Emergency Services = Interim Charity Work

This past winter I had a very distinct impression that I was supposed to become an EMT.  If it wasn't

for this feeling I would never have done it because I knew how busy my life already was. But in the spring I started the 3 month EMT school. It was very intense and I learned a ton. I previously had little to no medical training. So it was interesting to reflect on past medical situations and realize what was actually happening and what I should have done.

I've been acting as a ride-a-long on the local ambulance and I have learned to appreciate what these EMTs sacrifice to help others in the area. It can take up a lot of time, but has been very rewarding.  My wife and I have always dreamed of owning a charity and serving others in foreign lands, but we are still a few years away from being able to really take off and do those things, but I've realized that running with the ambulance is serving people too (EMS is all completely volunteer in our county) so this is like my interim charity work.

This week though I lost my first patient and it has been a little tough. She was college aged and worked for some friends of mine, although I'd never met her personally before meeting her on scene of her car accident. We called in a chopper and had her stabilized. Her injuries were internal so we weren't sure what all was wrong. But after being in the hospital for two days she had a brain herniation and they know she'll pass away.

I called my wife to tell her, because the news had made me sick to my stomach and I wanted someone to talk to. I asked her if she thinks that "I'll get used to this" and not be so affected with future similar cases, but then I started thinking "Do I want to get used to this?"  On the one hand by separating myself will help me psychologically deal with things either, but on the other I don't think it is healthy to be so emotionally detached that things like these don't bother you. I guess only time will tell.  I am comforted though to know that "it was her time to go" and "God is in control."

Guestnetix Review - Texting for vacation rentals and hotels - The first two years

At Bear Lake Cabin Rentals we are always looking for ways to improve our customer service.  Our new mantra is for our guests to expect "World class customer service."

Why Don't Vacation Rental Guests Report Problems?

An issue that we noticed is that some guests would have a problem and for one reason or another would never let us know about that problem until after they had checked out.  It was always frustrating when the problem was something we could have easily fixed.

For example, we once had a guest mad because the A/C didn't work during their stay and they let us know by leaving a nasty notes on the counter at checkout. It was about 98 degrees that week, so I can understand how uncomfortable it would be.

After reading the note I walked over to the breaker box and found the breaker for the A/C had tripped for some reason. I reset the breaker and the A/C worked fine from then on. I couldn't believe it! These guests hated their vacation and if they had just let us know we could have fixed the problem in 30 seconds!

We Tried Begging Guests To Report Problems With Big Signs

So we tried making a really BIG sign for the fridge in each cabin/condo that said the following. These signs made little to no noticeable difference.

Brainstorming Session For a Better Solution

At a staff brainstorming session we talked how we could increase the likelihood that a guest would communicate with us about a problem.  Someone mentioned that people, in general, just don't like to talk on the phone anymore.  It is too personal. But everybody texts.

The Birth of Guestnetix

I have a brother-in-law that is a programmer and runs a software development company called FDEV. I asked him to make a smart texting system that would help us communicate with our guests.

Initially we told him the only thing we wanted it to do was identify the property/room the guest was texting from and also route the texts to multiple people, but we ended up adding several other time/money saving services to the system.

This is how GuestNetix was born!

How GuestNetix Works

After having used it for two years I thought I'd share my thoughts on the benefits of the system.

First a quick explanation on how it works.

There are two posters hanging up in our properties. One for requests and the other for checking out.

Text Request

Guests follow directions on the "request poster" to:

• ask questions about the Bear Lake area
• report problems with cleanliness (sometimes we make a mistake)
• request concierge services
• ask insider tips for the area (we are experts after all)
• report maintenance issues
• ask for instructions on how to use certain appliances
• etc

When they send a text it gets routed to the following staff member's cell phones: 

• General Manager
• Assistant Manager
• Head Maintenance
• Head Housekeeper
• Front Desk Manager

If the text is reporting a cleanliness problem the Head Housekeeper will respond and take care of the problem immediately. When she responds her text is also sent to the other staff members, so they know the problem is being fixed. 

If it is a question about the area the Front Desk Manager will respond with information. And so on.

Now that the guest is "wowed" by our customer service, we want nothing more than to have them shout it to the world through a review on a popular review website.  That is what the "text-to-checkout" process does.

Text-To-Checkout

When the guest has finished enjoying their stay part of the checkout process is to send a text to checkout. This text gets routed to the Head Housekeeper so she knows the guests are out and can send her cleaners to the property. This in itself has proved very useful! Our check-out time is 10am and check-in is at 4pm and during the busy season most properties are booked back-to-back.  If the guests check-out early our cleaners want to know so they can get started early.

After GuestNetix receives the checkout text, it sends an automated text back to the guest with a link to leave a review on one of the following sites:

• HomeAway
• VRBO
• TripAdvisor
• FlipKey
• Google+
• Yelp

And those in the vacation rental industry know that the more 4 & 5 star reviews you have the more likely someone else will rent your property instead of your competitor's.

In Summary

GuestNetix has made our guests happier and made it easier for them to share their story about our great customer service with others, which has in turn increased occupancy. At the same time it has decreased the number of unhappy guests which means we have given fewer refunds. 

I'm guessing our occupancy is 8-10% higher than it would have been and we have saved $5,000-$8,000 that we would have given as refunds.  The $99/month for the service has been well worth it!

GuestNetix is easy to use. No new hardware to buy. No apps for guests or staff members to download & learn to use. Everyone knows how to send a text message.

Add texting to your vacation rental or hotel, because if I come stay in your property I won't call to report a problem! That is too personal ;)

Checkout GuestNetix's website by visiting http://guestnetix.com/

(Disclosure: I found GuestNetix so useful that I am a huge advocate of it. Therefore I talked my brother-in-law into giving me a commission if anyone signs up through my post and he agreed.)

Streamline Vacation Rental Software Review

Updated 5/10/17

Our company was a long time user of Lodgix reservation software and we were very happy with them except that their public API was poor and when asked if they would be making it better they said there were no plans to improve it.  It was a little disheartening and frustrating because we have some talented programmers that could have programmed some things for us to help us increase efficiency in our workflow if the API was better.  A lot of the things we wanted programmed were probably very specific to us and therefore it wouldn't make sense for Lodgix to do it, so that is why we wish the API was better.  So we went on the hunt for new reservation software and we basically wanted to find the one with the best API so we could customize things.  That is where we met Streamline, formerly ResortPro.

Streamline Vacation Rental Software Review

The following is a review of our use of Streamline.  We hope it is helpful for those that may be choosing vacation rental software.  I will come back and update this post. Before we get to the review I want to say that vacation rental software is still a relatively young field.  I feel like no one has delivered a really great option yet.  Lodgix was super simple and intuitive and hit all the salient points that are tied to profitability but wasn't very powerful and it lacked a good API and the ability to add customization.  Streamline is super powerful and flexible, but confusing, not very intuitive and disappointingly missing some very key elements for a vacation rental software.

Just so you know we manage about 50 homes and have been in business since 2009.

The Initial Setup Process

This went about how we thought, meaning it was scheduled to take 4 weeks and actually took about 8.  They had told us it typically take 6 weeks but because we were in a hurry to get things switched over we were on the accelerated track. They had an initial consultation and then 8 "modules" and then a final review. There were a few extra accounting trainings done with a private accountant as well. The training was pretty decent.  Each time the trainer did a screenshare and we watched as he went through different parts of the software.  Just so you know they will not actually help you do most of the work, but instead will just teach you how to do it.  This is good because it helps you learn how to do things yourself, but honestly I thought the initial chunk of change we paid to them was to pay them to transfer a lot of the information into the system, but that was my misunderstanding.  The hardest part was figuring out who I should be talking to about what.  There were 6-7 people we were in communication with at a time and it was confusing figuring out who to ask what problem to.
(Update: I have heard the onboarding process has improved much and you only work with 2 people during the setup. I still heard it can take up to 8 weeks from contract signed to being live and ready to take reservation, but some of that depends on your responsiveness to them and if you need to transfer a lot of reservations.)


Overall, the training went well.  There were a few times we were delayed and we felt like they were trying to blame us for the delay when I actually felt like it was their fault.  I definitely got the feeling they are understaffed. (Update: I don't think this is the case anymore. They seem to have sufficient staff.) But I really expected the initial training to take longer because I know how these things go, so I wasn't too bothered.

The System

The system itself is powerful and has all the bells and whistles.  It has a lot of functionality that Lodgix didn't and we love the API compared with Lodgix. (Update: In 2016 they redid their API and it is even better now. It uses JSON instead of XML.)  However, the designers obviously never went to design school because they break a lot of design rules. (I only took one class but it taught some important principles that have stuck with me). The service is getting better all the time but we have had our share of really frustrating moments. Coming from someone who tries to under promise and over deliver, Streamline has done quite the opposite many times.  I even try to give them a little break because I know tech things sometimes take a little longer, so something taking twice as long is acceptable, but 4 times longer is ridiculous. (Update: The service and support has improved a lot. Now when I get I told when some new functionality is done they over estimate, which is nice. They still occasionally miss a deadline, but nothing like they used to.)

• Smartphone Apps - This was a huge selling point for us!  We love our smartphones and thought it would be handy for our cleaners and maintenance people to use the apps to ease communication among everyone and really "Streamline" things.  However, it has been 4 months and we still don't have the apps. We keep getting promised they are almost done and should be available by the end of the week.  I think someone must have quit which is part of the delay, but I wish they would have given a more realistic timeline of when we can expect delivery. The apps are also only available for ios, which is unfortunate because about 85% of our staff uses android. They said an android version is coming but I'm not holding my breath.  

[Update on Smartphone Apps: We did eventually get the smartphone apps.  It was a rough start with them. There were a few sections that you could put in notes in the app, but those notes basically went no where. It was frustrating because our maintenance and cleaners were using the notes section to communicate important information to us.  Eventually Streamline did fix this issue as well.  However, halfway into our busy season was too late for us to train our staff on how to use the apps, so we have abandoned using them this summer.  It was pretty disappointing not to be able to use them this summer.  The apps are still only for ios currently, even though we were told that an android app wasn't far behind.  But again, not a big deal to us because we are waiting for things to slow down before we look into using them.]

(Update: They now have an app for housekeeping, maintenance, owners, and guests. We have used them because we found our own way of doing things without them, however, my guess would be they are good and useful, we just need to switch over and test them out.)

• All Availability Calendar - Streamline does have a Wordpress Plugin, which is great because we use Wordpress, but the plugin could definitely be overhauled. It is getting us by for now, but that is only because we have done a lot of customizing.  One glaring problem is that there is no all availability calendar.  We are currently trying to use the API and develop our own because if we don't have one by Memorial Day this will cost of thousands of dollars this summer as people will often fill in the gaps between reservations but they don't want to spend all day going into each property to look at the single calendar for that property.

(Update: They are no longer offering the WordPress Plugin publicly. I think they discovered they can serve people better by helping build out the website for them using a combination of the plugin and some custom tweaks. plus I am sure it is a little bit of a money maker. We are tech savvy enough that we built our or website, but for most companies it probably nice not to have to worry about the website. They make some really good looking websites. Some of them are a little "cookie-cutterish" for my taste, but sometimes that is good for the users because things are familiar for them.)

• General Bugs - Compared to Lodgix the Streamline system has had quite a few bugs.  I submitted more support tickets to Streamline in the first two months of using them then I did the entire time I used Lodgix (four years). (Update: This is much improved. I probably send a support ticket every other month and it is usually for clarification on a new feature.)
• Digital Signatures - We were told they had a nice, tight integration with Echosign (Adobe) for digital signatures of rental agreements, but Echosign changed their policy and it would be prohibitively expensive to use.  Streamline replaced Echosign with a new system called ASignatureAway.com, but the system seems new and I am worried about its security and the enforce-ability of the contracts, so we are holding off. I trusted that Adobe had everything in place, but this no name system is hard to trust. (Update: ASignatureAway.com seems to work well now and I trust it a lot more. This is no longer an issue for us.)
• Trigger emails - Lodgix has a wonderfully designed trigger email system that was useful for all kinds of things: sending emails to cleaners when guests checkout, sending emails to guest to give them info about checking in, sending emails 8 days before guests arrival to remind them of important info, sending guests emails after checkout to leave a review, etc. Streamline has a very similar system with one HUGE drawback.  If you don't setup all the triggers you ever plan to use before you put reservations into the system then plan on the triggers to not work correctly. For some reason the triggers only work if the reservation was entered after the trigger was created. I have no idea why Streamline thought this was a good idea.  I could maybe see this being an optional thing to only apply to reservations made after the creation of the trigger, but by default it should be the opposite.  This is a HUGE issue for us right now.  We have sent guests to a dirty home because the cleaners never got the trigger email telling them to go clean it.  We transferred our reservations over from our old system and then we setup the triggers, so now 95% of our reservations this summer will not get set off if this isn't fixed.  Evidently we were informed that we should setup the triggers before entering reservations, but I was told a lot of things I was trying to remember during training, so I missed this. I having been nagging one of their support guys to get this fixed pronto. My support tickets and emails were ignored so I finally called him and he made it sound like he'll figure out a quick fix that day, or by the end of the week, and then I talk to him the next week and he acted like he told me it would be a while before it is fixed.  This is the stuff that I find TOTALLY unacceptable.  With the issue this important to us we expect a a fast fix.  To date I have been waiting a month. I understand it could be a complicated thing to fix. but he keeps leading me to believe he has some sort of temporary patch that he can apply that day, but then I never hear anything from him until I contact him.  Again, I think this kid is overworked due to a lack of sufficient staff at the company.

[Update on Trigger emails: This issue is now completely fixed.]

• Tapechart and Availability Calendar - The Streamline tapechart does not use a half slash to show checking in and checking out. Most other major vacation rental availability calendars use these half slashes as they are a lot more intuitive. Lodgix used them and we never had people calling us wondering which days they could check-in and out, but now every other day I get a call from someone confused by the availability calendar on our website. Lodgix's availability calendar is light years ahead of Streamlines in others way too.  For example you can hover over a date to see the nightly rate for that date and the minimum stay required and most importantly you can click right on the calendar to begin making a reservation.  (Update: This is fixed, however, I still like the way Lodgix's calendar looks and acts a little better. It is more informative, like showing the minimum nights required, etc.)

Overall, if someone was to ask for a recommendation for vacation rental software I would not recommend Streamline at this point.  I do think by the end of the year most of the critical missing things will be fixed, but I am afraid we are going to lose several thousand dollars and experience more frustration versus having stuck with Lodgix.  We honestly have considered switching back, but at this point we don't have time.  Summer is just around the corner. I am sure if we switched back we'd find things we'd miss that were in Streamline though.  There are definitely some pluses to Streamline, but the negatives are glaring right now. If Streamline would add more support staff and communicate more effectively with its customers we'd be a lot happier.

[General Update: Our relationship with Streamline has improved greatly.  We did do some more research into other vacation rental software and we still feel like Lodgix and Streamline are the only solutions worth considering, at least for our situation.]

The other major system we looked at was LiveRez.  It sure has a beautiful website and seems to be feature rich but holy cow would it be expensive to use and the websites they create are ugly and not intuitive either.  We need more people to go back to marketing design school! So short of programming our own solution we are going to stick with Streamline for the time being.  They are holding a Streamline Summit that we are hoping will be a good opportunity to interact with the people of the company and give our input.

I also had the opportunity to talk with the CEO of Streamline the other night. We talked about many of the points I covered in this blog. He admitted they were understaffed because they took on a bunch of clients all at once but that they are working on that and hope by November to have a wonderful customer support staff. I hope so too.  It was nice to be able to talk to the man in charge and I am hoping to see good things come from my little input.

Update: Some issues I still have.

MAXIMIZE OCCUPANCY - I wish their was some logic that I could turn on or off that if there is a only a 2 night spot between reservations and I usually have a 3 night minimum, that the user could book for just the two nights, so that we could maximize the availability.

CHANNEL MANAGEMENT - For a lot of the channel management it seems like the best way to get our listings on a lot of sites is through BookingPal, but BookingPal has not given us a good experience and the fees are high. We are hoping for a better, simpler direct integration with the different channels soon.

OVERALL UPDATE: We are at the point that for anyone with 15 or more properties, we would recommend using Streamline (or at least taking a good look at it.) There is a steep learning curve, because I still think design-wise it is not always intuitive, but they have so many options and functionality that it fits a lot of situations. The support is good enough now, the newly re-done API is nice because of the integration you can do with other platforms. They have a new Marketplace for those that build integrations with Streamline, I am hoping to see GuestNetix (GuestComment) integrated soon, for the easy texting stuff, as we much prefer a simple texting platform rather than trying to beg our guest to download an app. Much has improved in the system, and we hope it continues that way.

Feel free to contact me if you have specific questions, I am happy to share what I know.

What (spiritual) ingredients make cake the sweetest to you?

I am reading "Increase in Learning" by David A Bednar.  Great book so far.  It talks about loving to learn and I realized just how much I really do love to learn.  I would much rather read a non-fiction book than a fiction book, any day of the week.  In fact sometimes I almost feel guilty, or like I am being wasteful (of my time) by reading fiction books.  Not an urgent sense of guilt, but like God is telling me "This book is alright, but I have given you a talent and desire to seek out truth but this book you are reading has very little truth."

Anyway, something else I am learning in this book is the idea that this life is very individualistic.  That something that is good and right for me is not necessarily good and right for someone else.  (Of course this idea can be taken to an extreme and would become false.)  For example I really feel like I should be reading good books, almost to the point that I feel it is my mission in life...but that does not mean it should be everyone else's mission too.  I make this mistake sometimes.  I have an "aha" moment and so I think everyone else needs to be reading and doing the same things as me, because I found THE recipe to truth and I need to get others to use that recipe.  But I don't think this is right.  I think the recipe is a little different for everyone.  The recipe is individualized. The way that I come to God and live my life is not the exact same way that someone else will.  It is almost like some eternal Truths are more important for me to understand than it is for others to understand.  Actually I am not sure yet whether it is the Truths, or the methods to the Truths, that differ among people.

Now don't take this idea to an extreme (like I warned before).  I am not saying ANY recipe can get you to God.  And I think everyone's recipe has some common things like being baptize by Gods proper authority.  I do believe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is His church and in the church is the general recipe, but the specific ingredients to make the final product (lets make it a dessert...how about cake) delicious to me differs a little bit than it does for someone else.  And maybe it is less about the ingredient, but the method in which that ingredient is added to the cake.

I think many members of the church don't realize this.  I think sometimes we think we are just supposed to homogenize and all be the same and do the same things.  Up until this moment this is what I thought.  I also think we worry too much, sometimes, about how others are (or aren't coming) to God...and by that I mean we worry more about them than we do ourselves, and I think we do that because of pride.  Okay, this is a whole other topic that I don't have time to write about today.  But I will say this: I struggle to remember that everyone has their agency.

The subtitle to this book is "Spiritual patters for obtaining your own answers".  I am definitely seeking answers, so I am excited to continue reading this book.

The world is full of hate, pride, and ingratitude

Life is strange for me right now.  I guess it really has always been strange, but I tend to romanticize the past, like most people do.  I am sooooo very happy with my marriage with Emily.  She is so great!  We make an awesome couple!  I am so happy with her and with our relationship.  She truly is a source of happiness.  

However I wish I was personally more happy, but, money is tight, stress is high, work is demanding, and it seems there is never enough time.  I feel like I am letting some good years of my life just breeze by.  I want to enjoy them and not just let them get away from me.  I've always loved the "carpe diem" concept.  I feel like I was very good in the past at taking time to pause and ponder life (like I am now), but lately I don't "have time".  I really feel squished by "the world" lately.  The world is so diluted with ungrateful, prideful, hate-filled people, and it is so hard to not get caught up in doing those things too.  I feel as if I have somewhat disappointed those that I love.  I loved my relationship with my family 'back in the day', but I have lost that.

The Christmas before my mission I wanted to give my family something meaningful.  I had gone through some hard times with friends and things and it had left my emotions somewhat raw, but it was a good thing, I guess.  It had forced me to reflect on my life (like I am doing this morning).  Anyway, the most meaningful thing I had was my testimony of things that did bring me lasting happiness.  So I decided to share that with my family.  I found principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ that I really had a testimony of, and then I found quotes by leaders of the church (or others) that put into words, better than I could, about that principle.  Then I put those quotes in boxes and wrapped them up and gave them to each family member.  I loved it!  I loved sharing that with others.  I continued to do that every year...until this past Christmas.  I couldn't do it this year.  It wasn't in me.  It isn't because I had lost my testimony that those things brought happiness, at least not really.  I knew in my heart that those things can still bring happiness, but I had let the world overtake me that year.  I became too busy to live those joy-giving principles, and so I didn't feel like I could share a testimony that I wasn't living.  So I didn't.  I was sad that I had broke a tradition I had kept going for 8 or so years, but at the same time it was a nice slap in the face to wake me up to want to want to change.

 I know the answer lies in living the gospel more closely and for me I think a big thing is taking time to pause and reflect (like I am doing now...and did back in January) and examining my life.  Here's to a better future. :)

(P.S.  I forgot that I actually have followers of this blog now, so it is somewhat awkward to post a post like this, but at this moment I don't really care that it is read by others, but just realize I am not really posting it for others sake.  Just for my sake, sort of like a journal entry.)

Authorize.net service goes down...again

Authorize.net, the online payment gateway, is down...again.  Back on May 1, 2012 the system was down for several hours and people reportedly could not process payments or login to merchant accounts.  It seems the same issue is happening again tonight.  I tried to process a payment at approximate 10:25pm MDT and it said it was unable to receive feedback, so I tried to login into my merchant account and got an error page.

This is not good for authorize.net.  Perhaps another merchant online processor can do better job with the uptime.

http://www.authorize.net/


Update (10:51pm MDT): I can reach the merchant login screen, but it still won't let me login.

Authorize.net Goes Down

Authorize.net, the online payment gateway, is down.  This is probably wreaking havoc for a lot of e-commerce businesses who depend on them.  It is effecting our businesses here in Bear Lake, Utah (Bear Lake Cabin Rentals and The Lodge Motel) as that is who we use to process all our credit cards.  We are hoping for a quick fix and that nothing is wrong.

Update:  It seems to be working now.  And I am sorry I posted their twitter info from two years ago.  ha ha.