iTrip Aspen Snowmass manages a portfolio of vacation rentals in one of Colorado's most demanding luxury markets, where guests arrive with high expectations and short patience for slow responses. As part of the broader iTrip network of locally owned and operated vacation rental franchises, the Aspen Snowmass team brings a hyper-local touch to properties across one of the country's most iconic mountain destinations. But the team behind those properties is small, capable, and constantly on the move, splitting time between on-property work and back-office operations.
In a market like Aspen and Snowmass, the phone never really stops ringing. Reservation inquiries, guest questions, and maintenance requests come in throughout the day, and during peak windows, including holidays like President's Day weekend and ski season, the volume only climbs.
That left the team with a difficult choice on any given afternoon: stay on a property finishing a turnover, or break away to take a call. Neither option was good, and both were happening every day.
In a five-star vacation rental market, response time is the product. Guests don't grade you on intent. They grade you on whether someone picked up the phone, answered the email, and made them feel taken care of, immediately.
Trying to deliver that standard while also being the person fixing a hot tub or walking through a unit means something gives. Calls go to voicemail. Replies stretch into hours. Field work gets interrupted mid-task. And the in-person hospitality that should be the team's strongest asset starts to feel rushed.
Kea Pakele, Reservation Manager at iTrip Aspen Snowmass, has spent years in vacation rental management and had seen remote support models attempt to solve this before. But most of them missed the mark in the same way.
"My previous experience, everybody on the reservation and guest services side was remote, but they were all over the world. They were dealing with properties within the entire company, all over the country, in different territories."
Generic, globally distributed support could pick up a call. It couldn't speak fluently about a specific property in Snowmass Village or anticipate what a returning Aspen guest would care about. The territory knowledge wasn't there.
iTrip Aspen Snowmass partnered with Extenteam to build a guest communication function that worked the way their operation actually runs. As a remote staffing partner purpose-built for vacation rental property managers, Extenteam brings hospitality-trained talent that becomes a true extension of the in-house team, not a generic call center.
A pair of Extenteam team members came on board to support the Aspen Snowmass portfolio exclusively. They learned the territory. They learned the properties. They learned the guest profile. And they became a true extension of the in-house team, working the same standard 9-to-5 hours and operating as the central hub for incoming guest communication.
During business hours, the Extenteam agents handle the inbound flow that used to fragment the field team's day:
During slower stretches, the off-season and shoulder months in spring and fall, Extenteam shifts into project work, auditing every property listing to make sure information is accurate and up to date.
After hours and weekends are covered separately by a local team member who's already on call in Colorado, so the on-the-ground response remains in-house, while Extenteam takes the daily volume off the field team's plate.
"They kind of are the hub, answering those phone calls and deciding where to best place that call and who needs to be informed. That lets our team spend more time handling maintenance issues and really being in the field as much as possible."
The shift showed up across the operation, but most visibly where it matters most for a vacation rental business: in guest reviews and guest confidence.
Five-star reviews driven by responsiveness. iTrip Aspen Snowmass earns mostly five-star reviews, and Kea credits the speed and quality of guest communication as a core reason why. Calls and inquiries are answered immediately during business hours, instead of waiting for a field manager to find a free moment.
Field staff stay in the field. With Extenteam handling the inbound flow, the in-house team can focus on what only they can do, being on properties, handling maintenance, and keeping homes guest-ready. The constant context-switching between field work and phone work is gone.
Extenteam team members are being named in guest reviews. This has become the most visible proof point of the engagement. In December alone, one of the Extenteam team members was personally mentioned in three guest reviews within a single week, and shout-outs roll in every month. iTrip Aspen Snowmass even built an internal recognition structure that rewards Extenteam team members when guests call them out by name in feedback, a small detail that signals just how regularly it happens.
Guest confidence is up. Beyond any single metric, Kea points to a quieter shift in how guests experience the brand.
"Guests know that if they have a question or an issue arises, they're going to be taken care of. It just gives our guests a lot of confidence."
In a market where review scores drive bookings and repeat guests drive growth, that confidence is what turns a one-time stay into a returning customer.
Extenteam works with a range of franchise networks across the vacation rental industry, learning each brand's business model and the unique needs of its operators. iTrip Aspen Snowmass is one of a growing roster of iTrip franchises tapping Extenteam to scale guest services without scaling overhead. See how another iTrip operator built a similar engine in our case study: iTrip Park City Soars to New Heights with Extenteam's Plug-and-Play Remote Pros.
If your field team is buried in inbound calls, your guest communication response time is slipping, or you're scaling your portfolio and need consistent service quality around the clock, Extenteam can help. We provide 24/7 guest support and operational coverage for vacation rental property managers, so every call, message, and request is handled with care: day, night, and through every peak season.
Hear how Thatch uses Extenteam's 24/7 guest communication platform to keep guests informed and happy.
The following video is from an online conference organized by Rental Scale-Up. Today’s vacation home
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Let's connect to find the best solution for your team.
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"The communication has definitely been a big help and because you guys are so responsive especially late at night. You guys have just been so helpful and I think your mannerisms and the the promptness of how fast you respond have been very effective and very important."
Extenteam streamlines operations for Property Managers by providing top global talent and innovative software solutions, all while maintaining a “service-first” approach to drive success and efficiency.
