The peak season for many vacation rentals is just around the corner, so property managers need to go beyond routine maintenance and consider strategic measures to ensure a successful and simplified experience.
Audit Listings: With the season approaching, to prioritize the number of bookings, conduct thorough audits of your properties. Investigate why some properties may not be booking and consider upgrades, photos, and the property overall to identify and rectify any issues. This proactive approach can transform non-booking properties into attractive options for discerning guests. Proactively addressing these matters ensures a higher chance of securing bookings and maximizing occupancy rates.
Checklists for Upgrading and Replacements: To systematically address property upgrades and replacements, develop detailed checklists. These checklists serve as a roadmap for property managers and their owners. Keeping track of the age of appliances and replacing them every so often can limit the issues that can interrupt bookings, costing you less time and money later. A property in top condition is what makes a property desirable, especially if an owner is trying to get the most rent that they can.
Efficient Coordination of Work Orders: Providing smooth communication is pivotal for property managers. By utilizing dedicated portals for guests, owners, and vendors, like those offered by the Barefoot PMS Solution, effective coordination of work orders becomes seamless. This enhanced transparency fosters collaboration and ensures that all parties are well-informed and aligned with property management goals to provide the guest with the best experience at the property with well-maintained appliances and amenities.
Owner Portals for Booking Visibility: Empower property owners to monitor bookings and work orders through the Barefoot owner portal. The owner portal can be used to communicate to owners the estimates or costs associated with maintenance and repairs, photos of the damage or the repair and the ability to approve the work. This transparency reduces unnecessary friction and ensures owners are actively engaged in the rental process.
Branding: A clean and well-maintained property is part of your brand. Barefoot has complete housekeeping and work order functionality, but provides options by partnering with Breezeway, LSI, and EZCare. Barefoot offers convenient ways to ensure cleanliness and condition of properties remotely by providing effective communication between staff and cleaners. You can assign tasks, review inspection reports, and provide feedback easily. Having inventory management to easily track supplies and identify when items are running low to make sure that the rental is stocked and ready for the next tenant is also important for raving reviews and creating repeat guests.
Keyless Integrations: Embrace the modern era with keyless integrations for your properties. Beyond the convenience factor, keyless entry systems enhance security for guests and property owners. Property managers can track properties entries by providing unique lock codes for each group of guests, as well as different codes for cleaners and maintenance. Explore simple integration options with our partners like KABA, RemoteLock, PointCentral, Behome247, and Brivo that align with your existing property management workflow, adding a valuable layer of convenience.
Update Photos: Visual appeal is crucial in attracting bookings. According to our partner TruPlace, regularly updating property photos and videos to provide accurate visuals can decrease calls to reservation agents by 33%. These photos effectively display your properties, giving potential guests a clear and enticing preview of what your units have to offer.
Automation for Communication: Simplify communication processes by implementing automated emails in Barefoot for timely updates, booking confirmations, and reminders to property owners and guests. Automated emails can also be set up to let vendors know when tasks are assigned and past due. Barefoot also offers automated and on the fly one-way texting. We understand that time is precious, and that automation can help. Barefoot’s partner, RueBaRue, provides added support like sending out automated communications like pre-arrival messages, pre-departure reminders, digital guestbooks, guest surveys, emergency alerts and more by text. They also send messages to guests about extending stays to fill gap nights and scale your business seamlessly.
By incorporating these comprehensive strategies and leveraging the mentioned tools included in the barefoot solution in conjunction with our partners, property managers can elevate their management processes and ensure their units are well-prepared for the upcoming season.
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Barefoot provides an all-in-one solution for vacation rentals and those that act more like resorts, with access to industry-leading partners to extend their technology stack. Our technology assists the professional vacation rental manager acquire and retain guest, owner, and vendor relationships with industry-leading trust accounting. Barefoot is under continuous development, with a new user experience being implemented as version 5.0. Because we place an emphasis on knowing and delivering on our client's needs, we have a 95% client retention rate. For more information, please visit the Contact Us page.
