Execute all the steps of the Check-In process with the new Check-In FormsBilyana PetrovaBilyana is a travel aficionado and a hiking freak. Obsessed with dogs and sushi. Dreaming about going to Space. Likes watching horror movies, dislike not being able to fall asleep afterward.Share this...FacebookTwitterLinkedinFantasticStay is thrilled to spread the world about its newest creation, the Check-in Form. The Check-in Form is an innovative automation feature designed to speed up and simplify the coordination emails regarding the check-in process for both the property manager and the guest. What is the Check-in Form? The Check-In Form automatically collects your guests’ contact details, credit card information & ID verification data. It is an online form that you send to your guests to fill in before their arrival. That way, you have all the check-in details stored under the reservation in your FantasticStay dashboard.Why is it important? Rather than sending the same message to your guests over and over again, asking them about their check-in details, you can create your Check-In Form and have it sent to your guests automatically each time a new reservation comes in. One of the main benefits of the Check-In Form is that allows you to scan your guests’ credit card & ID. Having those documents scanned will reduce the possibility of any fraud to happen. You can check them in advance and make sure they are real and matching. In the Check-In Form, you can also include your Terms & Conditions and ask your guests to sign them as an agreement prior to their arrival. How does the Check-in Form works? You have the full flexibility to create as many forms as you like, or you can create a universal form that you can use for all of your guests, that’s completely up to you. There are five pre-designed pages (contact information, scan your ID card, payment card information, scan your payment card & terms & conditions agreement) that you can use and customize with your own company’s logo. Once you receive a new reservation and you want to send the Check-In form to your guests, you just need to find the reservation in your FantasticStay dashboard and choose the form you want to send. You’ll be then given a link, which you need to share with the guests so that they can complete their arrival details. You can also automate this process using our triggers and filters to choose in which case you want the form to be sent out.All the information that the guests fill in the form, including the changes, will be automatically saved in the reservation and you can later update all the details accordingly. You can use the collected data with any of the other FantasticStay automations.
A brand new look & improved functionality of the Unified InboxBilyana PetrovaBilyana is a travel aficionado and a hiking freak. Obsessed with dogs and sushi. Dreaming about going to Space. Likes watching horror movies, dislike not being able to fall asleep afterward.Share this...FacebookTwitterLinkedinWe have just released a new design of one of our best features, the Unified Inbox. Guest communication is one of the most important aspects for every property manager. As professional property managers ourselves, we strive to deliver the best Unified Inbox out there so that our clients can have a flawless communication process with their guests. The new design includes a rearranged layout that is more user-friendly. You can now navigate around the Unified Inbox easier than before. We designed the new look of the Unified Inbox having WhatsApp and Facebook messenger in mind. We know that you’re familiar with those and you even often use the first one to communicate with your guests. That’s why we designed it to be as close as possible to something you already know. The new mobile version is more responsive, faster and better looking. Upon opening the Unified Inbox, be it on your desktop or phone, you can directly see the most essential details about the reservation – the listing that the reservation applies to, the dates of the reservation and the channel where the reservation is coming from. On the desktop version, you can also see how much money you’ll earn from this reservation and the applied statuses. On the mobile version, you can find those details in the third tab, where is all the information about the listing and the reservation. Generally, the new design of the Inbox is separated into three sections: Left section – the list of all of your messages Central section – the communication thread tab Right section – here you’ll find all the listing and reservation information On the desktop version, you can hide the third tab if you’d like to. That way, you’ll have the communication thread with the guest at a bigger screen. On top of all that, you no longer need to refresh the page to check if you have received a new message. Any new messages will pop up on your page instantly. New order and positionsYou can now pre-approve inquiries, send Special Offer or a Saved reply & add a status straight from the text box. Before, all the new messages used to show up at the top of the communication thread with the guests. You can now find the new messages on the bottom of the communication thread.
7 Benefits of Unified InboxBilyana PetrovaBilyana is a travel aficionado and a hiking freak. Obsessed with dogs and sushi. Dreaming about going to Space. Likes watching horror movies, dislike not being able to fall asleep afterward.Share this...FacebookTwitterLinkedinDealing with an overwhelming amount of messages on a daily basis is a reality in the property manager work life. Each day tons of messages coming from different vacation rental channels are wasting at least 4 hours of your daily workflow. Why wasting this time switching between accounts and apps when you can unify them into one and access all of your messages at any time and on any device? The solution? The Unified Inbox combines the messages you receive across the various vacation rental channels and accounts you’re using, and also your emails.A Unified Inbox is a lifesaver for every property manager. If you’re still not convinced about it, discover these 7 benefits of having and using a Unified Inbox for your vacation rental business: Communication threads neatly organized in one placeAccess your entire communication history with your guests in one place. No matter how many channels you’re using, or how many accounts you have, the communication thread with each one of your guests will be neatly organized in one system and you’ll be able to reply to messages without having to leave one platform.If you have a dedicated team of people responsible to answer your messages and queries, the Unified Inbox will help each one of your team members or you keep track of everything that has been sent from all of your accounts across different channels. Effective time managementEvery property manager will understand the struggle of trying to manage your time between the increasing amount of platforms. By having a unified inbox, you’ll free up valuable time from jumping from one platform to another.You can even save more time by setting up messages templates, automating messages, and creating saved replies. Improve the response rate and response timeNowadays, customers expect to get a response to their questions instantly. Improving your response time and lowering your response rate must be a priority for your vacation rental business. P.S. Airbnb rewards hosts who reply to their guests in under an hour. Your response rate can impact your position in the search results and thus you can get more bookings. Stay on the right trackEach one of your team members, including you, will always know how to continue the conversation with each guest. How? Everyone can see who was the person that responded to the previous message and if there’s something specific about it, you can all leave each other internal notes to make the communication process even better. Increased productivityYou and your team spend unnecessary time switching between platforms and this extra effort often leads to reduced productivity. By having all of your messages stored in one place, you can all benefit from eliminating this time-consuming repetitive task.Moreover, you and your team can make better & informed decision thanks to the fact that all communications are being searchable and available in a single place. Being up-to-date with the latest communication history is vital so you and your team don’t get messages and answers mixed up. Make every guest happy When you’re using multiple vacation rental channels, messages often slip through the cracks. You know, neglecting your guests’ questions won’t make them happy. To make sure that each one of your guests has been taken care of, collect them in just one place. Deliver a better, unified guest experienceProviding a unified experience for your guests is the new way of doing a vacation rental business right. By having a unified inbox, you can store and use guests’ information to offer a personalized response to every inquiry, no matter where the interaction takes place.Seriously, what are you waiting for? If you don’t unify your inboxes now, then when? It’s all about efficiency, reducing stress, saving time and efforts and improving your overall quality of work and life. At FantasticStay, we offer you the solution to your needs. If you want to learn more about our Unified Inbox or any other feature, sign up here to get a FREE demo.
How to Lend Out a Whole Building in a Single Listing?Bilyana PetrovaBilyana is a travel aficionado and a hiking freak. Obsessed with dogs and sushi. Dreaming about going to Space. Likes watching horror movies, dislike not being able to fall asleep afterward.Share this...FacebookTwitterLinkedinAmy has 8 units in the same building. She advertises each one of those units individually. That way Amy’s listings are being shown in the search results along with hundred others answering the needs of the most common travellers’ groups – 1 to 4 people. Amy, however, wants to expand her reach and she wants to be able to advertise all of her 8 units as one.Being able to simultaneously advertise all of her units as one listing that can accommodate approximately 32 guests, will get Amy’s reservations from a very low-competition segment of the OTAs searches. There is a big difference in the search results when you’re looking for accommodation for 2 guests, comparing to the results you get when searching for accommodation for 32 guests (see the example below). But how can Amy do that? The Smart Calendar Rules allows property managers to manage their listings availability, automatically, while targeting a larger audience.One property, multiple listings If you want to be able to cast your net wider, you can set up a Smart Calendar Rule and advertise multiple listings for the same property. As for example, Amy can advertise her 8 units in the following ways: 2 listings with 4 units – each one able to accommodate 16 guests 8 individual listings – accommodating from 1 to 4 guests One listing for all 8 units – accommodating 32 guests …and so on and so forthAlways in sync To prevent the chance of double bookings, your calendars, pricing, and availability are always in sync. If someone books 1 individual listing for 2 guests, then the calendar for the big listing that can accommodate 32 guests instantly becomes unavailable. And in the best case scenario of someone booking the big listing, all listings of units that are included in the big one are immediately synced to unavailable.The good news is that you can create as many rules as you like and increase your chance of getting more bookings. The more the merrier When Amy set up her Smart Calendar rules, she’ll get ahead of her competition as she’ll be able to reach more people and different audiences. Take a look at the difference between searching for a room for 2 guests and searching for 4+ bedrooms for 16 guests: Smart Calendar Rules benefits for property managers:Visibility As you can see on the screenshots above, there are far fewer listings in the results when you search for 8 bedrooms, comparing to 300+ listings when searching for 1 room only for 2 guests. By setting up different rules, you increase the opportunity your listings to be shown in more results and therefore reach more people and get more bookings. Increase in revenue Well, that’s a simple math. Of course, you’ll make more profit with a reservation for 32 guests. Having full flexibility over your listings and how you advertise them is a real win when it comes down to the money you’ll make. Efficient management Who doesn’t love automations? The Smart Calendar is fully automated and you don’t need to manually update your calendars each time a new reservation comes in. You have all of your reservations data searchable in one place, always synchronized. How to use the Smart Calendar RulesThanks to the Smart Calendar Rules, you have direct control over how your listings are linked to each other and making sure that your calendars are blocked appropriately. Combo listings – the listing that includes all units Related listings – all the listings that form the combo listing (in our example, those are all 8 units)To sum things up: The calendars are tied together with the Smart Calendar Rules, regardless of how you set them up. If the combo listing receives a new booking, the calendars of all related listings will get blocked right away, automatically, so it will be impossible to get a double booking. If you receive a new booking for any of the related listings, the combo listing will become unavailable to accept bookings, while all other related listings will still accept new reservations for the same dates.The Smart Calendar Rules are the ultimate property management solution for a boost in reach, growth, and profit.