Self-Service is Empowerment for Today’s Vacation Rental Manager

Historically, one of the first major industries to embrace self-service was the travel industry. Airlines and hotels have spent hundreds of millions over the last 10 years to allow travelers to check-in using a kiosk. Airlines then moved to online self-service check-in and, fast-forward to today, now they are moving to check-in via smartphones. New self-service apps also allow you to check-in to a hotel from your phone, receive a text when your room is ready and unlock the door with the code sent to your phone. You could move from the airport to your room with just a few clicks and no delays.

Consumers demand it. Consumers want to skip the line and hassle and prefer the choice of “do-it-yourself” rather than waiting or paying more to have someone do it for you. Consumers want the choice at least.

Self-service gives customers time and choices. It was not long ago that a flight meant arriving at the airport at least two hours before the flight. Always arriving early in fear of queues and delays leading to missed flights. Since the introduction of self-service check-in and baggage-drop this waiting time has been reduced greatly. Travel has become more streamlined and easier to navigate. Customers now not only enjoy having the option of self-service, they expect it. Property Managers are consumers, too. That is why our engineers spend so much time and effort creating self-service tools for our customers.

As a vacation rental manager, you have the option to provide self-service for your customers and take advantage of the time and money it can save your business. Could you start to offer optional extras on your site that your customers choose themselves at the time of booking? Or have a feature that lets your guests opt for a late checkout, all with a few clicks. There are many ways that having more self-service options will give your guests the opportunity to create the perfect trip. It creates satisfaction whilst saving you time and your business money.

The benefits of self-service for travellers are becoming more abundantly clear. But how can you use this industry trend to gain an advantage as a vacation rental manager?

Consider building your website. Before the advent of self-service and personalisation business owners were bound to developers to build their entire website and back office. Managers now have the option to use templates, add features or options as they wish, without the need to hire in developers. Kigo’s system even allows managers to add our API to your existing system, keeping as much or as little of your own property management system as you choose.

Kigo will be working together with a wider range of services such as rental insurance, revenue management and different payment gateways that you can choose to add to your system. These services will be available for all clients to choose and add without the need for any third parties or time-consuming implementation. You can tailor the software to meet the exact requirements of your business.

Having a dynamic system that allows your customers to control and modify their own booking means that they have the option to purchase value-added-services that you offer, all automatically. They control their stay, meaning they can tailor it exactly as they wish. And there is more self-service coming all the time. Why? Because self-service means empowerment for today’s Vacation Rental Manager and their customers.

The rise of self-service as an option in the travel industry allows consumers to get exactly what they require, in a quicker, easier way. This is the ethos we operate by at Kigo, so we like to make our service the most effective software solution for every vacation rental manager that chooses us. And we do this by letting every manager choose what it right for them and their business.

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