As a Holiday Property Management business owner, you may think that because your business is ‘just a small business’, there’s no need to spend the money or time investing in technology or software solutions. Or, you may be quite happy with the manual systems and processes that you have used for many years and trust and rely on.
Afterall, why fix it if it isn’t broken?
You may also be working under the impression that technology and software is something that isn’t important for you and your business, as it only shows any real benefits to larger companies.
But is that really the case?
In today’s world where everything seems to be available at a click of a button, why shouldn’t you have that convenience and ease in your day to day work-life? Is this something that should only be available exclusively to big companies?
Technology and Software is there for all of us to use and benefit from. It’s just about finding the right one for you and your business.
Let’s take Holiday Property Inspections as an example.
Without automation and technology helping you, you probably have a list of Inspections on an excel spreadsheet or similar that you have had to manually create, based on what is happening that particular week. Assuming that there have not been any changes since the schedule or list was created resulting in having to redo this all over again, your Inspector will then go out and carry out these Property Inspections.
Again assuming that your Inspector has been working for you long enough to know what and how to prepare everything, depending on what is going on and needs to be done at each different property, things should be pretty straight forward, right? And never fear, if there is a change to the schedule, bring on the trusty Whatsapp group messages that blast around updates to anyone and everyone that may (or may not) have something to do with the change.
If your Inspector finds a problem, they take a photo and maybe send it via WhatsApp back to someone to deal with. Or they may wait until they finish and get back in the car and send all issues together. Or, the phone may ring and the Inspector gets moved off to an urgent issue and forgets about it until much later (much, much later?!).
Assuming all issues are actually reported the first time they are spotted, what happens then? The photos and the notes that have been provided by the Inspector are copied into another email, WhatsApp or similar to whoever has to deal with it. You may want to contact the owner too, which involves more communication that needs to be written or taken care of over the same Issue.
But then the phone may ring, an urgent problem comes up and the issues emails sit in your draft emails box as you thought you had sent the emails/messages out, but, did you send them?
Most of these problems are just par for the course with Holiday Property Management. We are all busy and running around, reacting to the latest problem, new booking, change etc. But is there really no alternative to this?
These manual systems and processes work because you make them work. But they can be stressful, involve a lot of duplication of tasks and communication and rely on excellent memories and outstanding abilities in multi-tasking. But there is another way…
- How does never having to create an Inspection Schedule ever again sound?
- No more excel spreadsheets that have to be updated many times
- If there are any changes to Bookings, this automatically updates and sends revised inspections and requirements to the people who need to know – not everyone who is included in a WhatsApp group “just in case”
- What about Intelligent Inspections generated according to the property and what is going on at that property?
- No need to worry about newer staff and team members who may not have as much experience as you’d like, as this is all set out for them in the Inspection that is generated
- How about Issues Creation on site, with immediate upload of details and photos so nothing is forgotten or missed?
- No more problems from the Inspector leaving the property and not telling you about what is going on because they got distracted by something urgent, as everything is uploaded automatically when they tap Complete Inspection.
- And no more worries about whether you sent the notifications to the right suppliers and owners as this is tracked throughout.
- So you can stop part way through if something urgent distracts you and come back to it later, as the status is tracked for you to monitor
- What about being able to go on holiday and leaving your team to get on with things whilst you are away, without having to plan 3 weeks up front and hoping that nothing much changes whilst you are away?
- And if anything drastic does happen, you can take a quick look from wherever you are and tweak things online in just a few minutes
- No more scheduling an in depth update call with anyone back home and then trying to find the time to redo/reschedule/re-organise, when all of this could be done in just a few clicks
- Then there are the obvious efficiencies that come with this as less duplication and more automation.
- More time to look after more properties (without employing more staff)
- Time to focus on advertising your rentals
- Freedom to do whatever you choose with this spare time in order to generate more revenue for your business.
These are just a few of the ways that Propierge can help take away some of the strain and burden that comes with organising, carrying out Holiday Property Inspections and dealing with any Issues that result from them.
There are many more Automated and Integrated Features available with Propierge in addition to this. Propierge has been built by people who actually run Holiday Property Management Companies themselves, so we have built Propierge for you with you in mind.
If you would like to find out how Propierge can help you Save Time and Money, get in touch with us at www.propierge.com and sign up for our Free Trial.