An Atlas of Property Coordination

Coordinating property care for the average-sized vacation rental manager isn’t easy. Add four countries, multiple languages, and over a thousand units to the mix and organization goes from complex to labyrinthine. ALTIDO, one of the leading global hospitality management companies, was relying on Google Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, WhatsApp, texting, and paper notes to intake and organize its property operations and care programs. The company’s disjointed systems was starting to create headaches, confusion and duplicative work for ALTIDO London’s Head of Operations, Anthony Lee. “Our challenges of providing visibility into the schedule, tracking and analyzing staff performance, and updating issue management began to escalate in late 2018.” 

Lee was no stranger to navigating the complexities of short-term rental operations, having already worked for a variety of large hospitality organizations in his career. Lee knew that ALTIDO needed to automate its workflows and eliminate manual work in order to free up staff and carve more time to focus on service delivery. The company set out to find a comprehensive solution that could connect to its PMS system, and leverage property data to organize cleans and maintenance work around guest arrivals and departures. Lee implemented Breezeway and with this, transformed ALTIDO into a leading example of proactive property care.

Creating an Operational Blueprint with Breezeway

Equipped with Breezeway, it didn’t take long for ALTIDO to standardize its property care programs and assure compliance with company brand standards. Lee created an operational blueprint to eliminate multiple systems and normalized processes across all locations. Each ALTIDO market implemented new cleaning procedures, greeting protocols, and communication practices through the ‘ALTIDO Operations Standards’, which the company amends each year based on best practices across its different markets. Breezeway’s software arms Lee with the property details and custom reports he needs to make it easy to extract information and update the company’s master guidelines. Leveraging a purpose-built operations platform has allowed Lee to deliver a consistent experience across all ALTIDO locations. 

In addition to more quality assurance, ALTIDO leaned on Breezeway to adopt a more proactive approach to running its property programs. Breezeway’s integrated dashboard helps Lee shape new protocols and track annual property care planning, but it also keeps ALTIDO one step ahead of its day-to-day operations. “I can easily run a report from Breezeway that identifies the properties in jeopardy of delaying check-in, and drive insights on recurring issues happening at our properties.” For example, Lee often pulls inspection reports to calculate the average number of hours his greeters are spending at each property, as well as to identify the top five recurring issues across properties in each market. Both the birds-eye-view of his entire operations and granular insights on each property and issue gives Lee the data he needs to inform business decisions and staff workflows.

Communicating Work Doesn’t Have to Get Lost in Translation

Communicating with field staff  and service providers across multiple markets used to be cumbersome for ALTIDO. Lee’s team managed a hotline of 50 to 60 unread messages at any given time, which created inefficient information sharing and a large margin of error. The team quickly eliminated the need to coordinate with housekeepers through WhatsApp, texting, and phone calls, and replaced its ad-hoc communication with real-time notifications on task statuses and issues. Breezeway has become the glue for ALTIDO’s communication, creating more flexibility to handle last-minute changes and ensure property readiness for check-ins. Lee now has complete transparency with what’s going on in the field, and can share historical activity for any task and property across multiple departments. Lee notes that the improved workflow eliminated 60 hours of manual work each week, and synced his teams to improve all aspects of property preparation.

Breezeway Helped Boost ALTIDO’s Client Satisfaction

The company’s communication improvements have tremendously impacted the experience of guests and owners. Sharing detailed task and issues reports with property owners has strengthened ALTIDO’s owner relationships, building more trust in the company’s management services and boosting client retention. Increased cooperation from owners now makes it easier for ALTIDO to upgrade assets and consequently provide a better guest experience. In fact, ALTIDO’s owner satisfaction score in its London market alone increased 15% after using Breezeway. 

As ALTIDO continues to acquire inventory and expand across Europe, the company remains dedicated to maintaining its guest-centric approach. Doubling down on Breezeway to scale proactive property care programs is a big part of this recipe.