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Extra effort communicating in the field
Nicole Glenn is the Director of Property Services at SeaBreeze Vacation Rentals, one of the largest vacation rental management companies in Southern California.
When she came on board in October 2016 her objective was clear: ensure that the luxury properties under management are well-maintained and guest-ready. She is accountable for the company’s inspection program, which handles up to 50 back-to-back turnarounds and 150 additional departures a day during the busy season. Nicole’s responsibility doesn’t stop there though. She wears other hats at Seabreeze, and currently serves as General Manager of Power Property Care, SeaBreeze’s sister cleaning company.
“Before Breezeway, our housekeeping process was difficult to manage,” said Nicole. “Our field staff were given special instructions for that day’s work. Communication was all done through text messaging and it took extra effort to tie that communication back to work in the field.” The company’s property care program required more and more manual effort to match the luxurious rentals it offered.
“Before Breezeway, our housekeeping process was difficult to manage. Communication was all done through text messaging and it took extra effort to tie that communication back to work in the field." - Nicole Glenn, SeaBreeze
Escapia and Breezeway working together
Seabreeze operated on four different software programs before using Breezeway: Escapia for reporting, When I Work for staff management, Asana for scheduling, and Inspecting Cloud for quality assurance. “Trying to manage the data flow from program to program and across departments was a huge challenge – it was like playing a game of telephone,” said Nicole. “You had to go into each program to research an issue and then transferring data between programs was time consuming. We wanted to feel more confident in our scheduling and task coordination.”
When SeaBreeze found Breezeway, the game of telephone between staff and departments ended. The operations team consolidated its software by eliminating Inspecting Cloud and Asana, doubling down on Breezeway’s integration with Escapia. Breezeway’s intelligent platform now pulls property details and reservations directly from Escapia and sends Nicole’s team real-time alerts whenever a reservation changes.
“Linking Breezeway with Escapia was a huge benefit for us,” said Nicole. “We no longer have to constantly monitor Escapia for last-minute bookings and reservation changes. Our guest services department can easily hop on Breezeway to see the schedule, and they no longer make multiple phone calls to confirm if a property is guest-ready. Breezeway has given us more confidence in our property operations, and I’ve gotten very positive feedback from each of our different business departments.”
Easier turn-days and less manual work
SeaBreeze now has tighter grip on the hundreds of back-to-backs and departures it manages each week. Breezeway’s scheduling view is a game-changer for Nicole, helping her efficiently manage her staff without any guesswork. “Last-minute cleans and emergency situations aren’t nearly as hard as they used to be. I can easily open the schedule and see where everyone is and how close they are to finishing their task. This gives me flexibility and confidence to decide which field staff to pull from a property and assign to an urgent task that has just popped up.”
In addition to seamless scheduling and task management, SeaBreeze has leveraged Breezeway’s ‘Report-an-Issue’ and ‘Task-Timing’ features to improve its maintenance department. SeaBreeze can account for the specific items (and their associated costs) that it needs to replace, as well as the amount of time maintenance takes to perform the fix. The company uses these detailed records to generate reports for their homeowners -- something that took hours of tedious effort before using Breezeway -- and are accounting for more work that previously was a cost absorbed by the business.
“It’s just a lot easier to perform quality property care on time with Breezeway. I can send my teams to the right place, and communicate issues to staff and owners.” But SeaBreeze’s relationship with Breezeway doesn’t stop there. In fact, the vacation rental manager plans on adopting Breezeway’s new messaging platform to automate guest communication and concierge mid-stay. This will help SeaBreeze elevate its service, and build an even stronger brand connection with guests.
