Textline has features that allow short-term rental operators to scale and professionalized their customer experience operations. The platform keeps all of your conversations and customer information in one place, so that you can monitor your team’s work, create better processes, and measure progress. A unified inbox allows teams to optimize workflows between service tickets. Customer experience teams can also classify conversations based on ‘dispositions’ to help. Encourage customers to use text over phone.
Integration is always critical. Textline offers integrations with other mainstream CRM platforms including Salesforce, Slack, Aircall, Zendesk, and more.
StayFi
StayFi assists with guest experience and direct marketing efforts for short-term rental operators focused on brand building. The hardware plugs into your existing router allowing your team to capture email addresses of all guests staying with you – and not just the booker. Email marketing is clearly critical for revenue growth and cost reduction. With StayFi, operators can create their own branded ‘splash’ page where all guests log into. This helps ensure that guests remember your brand vs. Airbnb or Vrbo. StayFi also allows operators to manage WiFi networks remotely for trouble shooting and utilization across all properties. StayFi Access Points also extend WiFi coverage in rentals or across buildings.
Zendesk
Zendesk is a one-stop-shop CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform designed for small businesses. The buzzword here is ‘omnichannel’ meaning that customer conversations can flow across different points of contact, whether it’s email, social media, text, or voice. Zendesk keeps everything on one platform making it easier to streamline operations. Though not designed exclusively for short-term rental operators, the platform has been around since 2007 which has given the team many generations to optimize how each of the modules fit into your business. Pricing is also flexible based on a number of agents depending on the size and needs of your operations.
Slack
Slack took the business world by storm by offering an alternative to email as the main internal team communication channel. This robust messaging app is more live-time than email allowing for instant conversations between teams. Users can also share documents and conversations are stored and organized by business-specific channels e.g. business development, accounting, customer service, etc. Teams can also connect with affiliates and partners by inviting external personnel to dedicated Slack channels.
Breezeway
Breezeway is a property care and operations platform that helps short-term rental operators coordinate, communicate, and verify detailed work across properties. COVID-19 has put extra pressure on property managers to ensure cleaning protocols are followed to the letter. Breezeway helps streamline operations by reducing or eliminating the need for spreadsheets, paper checklists, and other manual processes.
These are just few apps that short-term rental property managers can now use to optimize and streamline operations. Extenteam can help you navigate the solutions that make sense for your business.
