Why Good Support For Vacation Rental Software Matter?

Managing a vacation rental can be rewarding for owners but at the same time overwhelming and time-consuming with everyday tedious tasks such as cleaning, bookings, and guest communications, especially with handling one or more vacation rental properties. That being said, most vacation rental owners ideally find themselves searching for vacation rental management software to streamline operations and benefit specific needs.

Today, with the growing vacation rental properties, property managers/hosts have many options of vacation rental software to choose from, whether thinking about making a switch or just simply starting out. Therefore, finding the right vacation rental software that suits your business vacation rental needs depends on several factors including good customer support due to the complexity of different OTA’s, sales channels, and industry.

All things considered, let's take a deep dive into:

• What are the benefits of using vacation rental software?
• What are the common concerns or issues using vacation rental software?
• Why the need for experts for vacation rental software?
• How does Hostaway provide good support?

What are the Benefits of Using Vacation Rental Software?

Save time

One of the top benefits of using vacation rental software is for property managers to be able to shave off hours of their workday by automating daily tedious and repetitive tasks such as responding to guests, adjusting prices, scheduling payments, assigning tasks to cleaners, posting and requesting reviews, and more.

Thus, with the amount of time saved through automation, property managers can focus more on the vacation rental business and lessen the risk of human error.

Better customer service

To stay on top of the vacation rental business, one of the many attributes is to provide a remarkable guest experience. However, managing guest messages can be difficult, especially without the right tools to create customized and automated messages that will allow communication and response to guests on time. That being said, when choosing the right vacation rental software for your vacation rental business, ensure that one of the many features includes a unified inbox that integrates emails and messages all in one inbox.

Doing so will improve your customer service and help create a 5-star experience resulting in positive reviews. Moreover, it saves time and effort in communicating and responding to guests' back-and-forth.

Growth

Whether you are growing your vacation rental business or managing more than one property, it means investing in the right vacation rental software that will allow your business to scale efficiently and quickly without compromising the overall guest experience.

This also means that with the right vacation rental software, property managers will have the opportunity to focus more on growing their business, gain insights into business performance, and make data-based decisions.

More effective Channel Management

To get maximum visibility, most property managers list their vacation rentals on different booking sites or OTA channels. However, staying up to date with reservations and listings can be overwhelming, especially switching from one platform to the other. Moreover, the more booking sites, the more complicated it gets with these bookings as the risks of double bookings and unanswered queries are high.

That being said, investing in the right vacation rental software eliminates double bookings as it ensures to sync all of your bookings in a synchronized calendar and is managed from one dashboard. Additionally, with a channel manager, you can change availability, rates, and sometimes content across all booking sites.

Higher revenue

Vacation rental software allows you to automate operational daily tasks which also permits you to cut down costs on staff, generate more bookings with higher occupancy rates, and boost revenues by promoting listings across all channels with a channel manager, enhancing guest experience resulting in blossoming reviews that result in repeated guests.

In addition, the integrated revenue management software also helps to adjust prices accordingly and prevent losses, especially during off-peak season, to encourage bookings.

What are the Common Concerns or Inquiries about Using Vacation Rental Software?

How easy is it to navigate?

It is understandable that the navigation of vacation rental software as a new user can be overwhelming when it comes to using technology especially when there are many different levels of expertise. However, it is not required to be a tech genius as Hostaway strives for simplicity and offers a dedicated 24/7 expert support team for advice, inquiries, solutions, and onboarding support to name a few.

Moreover, at Hostaway Help Center, you'll find helpful videos, past webinars, demos, 'How-to' guides, tips, and tricks that will ensure customers understand and utilize the software from start to end. If by any chance, while performing a task, you find yourself lost or confused, contact Hostaway's support team anytime for any particular guidance.

Does it take time to set up? I don’t have the time.

Setting up the software is straightforward, quick, and a one-time installation at which dedicated customer support will continuously assist during the entire process. Apart from that, the amount of time that you will continue to save with Hostaway's automated services surpasses the amount of time it takes to get fully integrated with the software.

What happens if you cancel?

Depending on the software provider, ideally, there'll be a contract agreed upon by both parties for a certain period of time. That being said, it is important to be aware of their cancellation policies ahead, as it may incur a sum fee when canceling or changing the software provider.

Learn more on Hostaway’s Cancelation Policies.

What are other users’ opinions of the software?

Users need to learn what other customer experiences with the software on sites like Capterra, G2, and SoftwareAdvice give access to unbiased information, insights, and experience into the quality of the vacation rental software as it plays a huge role in the buying process.

Why the need for Experts for Vacation Rental Software?

Even though having to have a seamless agile stack and official API integrations built by experts, sometimes, bugs pop up, resulting in breakdowns. It is just the nature of code and fixing bugs, either way, requires extra coding or it can be as simple as refreshing an app.

That being said, navigating the issue requires solid and expert support from a vacation rental software company. Moreover, it is necessary to have dedicated ongoing customer support during onboarding though this means incorporating the people you will work with into your business. For instance, if a bug or troubleshoot occurs, the first initial point of contact is speaking to someone who is a tech onboarding specialist/account manager rather than a sales representative. Keep in mind, speaking to customer support that is not an expert would ideally brush off the issue which can be a huge concern for the user.

Therefore, having a seamless expert in customer support and account manager as well as balancing with a sales representative in a vacation rental software company like Hostaway reflects that your inventory and business are a prime concern. But don't take our word for it, instead consider other users' opinions.

How Does Hostaway Provide Good Support?

Hostaway ensures to all their users a dedicated Help Center that will guide and help in such a way that is simple for the user to understand and navigate. Moreover, Hostaway is committed to continuously improving to meet the needs of the user by providing good support that is accessible and responsive. Furthermore, Hostaway continues to evolve to deliver solid and affordable vacation rental management software.

For instance, Dave Bergmann, owner of Heartwood Furnished Homes, states, “The Hostaway team is there to help us and our business, and the support is great. The onboarding process was honestly great. We were onboarding with YourPorter before, and it was a mess. We had double messages sent out through Vrbo, we had double-bookings, and it was a very very bad experience. Coming to Hostaway, Celeste held our hand through our process. No double-bookings, all of our channels were talking to each other, no additional messages and it was a breeze to turn off one system and move to Hostaway. It was a good experience for us”.

Midge. H, owner and manager, “Hostaway’s specialist was very forward in telling exactly what needed to be done. We got the initial setup going and I was able to use the platform right away”.

How to use Hostaway Customer Support Help Centre for Support Request?

Sending A New Support Request

Once logged in, create a new support request and click 'Submit a Request' on the top right corner. Subject to the inquiry, the Help Center will suggest related articles that may assist your inquiry. However, if the inquiry is not resolved, simply complete the request of your inquiry with the details and attachments (if desired).

Reviewing Your Support Request

All your support requests are found in your personal activity center. Where then, support requests are added in CC to. All requests will have one of the following positions:

• Open: Our support team is working to answer your request as soon as possible
• Awaiting your reply: We have replied and are waiting for your answer
• Solved: Your request has been answered and solved with the best possible solution

Users then need to click on the request title to get answers to their inquiry/question or require further follow-ups. For instance, if requests are solved by yourself, just simply mark your request as solved.

For more tips, check out: Hostaway Customer Support Help Center