Panama City Beach, FL Case Study
Streamlining operations for a 400 property management company
$15,000
$30,000
50%
20%
Like every rental management company, Best Beach Getaways has grappled with the myriad of issues around scheduling and managing the housekeeping and inspection process since they day they began in business. As their business grew, managing operations became more complex to maintaining their standard of service across all markets. In looking for better ways to manage their operations (particularly on heavy arrival days) they realized that their current reservation management system wasn’t delivering the value that they needed to:
- Reduce the amount of time it took to write their housekeeping schedules week in and week out
- Improve the consistency in housekeeper invoicing
- Have a system that helped them react more quickly to the challenges that occur on high occupancy arrival days
- Reduce the time required in notifying guests when units were ready during the busiest part of an arrival day
In looking at a variety of housekeeping management systems, they settled on VRWorks. When they introduced VRWorks into their field operations systems they found a number of important advantages:
| Before VRWorks | With VRWorks |
|---|---|
| Scheduling housekeepers and inspectors Each week Operations Managers sit down and develop their schedule from a blank sheet of paper and then text or call their housekeepers and inspectors to let them know what their cleaning and inspection schedule is. |
Scheduling housekeepers and inspectors Operations Managers make adjustments to their default housekeeping and inspection schedules and save the schedule in VRWorks. VRWorks sends the schedule to the housekeepers and inspectors. |
| Providing Housekeepers with Unit Information When scheduling cleans the Operation team prints paper copies of the daily cleaning schedule and add all relevant unit information (i.e. address, access codes, type of guest, etc.) |
Providing Housekeeper with Unit information When the schedule is ready, all that information is on the housekeeper’s phone. |
| Setting up special and deep cleans These type of cleans cannot be set up in the reservation system and had to be identified and assigned manually |
Setting up special and deep cleans Special and deep cleans are set up in the system and housekeepers are notified as part of their schedule |
| Tracking housekeeping progress. Housekeepers text or call the Property Manager when a clean is completed. If the housekeeper cannot be reach, the property managers and inspectors go to the unit that they believe the housekeeper is working in |
Tracking housekeeping progress. Housekeepers check in the unit they are cleaning on their phone. Property managers and Operations Managers are notified on their dashboard immediately. Housekeeper location is tracked throughout the day. Housekeepers check out of the unit they are cleaning when the unit is completed. Property managers and Operations Managers are notified on their dashboard immediately. |
| Letting reservations know the status of completed units. When a unit is ready for occupancy, the Operations Manager calls or texts the reservations team. |
Letting reservations know the status of completed units. When a unit is ready for occupancy, it appears immediately on the Ready Screen on the Reservations Dashboard |
| Identifying units that are behind or need to be held because of maintenance issues Operations Managers are not easily able to identify units that may need to be held or could run late because of unit condition. |
Identifying units that are behind or need to be held because of maintenance issues Because the dispatch screen track progress and our inspectors can place units on hold because of maintenance issues in VRWorks, the reservations team is able to reach guests well before their arrival to advise them of any issues that may prevent their checking into their vacation rental. |
| Letting the guests know their rental is ready The Reservations team calls the guest. If they get voicemail they leave a voicemail and then email the guest |
Letting the guest know their rental is ready. A reservationist clicks on the NOTIFY button on the ready screen and the system texts and emails the guest. |
| Processing Cleaner Invoices The Operations Manager receives invoices in a variety of formats to review. They check the cleaning schedule to verify that the cleaner cleaned the unit and is invoicing at the correct price. |
Processing Cleaner Invoices Cleaners submit their invoices automatically through their phone app. The system verifies the cleaning and the cleaning rate. The Operations Manager then enters the payment in to the system. |
While the system makes the process of scheduling and managing the process of housekeeping and inspections a lot more efficient the advantages go beyond just running things more efficiently:
- Time Savings for Operations Managers. Between scheduling housekeepers an inspectors and processing housekeeper invoices, Operations Managers save an average of six hours each week. That savings has allowed us to increase Best Beach Getaways’ span of control at the Operations Manager level which means that the company did not have to add an Operations Manager to manage the additional units it brought on board over the fall and winter.
- Managing team productivity. VRWorks makes it easier to optimize team productivity because it visually identifies time between cleans and inspections so that productivity standards can be established for both cleaning and inspections.
- Reduction in Property Managers. Using VRWorks also allowed Best Beach Getaways to operate its business with one less property manager
- Improved timeliness of arrival notifications. The speed of notification has allowed Best Beach Getaways to allow more of its arrivals to get into their units early which has improved customer satisfaction.
- Improved overall customer satisfaction. Because the company has been able to give guests access to their unit sooner, the number of complaints (both for housekeeping and maintenance related issues) has been reduced dramatically. Customers seem to be predisposed to overlook things they might otherwise take issue with because they were allowed to check in early.
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