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Hi Glenn,

We don't have built-in SMS messaging yet, though that is on our radar.

Depending on the cleaner's cell carrier, you can probably send her text messages through an email address. Check this out:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-send-e-mail-to-sms-text/

If you scroll down, it gives you carrier-specific email addresses that you can email which forward through to a text message.

-Michelle

I apologize if this has been asked in the past or not. I can't seem to find a search function on the forums.

My Cleaner has asked if I can send her text messages as well as emails when I have a new booking and cleaning needs to be notified. Is there a facility to do that here in OR. If not, does anyone know of a good way to get the OR generated message through a bridge over to SMS?

Tx.
Glenn

This is exactly it! In a way, the death of VRBO/HA as viable marketing channels is actually a good thing because it drives people to take charge of their brand and diversify marketing rather than just putting up a listing on one or two big sites.

Would you be interested in doing a guest post on our blog about your experiences as you get into the detailed marketing venues? We love featuring folks like yourself that are taking charge of their brand and stories about what sorts of things work and what isn't as effective.

Also wanted to mention we just released Facebook Tracking Pixel integration: https://www.ownerrez.com/blog/facebook-tracking-pixel-added-google-analytics-ecommerce-tracki so that may help with your FB ads, enabling retargeting etc.

Facebook Tracking Pixel integration has been released: https://www.ownerrez.com/blog/facebook-tracking-pixel-added-google-analytics-ecommerce-tracki

We also added Google Analytics eCommerce tracking while we were at it.

There's a doc about setup and what is tracked over here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/analytics-tracking

Let me know if you've got any questions.

Glenn, old buddy old pal... We've got you covered! Our Damage Protection add-on!

Check this out:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/damage-protection-overview

Here's the turn-on page:
https://app.ownerrez.com/damageprotection/start

And unlike VRBO and Airbnb, our damage protection actually works and is backed by a good insurance carrier who delivers on their promises. VRBO and Airbnb have terrible coverages. Air's is free but they don't cover much unless there's rock solid proof (and typically guest agreement). Ours doesn't involve the guest at all.

I think I am with you on the VRBO/Homeaway expiration. As with most people I was pretty steamed that they now charge us a (relatively high) annual fee AND that they now charge the traveler a fee for booking as well - seems a bit like gouging. It really should be one or the other. At least AirBnB has only the traveler fee. Actually rather than moving off it completely, I think I am going to ask them if I can move to their pay-per-use model. I don't really want to lose the advantage I have there with a very high number of positive reviews. But I would be happy to focus more on AirBnB.

I too have considered trying to 'go-it-alone' with website/Facebook advertising. The only thing that really worries me is the loss of protection in case something goes terribly wrong. Lets say I get renters in that damage the place so much that the next renters cannot come or are delayed. From the rare stories that I have heard where this has happened, I believe AirBnB steps in and in some cases covers the damage and works with the inbound renters to get them alternate accommodations. I kinda like having that security blanket. If I rented fully independently, I would not have that and a significant damage situation could be a nightmare - not only for repairs but also downstream rentals. Does anyone have insight on this?

Glenn

I have let my VRBO and Homeaway subscriptions expire. I've also let my Flipkey/Tripadvisor Vacation Home Rentals expire. It is a good time for me to do this as my peak season is ending, most of my "high season" business is repeat business, and I can sit back and make better decisions.

TripAdvisor/VHR is deceptive. They send you fake leads right before your expiration so that you'll sign up with them. I got one valid lead from them this past year and that was it.

AirBnB is a conundrum. I have had great guests through them and also have had a few ringers. The ringers have cost me a lot of time communicating with their tech support. They only support half of Florida's tax situation, the state part, but do not support the county tax. So it is confusing for renters to have to pay additional tax they don't quote. Also, they don't know about things like no tax if there is a stay of 6 months or more, they still try to collect it. Interestingly enough, I've had best results with AirBnB during our summer off season, where I have more pricing flexibility and would be OK with having the occasional minor damage issue.

So, in summary, what I've decided to do is primarily focus on Facebook. I have pages for each of my cottages plus for the "umbrella" brand. I link this information to my own website which is set up for OwnerRez inquiries and bookings. I keep a mailing list of previous guests whom I mail. I offer these people a $50 bonus for referrals. I will spend a fraction of what I spent on VRBO and Homeaway on ads targeted to Facebook users.

My priorities going forward will be this:
1. Get my website totally current, including improving SEO.
2. Get Facebook pages current, meaning current photos, etc., and links to the website.
3. Target FaceBook ads to my most likely demographics.
4. Get AirBnB rates and photos up to date.
5. Investigate other listing services. Consider pay per booking services on the majors.
6. Look at unconventional marketing opportunities in conjunction with local merchants and media.

I'm just not seeing the Homeaway/VRBO/TripAdvisor model working well for me anymore. It's not cost-effective for owners or for renters. It also doesn't appeal to the demographic I'm most interested in and am most successful with. I used to work in advertising and haven't forgotten what I've learned. The key for cost-effectiveness is to target your best audience and market to them directly. Scattershot "shotgun" approaches may seem good but they are not as cost-effective.

Good luck everyone! Let's keep the discussion going.

I'll have to think about a way to do it. I may just consider the two week periods as separate "seasons" and go that way. Maybe there would be a setting such that, if they try to deviate from these dates, for instance, even adding a third week, that they get a popup window message that the property is only either available by the month or by those two set two-week periods, and that they should call the owner for more information. I'd of course also put this information on all the web pages where I list the details about the cottages.

I've had a lot of success selling out completely for the past two seasons by creating the equal two week periods in Feb. and March. Many people are happy to have the option of a shorter stay because so many owners down here in our area can only legally rent by the month.

Thanks again!

Right, yes, there's not currently a way to apply something for a not match, only an inclusive match. That's something we'll need to add.

Great to hear! Selling out early is one way to solve the issue ;-)

If you do have a definition for how you'd split the months on first half and second half, let me know -- we don't have anything that can do that right now but its good to have thoughts percolating around in my head about how to factor it in later. I'm seeing a lot of edge cases based on day of the week, so I'm not sure how to define it automatically without human intervention.

Date based triggered emails are set out once a day right now. We do have a todo item to allow you to control the time.

I created an automated "check-out instructions" email to send the day before guest departure and noticed it sends out at 3:30am. Was wondering if there was any way to adjust the hourly timing. Thanks!

Yes! That's it. Sorry, I didn't see it. I was lookig in summary reports instead of detail reports for Payments.
Thank you!

There is a Payment Type on the Payment Detail report that lets you pick "Card processed elsewhere" etc. Will that work?

Hi there!
Is there a way to run reports per payment method? This will be useful to differentiate from payments taken via OwnerRez from payment taken outside but yet still included in the system here (created bookings).
Thank you in advance for your time :)
Ella

I guess I cannot figure out the setting that would give a discount UNLESS it is a holiday. It looks like if at least one of the periods is discount-eligible ( has a checkmark), the system will apply discount even though the other (holiday)period is not discount-eligible (does not have a checkmark). Oh well, I hope I can catch this before it happens.

Thanks, Chris, I think you've answered my question about prioritization, and regarding the arrival/departure breaks for those high season months, I can just take care of those by talking to the incoming guests, or I can program in a pop up message on the page using Rapidweaver. I'm almost sold out again for next season at the one cottage where this was the biggest issue anyway. ;-)

BTW, I'm loving OwnerRez. Haven't been "under the hood" in a while and you have really added so many valuable features. I'm still catching up.

I wondering how could I set a lower rate for specific dates.

Let's say that I have two reservations. One until Apr 17 and one from Apr 20. Since Apr 18 and 19 is not booked and it's in the middle of the week, I would like to lower the rate for this particular property for those two nights.

Or on the opposite side, let's say that the town is booked, my property becomes available, it's a weekend, there is a huge event going on and I would like to increase the price for this particular weekend.

What would be the easiest way to do so?

Thank you!

Daniel

The rate splits are working as desired, right? Split across seasons, rate each season at the correct rate.

I think the problem here is the surcharge and discount. Surcharges and discounts are applied once for all matching seasons. In this case, its matching the surcharge because that's in all seasons, and it's also matching the discount because that's matching for fall season. The number of days criteria match the entire booking, not just the days inside the season.

It sounds like you want a more specific criteria matching where the number of days criteria is only matched against seasons allowed on the surcharge, not all seasons on the booking.

Would that solve the issue here?

The way email is set up, it comes from OwnerRez with a reply to configured for your profile email address. We do this for maximum deliverability as we've configured our email addresses and servers to match that address.

We used to send email from a generic bookings@ email address, but recently switched to using your specific OwnerRez user email. This ensures that you receive any email responses from the guest even if they accidentally respond to the wrong address -- both of them are now direct to you.

This is the first part of a communication overhaul we're working on that is going to make all communication accessible in one spot rather than being partially in some emails and other parts in OwnerRez.

Are you seeing deliverability issues in any specific emails? The change to a specific user email address shouldn't have affected anything, but if you can point me some particular emails that had a problem, I'll take a look.

I noticed recently that my email responses are coming from oru5b815x@inquiryspot.com instead of my profile email address. Something's changed, not sure what but I think it might be sending this to people's junk email box when coming from this address.

Kind of related. Not sure I understand how splits work. for example, I have "labor day" defined as its own period with higher rate. The subsequent days are regular priced. I DO give "cleaning fee discount" on non holiday low season periods. But I do not want to give them on any 7 night rentals that include holiday. yet, here it is:

Rent – 5 nights (8/31 - 9/4) during Labor Day Holiday at $289.00 per Night: $1,445.00 (OK)
Rent – 2 nights (9/5, 9/6) during Low season - Fall at Weekday Night rate at $195.00 per Weekday Night: $390.00 (OK)
Surcharge – Cleaning Fee based on $150.00 per stay: $150.00 (OK)
Surcharge – WAIVE Cleaning Fee (weekly) based on $150.00 per stay: -$150.00 ( this should not be happening because 7 night rental includes a Labor day Holiday, and only "Low season fall" is eligible for this discount).

Am I setting priorities wrong?

If you're setting up a channel and sending the instructions over to TA/FK, we fixed the instructions just this morning for a couple of issues in the channel mapping.

Make sure to grab the instructions to send to them again -- you want the one with the {0} in the property url's.

Yep, that's basically how priority works. The higher numbers have higher priority. I like doing multiples of 5 or 10 so there is space to easily rearrange.

Also keep in mind that longer rates that fully cover the period will be chosen over shorter ones if the priority is the same (or blank). So if you have a 7 day quote, a week rate will take precedence over a night rate, but for a 4 day quote the night rate would take precedence. You can also set proration to apply to more days than the rate vs. going both ways, so you could make a 60 day rate that applied to 65 or 70 days.

All this is to say if you add 3 and 6 months it *should* just do the right thing -- of course, use the rate tester or quick quote to make sure it does what you expect.

If you give me the exact rates and dates I can set up a test here to see what happens.

For the arrival/departure break, I see what you're trying to do there, but how do you define it exactly? What's "the middle of the month"? The 15th? The second Sunday of the month?

Right now we have the capability to define arrival and departure days by day of week, so that wouldn't quite fit what you're looking for, although setting Saturday-Saturday would help a bit.

Hi! I am a little confused about how to set up rates so that people get more accurate quotes from me. I have a fairly complicated rate schedule.

I set my rates by the week or the month depending on the time of the year, and I just completed setting and inputting these rates for the next year. I also offer special rates off season for people renting 3-6 months, or 6 months or greater. But right now I only have the week and monthly rates plugged in to OwnerRez. I ask people to contact me for the 3 and 6 month rates because I can't figure out how to set that up. Those deals only apply to certain months of the year (our off season April-Dec.)

I see where I can seet prioritization in the back end, but I don't understand what number to plug in there. Would I plug in a 2, for instance, if a monthly rate takes priority over a weekly rate? So a 2 for monthly and a 1 for weekly? And if I set the 3 and 6 month rates, I'd give them higher numbers? I'm a little confused about that.

If you have any suggestions for how I can set up and prioritize the 3 and 6 month rates, I'd appreciate it. I'm concerned now that if they plugged in a three month or six month request, the quote would be a lot higher than it should be.

One more thing, in February and March I have two week minimums, and the vacations must break in the middle of the month. In other words, I can't have someone rent the middle two weeks of the month because then I'd be hung out for one week at the beginning and end of the month, and I would not be able to rent those easily. I've done the two week blocks for the past two years and it's worked out perfectly. Some people take the whole month, but if people only want two weeks, they can choose the first two or last two. My issue is this: How do I set it up so that they get an unavailable email back with a custom message that February and March are first two weeks, second two weeks only?

Thanks for the help. My head is spinning a little bit with all of this.

Check your email contact information, they changed my log in email to the OR one, so I was on the phone for 30 minutes to be able to log in. Email was different than what I had or is in the system. They also think I have another account so my main business email that is listed in there isn't assigned to me... anyway check your contact information.
Wendy

here is another tidbit. So it does work with OR auto responder (good). But what happens since auto response email is sent to the inquirer directly, now there is a ticking clock in the TA dashboard that expects owner to respond or send quote via their dashboard. which means owner still has to log in and at least send some meaningless response via dashboard to the inquirer to stop the clock (bad).

No doubt! Most guests don't bother even reading the listing, let alone the notes and additional info! But at least this lets you cover yourself against accusations of false advertising.

well, I did that, but as we all know most people do not read ANYTHING :)

The listing sites - not just TripAdvisor but HomeAway and the rest too - almost never have enough settings to let you control your rates and policies the way you really need to.

I'd recommend using the Additional Rules box in TripAdvisor to type out exactly what all you require. That way, when the guest inevitably contacts you about the difference in quote or policy, you can point to that spot to show that you showed what was required.