Why Every Vacation Rental Manager Should Use Zapier

Property managers need to wear many hats throughout the day. One moment you might be developing your marketing plan, then responding to a guest complaint, then getting started on your bookkeeping, all while coordinating your cleaning teams, maintenance, and fielding booking inquiries. To get everything completed in the day you must create systems, strategies, and automate repetitive tasks.

Step in Zapier!

Zapier is an automation tool that combines web applications. Zapier is easy to use; no need to be an experienced developer. Anyone can use Zapier to create simple integrations that can automate tasks. Zapier is great for getting automated alerts, updating CRMs, contacting email lists, project management, managing files, and hundreds of other uses. Zapier is really only limited by your imagination and ingenuity.

Now that Hostaway has integrated with Zapier, property managers can automate more and more of their businesses by integrating with 3,000 + web applications! The list of integrations includes GoogleDrive, Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, MailChimp, DropBox, Trello, Quickbooks, and thousands more.

View the list of integrations here. All of which can now be used in conjunction with Hostaway!

To help you get started we’ve compiled a list of the best Vacation Rental “Zaps”

Get New Reservation Notifications in Slack

Notifications are one of the easiest “Zaps” to set up so it’s a great way to familiarize yourself with Zapier.

Slack notifications are a fantastic way to keep yourself and team in the loop with what’s happening in real time. To set up this Zap you’ll need to be using Slack in your business.

As a rough outline on how to get started with this “Zap”

1. First set up New Reservation as the “Trigger” in Zapier.

2. Secondly determine the data that you want to communicate into your Slack channel.

As you can see from the example below I’ve set up my Zap to include the property name, guest name, booking value, checkin/checkout, and where the booking was made.

The data that you choose to display is completely up to you and customizable. Choose from a hundred different data values.

3. Finally test your Zap, revise, and make it live!

Check out our detailed step by step guide to create a Zap between Hostaway and Slack here.

Update and Enrich your Sales Funnel and CRM

Want to automatically store guest data such as name and email into your sales funnel? Easy!

With the New Reservation and New Inquiry triggers you can populate your CRM instantly by pulling relevant guest data from Hostaway. Your sales funnel can be enriched and populated with a hundred data values available between Zapier and Hostaway.

All major CRMs are integrated with Zapier such as:

• Hubspot
• Salesforce
• Pipedrive

Use this integration to add reservation details such as guest name, email, and phone number. This can be a great way to develop your email marketing list. You’ll be able to easily reach out to past guests, keep in touch, and remarket.

Bonus: With Zapier you’re also able to connect your CRM to an email marketing tool such as MailChimp.

Send Contracts and Gain eSignatures

Need to send rental agreements to new guests? Hostaway and Zapier allow you to automatically send documents and collect eSignatures.

The simply set up to send guests contracts is:

1. Set the trigger as New Reservation. This way anytime a new guest books you’ll be telling Zapier to do something.

2. Secondly, set up a templated contract with SignRequest, Docusign, Hellosign, or PandoDoc.

3. Finally have Zapier identify the email field from the list of Hostaway values and automatically send your template contract out!

It’s really that easy. Take a look at our detailed guide here.

This Zap will remove the clerical work needed to send contracts to guests.

You will even receive notifications if the document is signed or declined. So you can stay on top of this process and follow up about unsigned contracts.

Create Tasks out of Reservations and Manage Projects

With Zapier it’s easy to connect Hostaway to project and task management software such as Asana and Monday.com. With this integration property managers will be able to create tasks dedicated to all reservations which can be assigned among team members.

Reservations will be able to move through a project management funnel in order to identify reservations that are in need of additional support and action guest issues more quickly and efficiently.

Incorporating task management software into your vacation rental business allows for deeper insight into your operations, action issues, and see guests move through the funnel to completion.

Follow our guides on setting up an integration with leading project management software:

• Asana
• Monday.com