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• Announcements

  Announcements regarding MyVR and the community

  Product Updates
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  134
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  @jess-milligan - if a guest has a change to their reservation terms, and previously did NOT have the damage protection, must they now add it?
• Get Help Using MyVR

  Questions and answers about MyVR

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  Is there a way to track Airbnb refunds accurately in reports?
• MyVR Best Practices

  Share or browse tips for getting the most out of MyVR

  129
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  229
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  In light of recent events, we put together a strategy to proactively reach customers and offer booking incentives. This may be especially relevant if you have guests within driving distance of your properties. At a minimum, you’ll need these four things to get started; Incentives or discounts Live website (30 minutes to create!) Customer contact info (quick & easy download) Your marketing message Incentives Wondering how you should set up incentives or optimal pricing? Here are a few ways; Set up Promotions in MyVR so only users who book directly from your website with a Promo Code can get a discount that you determine. Try testing any one of our dynamic pricing partners for optimal pricing based on market conditions. Wheelhouse & PriceLabs both offer 30-day free trials. You can directly demo BeyondPricing. Include discount or promotion language in the Headline of your property. Reduce your base-rates across the board. Any pricing changes will update on your website and to any integrated channels. Website Generating a live website using one of MyVR’s templates can be as simple as a handful of clicks & some basic text. To get started, head to the Websites section of MyVR. You’ll want to make sure your Merchant Account is enabled and that you have active properties. Website fees can be seen in the "In-App Purchases" tab here. See our 20-minute Basic Website Training video to get started; Downloading Customer Contact Info Located in our new Custom Reports feature, you’re able to export a list of traveler contact information. The data in this report may include personal email addresses*, phone numbers, and home addresses**. You can drag and drop additional info to fully customize this report before you export it. *This export likely includes pass-through email addresses (codified alpha-numeric email addresses) from a channel that are not the traveler’s real email. Any communication to these email addresses may not get delivered based on the time the booking took place. If it does, it will show up in the message center of the channel that the traveler originally booked on & might strip out website URLs or contact info. Consider altering your message for these recipients. **Home addresses would only be included if the renter was required to add it at the time of booking. What’s Your Marketing Message? When crafting your marketing messages to your potential guests, consider these tips; Clarity on Incentives or Discounts Highlight any discounts, offers, or special promotions you’re running. Be sure to specify the amount ($ or % ) and the conditions such as when the offers expire, and what travel dates fall into eligibility. Communicate and Enable Amenities What amenities would make your travelers most comfortable right now? Some core necessities to consider would be locations of grocery stores, gas stations, and hospitals. Be sure to highlight anything relevant in your communication and enable them as amenities on your properties if available. Examples for Urban Markets; Highlight wifi speed, work stations, outdoor settings (balconies, views), parking, walkable destinations (grocery stores), laundry features, etc. Examples for Cabins/Beach Houses: Talk about outdoor spaces & activities, kid/family friendly, indoor activities (board games / video games / cable), books, work stations, etc. Your Personal Touches Is there anything specific you’re doing to account for the current events to make the guests feel most at ease? Things like flexible cancellation policies, more in-depth cleanings, grocery delivery options, etc. could enhance the guest experience & entice more travelers to book with you. Tying it All Together Once you get operationally in tact with pricing, website functionality, and messaging, put it all together and send it out to your guest. Here’s an example of a marketing message: In light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, our PM Company is offering short and long-term accommodations for all our beach-front properties at up to 30% off for anyone who needs accommodations in this uncertain time. Travelers can utilize this discount for bookings that occur through April 30th, 2020 and are eligible for any stays through April 20, 2021. Please use this promo code at checkout on our website [include your website link]; VacationASAP2020 Our properties are cozy and spacious, with full kitchens, extremely fast wifi, smart TVs, washer/dryers and plenty of space to both relax and work. We even have some family units with large yards, tons of books and boardgames and space for homeschool activities if needed. Even more importantly, our PM company is using industry-leading cleaning standards and protocols to ensure the safety of guests and staff. If you or anyone you know has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and need accommodations, visit us at our website [include your website link], or feel free to reach out directly to our team at email@address.com or 1-800-555-5555. You can simply send this message from your own inbox, BCCing any contacts in one go, or utilize other marketing tools that integrate with MyVR such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. Have any other ideas? Please post them below.
• General Discussion

  Unstructured discussion about MyVR and the Vacation Rental Industry

  73
  Topics
  436
  Posts

  

  I appreciate that sentiment, @jenny-oest . This perspective is helpful for our team to hear as they work around the clock these past several weeks supporting our customers amid this crisis. We’re all human, too. Some of us even have friends and family members who are currently sick or who we’re worried about. And while this is all going on, our focus right now is on 1) helping our customers through this brutal time, and 2) making sure our company survives this so we can continue to be here for you. Our business has also been severely impacted by this - MyVR makes the majority of its revenue on booking fees - so we are truly “all in this together”. Like our customers, we are getting hit from two sides: bookings have come to a grinding halt and cancellations have spiked like we’ve never seen (an update is coming on this soon, as promised). We hope things return to normal soon, but we’re preparing for a long dig out of this hole. To that end, our team has all taken on significant personal sacrifice to ensure MyVR stays alive. We are unfortunately not Stripe, Airbnb, Expedia/HomeAway, etc - we are not sitting on billions in cash. Like yours, our company runs on its cash flows, which have flipped upside down. Here are some of the things we’ve done to date with our customers in mind: We halted all business travel in early February and initiated work-from-home in late February to help prevent exposure to our team members from work. Our team has taken on deep salary reductions across the board - most team members have taken a pay cut between 60% and 75% or higher, with the goal of keeping our software running and our team employed. Despite all this, our team is highly engaged and focused on servicing our awesome customers. Some team members have even given up their salary entirely. I personally worked without salary for 7 years starting MyVR and have again taken myself off payroll in early March. We are cutting any and all non-essential costs. Earlier this month, we closed our physical offices in SF, Reno, and Portland and terminated our leases to help future cash flows. For all refunded payments by our customers, we have refunded (and have always refunded) 100% of the small portion of the Stripe fees that MyVR receives during payment processing. We have lobbied the exec team at Stripe to refund Stripe’s processing fees, as well, and to stop the freezing of funds in select accounts - both of which have resulted in review processes being set up by Stripe. We are happy to hear that some of you are starting to receive refunds from Stripe, and that they’re doing it retroactively on past cancellations. We have lobbied our large channel partner to soften the impact that their cancellation policies have on hosts and on us, as well. We’re as frustrated as you are with the actions they have taken and are equally concerned about the impact on all of our businesses. We empathize with the pain our customers are feeling right now. We are “stepping up” in every way we possibly can right now. We hope to be able to help customers financially as best we can, and must keep a close eye on our own finances. We should have an answer on the requests around the booking commission refunds in the next few days. Please hang in there! We’ll do everything we can so long as it allows us to, simply put, stay alive. We must do what we can to ensure we continue providing our software to the hundreds of property managers who rely on us. While it’s probably uncommon for a company to be this forthcoming about what’s going on behind the scenes, we strive daily to live up to our values of integrity and openness and have found full transparency to be the best approach, both with our own team and our customers. Hopefully my sharing all this allows everyone to understand the ways in which we’re stepping up where we can, and how we can aim to support each other during this time. I also know from talking to leaders at other tech companies in our industry that we’re not alone. We’re all getting impacted, and many companies may not make it through it. We’re doing what we need to do to make sure we can not only survive, but also continue to provide the level of quality in our product and support that you need. Thanks for listening. Stay healthy and safe, everyone!