We spend our days and nights helping vacation rental managers understand and leverage the benefits of guest reviews.  We built our service based on feedback from the industry.  Now, with over 50 vacation rental managers actively using the FlipKey Guest Review service we wanted to hear directly from our users and get their reactions.

In the spirit of transparency we would like to share the good, the bad and the ugly.

(+) = Positive feedback
(-) = Critical feedback / feature request

(+)  Ease of use / Speed: Many users noted how easy and quickly they were able to get started and begin to collect property specific reviews.

(-)  Review Alerts: Although FlipKey offers automated review alerts when a low rated review is submitted, users have informed us that they also want to be alerted of the POSITIVE reviews!  We are working on new reports to help our users efficiently track all guest reviews – both positive and negative.

(+)  Owner Management: A surprising, yet consistent, point of feedback was FlipKey’s positive impact on Owner Management.   Managers are forwarding guest reviews to owners and finding the owners receptive to critical feedback that is supplied from guests.   (Note:  Owners are much less receptive to critical feedback delivered directly from the management company).   In one example the owner decided to upgrade the mattress in the master bedroom after multiple complaints over the “firmness” of the bed.   In a different example, an owner now has fresh water delivered to the home in case their water (drawn from a well) is not acceptable to the guest.

(-)  Property Detail Info: Some users have noted that the property detail info and calendar info on FlipKey is not always 100% accurate.    We consider this a top priority and are improving our content/data syncing systems, as well as partnering with a number of the industry’s leading software firms to better ensure content accuracy.   (Click here to read our recent partnership announcement with Instant Software)

(+)  Account Support: All FlipKey users are assigned, free of charge, an Account Manager who helps them get started with FlipKey and handles all support needs.   A direct quote submitted about one of our Account Managers:  “Bryan has been incredibly helpful!  Truly an asset….”

Don’t get any funny ideas Bryan… raises aren’t available until year’s end.

In the coming months we will work to publish more useful input and recommendations from our users. Thank you very much to all the people who contributed by participating in our satisfaction questionnaire.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm and is filed under FlipKey Service, Reputation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.