Live interview with Ian from Free To Book on the present and the future of Hospitality Marketing

We'll crack on with the questions after we've let Ian introduce himself and Free to Book. But if anybody is watching and they haven't yet submitted a question, please do so in the comments below. Let me know, as well as you are watching, if you are a current Free to Book user, or even if you are thinking about joining Free to Book, any questions that you may have will be much appreciated. So, Ian, over to you. Just let us introduce yourself. Introduce Free to Book. Let us know who you help, what you do, and then we will get started with some questions.

Okay? Yeah. Well, thanks for inviting me on for a start. It's great to be here. I'm Ian Stewart. I'm one of the two brothers that set up Free to Book. And my role in the business is generally to do the operations side of things, but I look after a lot of things with my brother. So we look after, like, product development, where we're going, that sort of thing. Yeah. And we spend a lot of time looking around the Internet and seeing what other people are doing and how best we can get Free to Book out there to our users and how best they can use it.

Lovely. So for anybody who doesn't know what Free to Book is, if you could just spend a couple of minutes just explaining in simple terms exactly what you do, who you are and who you benefit.

Yeah. We're an online booking engine. Primarily, we're used by small independent businesses all over the world. And it's for something that you put on your website. So it's a booking engine that you would put on your website and it just allows people to make bookings. And then on top of that, we can add other things. We have like plus services like Channel Manager, and we have various payment options as well. But in its sort of core element, Free to Book is an online booking engine which is there to benefit you from your direct bookings.

Lovely. So give us a bit of background before Free to Book. Where are you and your brother from? What made you get started into this whole world? Shed a bit of a background, if you could do. Yeah.

Going back, I mean, we're in our 20th year as a business, so we've been around a long time. And all that time we've been booking accommodation. So it was only about sort of eight or nine years ago that we decided that we would actually get into supplying the technology itself. And that was just through. You know, when we started, the Internet didn't really exist as it does now. So a lot of the processes that we've made electronic through the likes of Free to Book, you know, we were doing manually for many years and, you know, we were seeing how the accommodation sector was changing over time and how radically it was changing actually, you know, with the advent of, you know, computers and the Internet and broadband, etc. So we ended up building our own sort of development team and we always built our own software in house. And just over the years we got better and better at that. And then it got to a point where a lot of large companies were using our software and they said, you know, this is really good, we enjoy using it. And it was at that stage that we thought, well, maybe we should be building something that other people could use. And at that point we decided, well, we'll build a booking engine for small independent businesses. And there was a couple of reasons we chose to go down that way for the smaller businesses, probably because it's, you know, they're businesses that are similar to us in terms of how we think and how we operate. So we didn't seek to go after kind of large, you know, chains, etc. That we used to work with. We decided it was better to work with the smaller businesses because I think, you know, it would, yeah, we probably have more to offer them in terms of our experience and knowledge in the sector. So, yeah, that's kind of how we are. And that was about eight years ago. And since then it's kind of grown and grown. But yeah, it's been good fun.

Amazing. Well, we've got 21 people watching live, so if you are watching live this live video at the moment with Ian from Free to Book, if you could take a second just to comment below, let us know if you're watching live by saying the word live. If you're watching back on the replay, say the word replay. And for everybody who is watching back on the replay later in the Facebook group, please make sure you ask your questions because if there are any follow on questions after what Ian has said here, then I will send them on to him and Free to Book and try and get some answers. So for those of you who know me, my family business is the Granary, which is based in Scarborough. And as a disclaimer, we use Free to Book we have done for many years. I recommend it to everybody that is who I believe would get a benefit from Free to Book because I think it is one of the best out there, not only the booking engine side, but the customer service side. So it's a big. I'm really happy. But we've managed to put this in today and thank you to Caroline for getting this set up and thank you for Ian for doing this. Before we get started, Ian, is there anything that you'd like to ask the people watching? Is there anything that you would be that's interested you about jumping on this call? Is there anything that you would like people to do and respond to this?

No. I mean, if there's questions that come up as we go along, you know, pop them up and I'll definitely try and answer them and afterwards as well. So, no, I haven't got anything specific, you know, I'm just interested to hear what people, you know, want to know about us. I've got some questions here. You know, we'd always answer them as best we can and sometimes with a lot of things that we do, it's based around the customers. So hearing your views and what you want and why you want it and how you want it is pretty much how we get our business done. So I'm all ears in that sense.

Well, we've got lots of questions, as you said. I take all these questions that people posted in the group beforehand and I sent them over to Caroline and Ian and so we've got them printed off. So we'll go through a few of them. The first one, the one that's intrigued me very recently is the Airbnb link up. So obviously Airbnb announced this year that it, it's going to work more with channel managers like, you know, like free to book, etc. And we use free to book for the granary and we link it via an ical in free to book. And one of the questions that I always get is at the present moment in time, it's one way. So it's a one way connection. Are there plans in place to make that a two way connection?

Yeah, I mean, we have been trying now for, it's pretty much three years for a two way connection. This sort of one way ical for us it's, it, you know, it's kind of, you know, it works, but it's, it's not good enough. You know, I think, you know, when we did a survey, what about, you know, four or five months ago, I think we had about 1500 properties that work with us that were on Airbnb and they're the ones who are suffering if we've got a simple one way connection. So we've been chasing Airbnb for nearly three years. I think it is pretty much three years. And the latest thing we had was we had a meeting with someone in July and it was really positive. What they said was that they were rolling out like a self development platform, which basically that means that we could develop into their platform for a two way connection. Because up till then I think they used to do a lot of the development themselves, which would slow them down because then they, you know, what capacity have they got to do that? So if we, if you look at what we've, who we've connected to in the past, you know, people like, you know, booking.com, expedia, TripAdvisor, et cetera, they all work on that basis that, you know, they provide a spec and then we would just develop into that. And then the amount of work that they have to do is fairly limited and the onus is on us and we don't have a problem with that. But Airbnb didn't really have that model up until, well, when we spoke to them at the end of middle of July, they said that they would have something like that ready in three to four weeks. And you know, we all jump in with joy at that point because we've been waiting two and a half years and then since then we've been chasing them. And then the last thing that came back was that they wouldn't be able to do anything till, you know, the beginning of next year. So that to me is like a severe disappointment because customers are asking us pretty much on a daily basis for this connection, you know, and if we could do that, you know, we can do that. It's not a problem. We've connected on in the same way to about, I don't know, about 30 or 40 systems over the years. So for us that that sort of technology is standard, but we're waiting for them to basically give us the green light. And they keep sort of saying, you know, I think for a start, they had the wrong model, you know, in terms of they would do a lot of the development, you know, that will slow you down definitely, but they're changing that. But I think they're probably finding that that's not as easy as they thought it would be. I think one thing that I would ask the properties that are currently with us and connected to Airbnb is perhaps just help us by putting more pressure on them directly because you can go into Airbnb and you can send feedback, etc. And I think that's what we're going to do. We're going to do like a campaign really, so that they understand the priorities with the properties. It's not us, you know, and so I think if every single property that used us and wanted to connect to Airbnb or was connected to Airbnb, just message them in the system and said, look, we need a connection with Free to work. What's holding you up? I think it would move it up their list of priorities and, you know, help us do it.

Yeah, no, it's a good, it's a really good point. We've got over a thousand people in the hospitality community. I reckon that I asked a question recently, which PMS do we use? And the majority is free to book. And I think the majority of them would be on Airbnb. And it can be easily done, just takes a few minutes and at the end of the day, if we can put a little bit of pressure, then it might put a pressure on them. I just want to quickly backtrack a little bit. Katherine said that she's a little bit confused and I should have explained this from the start. So you've got two different types of connections. You've got a one way and you've got a two way. So a two way, Katherine, is the link up with booking.com or the link up with Expedia from Free to Book. So that means that when a booking comes in from booking.com it automatically updates your Free to book calendar. A one way connection is where just your availability goes through via the iCal. So when I say iCal, it's the one that goes into Homeaway, the one that goes into Airbnb. So that means that your Airbnb listing is always connected to your Free to book calendar. Now, it doesn't mean that when a booking comes in on Airbnb, it automatically updates Free to Book. That's why you have to manually do it. So what we're asking and what Ian's asking Airbnb is to make their system easier so that when a booking comes in on Airbnb automatically updates Free to books. I know we've had a double booking on the back of it in the past and it just makes life a whole lot easier. And that's. There's loads of people saying, what about Home away? What about cottages.com and that's the exact same thing Ian, people are asking, is there any plans in the process, moving forward to get a two way connection with these other big rental sites like cottages.com or HomeAway or Holiday Lance?

Yeah, there is. I think that's one thing we have to do more of and we now have the capacity to do that. So there's a couple of Ones that we'd like to do, but Airbnb is top of the list simply because, you know, they're the biggest in that sort of arena. But there's no reason why we can't do the others as well. So yeah, there are plans to do those probably we're looking at, you know, maybe early next year before we start on a couple more. But yeah, those are not difficult connections and we can do them. We have been holding out for the Airbnb one because most people are using that.

Speaking from a personal point of view, I think there's as many two way connections as we could just purely because when you have to manually do it, it is a bit of a ball ache. And I know just from people that are joining the hospitality community and the people that are using free to book, there are more and more rental accommodations, self caring accommodations that are sort of looking at free to book. So yeah, if there's a way for that, then yeah, 100% would be good. Another question that's come up and there's something that I know that you are experimenting with is Google hotel ads. Can you just explain a little bit more in the thinking behind it how you were getting involved and how it works and, and also as well, in simple layman's terms, explain what Google hotel ads is to the people watching. Because I know this is something that a lot of people want to know more about, please.

Yeah, it's just Google are sort of moving into. They are effectively an advertising platform and you'll see that if you look, when you do a search for your property, you'll see a panel come up on the right hand side and it's usually got your property name and a picture and a map. And then below it, if you're feeding anyone else, usually the online travel agents like booking.com or Expedia, you'll see a price in there. And up till now really that space where you've been able to feed prices has been exclusive to the large OTAs. But Google are opening that out so that other companies can offer the option to have a price in there. And they've given us the opportunity because they can't work with lots of independent businesses. They don't have the structure in place. So they're saying if they work with us, we can bring several thousand in. And it basically just allows you to show your direct rates in there amongst the booking.com and Expedia. That's quite important for many businesses because I think they've seen obviously over the years that they're getting fewer and fewer direct bookings and that's because they're kind of out competed on the marketing side of things on places like Google because they can't go in and advertise on a cost per click basis and also they can't feature in that panel. So that's changing. And that's what the Google hotel ads will allow you to do. It will allow you to feature in that panel so that when people do just type in your property name, it will actually show your rates and availability to the person searching. And Google knows that that makes your property much more relevant. They know that when people property name, fundamentally they want to look and see whether you are available and how much you are. So that's very important. We're now able to, you know, we're in the stages of trialing that with some properties. We have about 130 and in the sort of next week to sort of month, we'll be rolling that out for hopefully everyone. It'll be a, you know, a phased rollout because there's quite a bit of work involved. But we'll be making that available. And that just means that people will be able to see your rates and availability on Google and book you on that and Google will charge you for that pleasure, which is fair enough. That's what they do.

Yeah, I'm just very quickly sharing my screen because the Granary is one of those businesses that are trialing the Google hotel ads with free to book. And if everybody sees my screen now, I think you'll be able to see it as well. So if you look the Granary Scarborough and if you click on Book a room, what you'll be able to see there is our official website alongside Expedia, Priceline, etc. So that is basically what it means, is that it's in and amongst everybody else. This is something that I've spoken about. Anybody who's part of the boostly academy, you'll know that I have spoken about, you know that it is also coming to Google Ads. It's meant to be something that they announced in July. I would have liked it to have been there now. But this is the workaround to work with your pms, whether it's vivo or free to book, who have access to this. And it is so important because like Ian just said, when you do a search on Google and you've got this blue button here, lots and lots and lots of people are clicking on it. And in the past, like Ian said, they could only go to booking.com or any of the OTAs that you are on. But now with this ability, free to book or your PMS will give you a chance to get your property, your website on there. What is the commission rate, Ian? Just remind me at the moment you got to pay to have this service.

Yeah, we're not really calling it commission. It's an advertising cost and it's a percentage of. It's 7%. So it's 7% plus VAT and it's an advertising cost and it varies from commission because it differs from commission because it's an advertising cost that you pay when a booking is made. So you're saying to Google, right, When a booking. Google saying to you, basically, when a booking actually goes through, so somebody can see your rate, there's. And they can click the book and have a look at your prices and that. But if they don't book, you don't pay anything. But if they do go through and book you directly, then Google will charge you. And basically it's 7%, which is 5% to Google and it's 2% to us. And we collect that money at the end of each month for all the bookings that took place during that month and then we send it off to Google.

So 8%.

Well, it's 7% plus that.

Okay, so 7% plus that.

All right, lovely.

Thank you for that. So that, that is something that is really big. And you know, look out for this. If you are with free to book, look out for it because it is something that is coming and it's going to be widely available. And do we have to opt in or will it just automatically happen?

Everything is opt in with us. We never force anyone to do anything. So there'll be an option to opt into it. I mean, the other thing to note with it as well is that it also features your rates when somebody does an area search as well. So if they search your town or whatever for accommodation, you know, Google is now throwing up a map just below. Usually they're paid advertising and you'd feature. Obviously your rates will then feature on that map as well. So it's going to be more widespread than just somebody searching specifically for your property. If they do a search for Scarborough and your property's on that map, Google will show a price against your property. When they click that, then it will take you to that panel where you can see either Expedia, booking.com and also your direct rate as well. Now, the interesting thing there is that if you're not with any of those channels or if you have Those channels closed out over that period, then you will still have your rate showing there and you'll be the only rate showing there. So that there's a lot that can happen with it. I think what we're seeing Google do is take it really seriously as an extra channel for them. They're concerned primarily with the fact that at the moment on that panel you have booking.com and Expedia advertising. You might find six or seven rates against your property if you're advertising with booking.com and Expedia. But really it's only two companies behind those six or seven rates. So the idea from Google really is they want to open that up. So there's more competition in that panel because that's a marketing panel. And effectively properties are bidding to have their rates available there, as are booking.com and Expedia. So you can see Google's taking that very seriously. And you'll see as you search more and more on Google, they're playing around with where they're going to show those rates and availability. But the fact that you'll show on a sort of city wide search is to me quite a big thing because up till now you really couldn't advertise in that space because you'd be up against the likes of booking.com and Expedia. And on a pay per click basis, if you're an individual property, someone clicks through, they've got no choice, they've just got your property. So that pay per click wouldn't really pay, whereas it does with the likes of booking.com that because they can offer the customer choice. So you wouldn't really be in that space.

Great. Really good point. And anybody who's been in this group for a while now will know that Google are paying a lot of attention to hospitality. They want a piece of that pie. And it is essential that everybody who is watching this, if you haven't updated your Google Business listing, as in making sure that you're responding to reviews, you've got your latest pitches in there you go. And do so now because you'll be getting a head start on 2019. So the only way that you are going to get your property seen on the map when somebody searches for for example, guest house in your location or hotel, inn or whatever in your location, you got to make sure that your Google Business listing is up to date. And if you haven't yet claimed the Google Business listing, that's the first thing you need to do after this video because it is essential that you do so. Because if you don't, somebody else will and it's impossible to get it back and I've seen it done in the past. So please do if you take anything from this chat with Ian, make sure you do do that because it is hundred percent spot on is that Google are going to be really going hard on hospitality and hospitality bookings and click throughs for next year. And if you follow some of the tips that are available in the units which I've just been doing today you will see one of the tips that I preach about in the boostly academy is that next year 2019 you should be going on to Free to book now looking at the dates that you know 100% will sell regardless. So right now over the past weekend in Pickering, it's been war weekend, you could sell rooms out three or four times over. So you don't need help from the OTAs. We're massive fans in here about the book direct movement, the campaign book direct and one of the best ways of doing so is being proactive. Go into free to book, go into Supercontrol, go into Aviva, whoever you may be with now and box off and close off those busy dates that you know are going to sell regardless in 2019. So when free to book start doing this and they're working with Google hotel ads and people are being proactive now or that first two weeks in January which is absolute gold dust when they go and do a search and they filter it down in Google for those dates, the only one that's going to appear when they click on book a room is yours and that's a booking. And like someone said, I believe it was Helena just said 8% or 7% plus VAT is much better than 15% and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Thank you for that Ian. Alright, next question. Free to book, is it just focused on the UK an island or is it a worldwide business? Can you help anybody?

Yeah, it's worldwide. I mean right early on we took the decision that it's kind of an Internet platform so it will handle currencies and it will handle your sometimes quite complex local tax rules as well. So it's used in over 100 countries. We don't really market it outside of the UK because we don't really have the capacity but we have probably about two or three thousand customers that are outside of the uk. So even on for instance the Channel Manager that's We've got over 60 countries linked on that so people from all over use it and I think that's Always our view is to be very open with our software. We wouldn't ever try and restrict it. So, yep, you can use it anywhere in the world and we've got most, Most countries in the world using it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we've got people in the hospital. There's 1,400 hospitality community members in this group right now and there are people all over the world. There's people using Free to Book in Barbados, there's people using it in France, all from the recommendations of this group. So that's why people were asking a little bit. They're a little bit inquisitive about that. One of the key feedback has come back because we have a lot of people in France who use Free to Book. After the recommendations of this group, they asked. The guest registration form is amazing, but it's all English. They were wondering, because obviously the booking engine is multilingual, which is fantastic, but the registration form, which a lot of people are starting to use, is only in English. Is there plans in place to get that multilingual or not?

I think we do have to move that way, definitely. I mean, it's kind of what we've got capacity to do. But the registration and also I think the reviews are two areas that would make sense to have those because those are points where you touch the customer. So if they're booking in their language, they should be able to register in their language and then also be able to send feedback as well in their language. And we have done some work on the review side of things with a new kind of messaging system that we've been looking at. And part of that was that the reviews would be able. You'd be able to select the language or the language of the review would be based on, you know, the language of the booking. And I think that that makes sense with the registration as well. So, yep, there's a bit of work that we have to do within the sort of back end of the system. We do know that and we do know that at the moment it's, you know, it's very English focused.

We have had a request from Australia. There are quite a lot of people from Australia in this group and they've said that they would love to have more Free to Book awareness over there. So I don't know if it's part of your plans or not, but yeah, they said they'd love it in Australia especially. I don't know if you saw the Dick smith video about booking.com and Expedia over there, but since then the awareness has Grown big and this group has grown bigger because of it. And a lot of people obviously in Australia now are watching and they want to know who is this free to book? So that could be something. Another question is, do you have any plans over the next three to six months to have an app on iPads and tablets and all that and iPhones or not for a free to book app?

We do. We've actually started work on it, I mean very, very early stages. So there'll be something coming out, but it will take us a few months to get something out. It's a new type of technology for us. So we're having to learn that we have now quite a lot more capacity in our development side and that's what we've spent maybe the last two years trying to build. Getting very good developers is not easy and then getting them trained up in kind of the hospitality sector as well takes a bit of time. But we now have that and so we are actually working on that at the moment. But we literally have just started. It could take three to six months before we've got something, hopefully a bit sooner because I think what we'll do with that we will definitely do is we'll launch with a kind of a minimum product and then build out on it as, as the demand comes in. So yeah, we know that's something we have to do and we are actually working on that now.

Amazing. Another feature that keeps getting spoken about and I know it's something that I think would go down really well, is the emails in the back end to be automated rule based. So for example, when a booking comes in, there's an email that goes out is great, but then have a rule based formula. So as in three days after booking comes in or three days before an arrival, an automated email goes out where we can upsell restaurants or upsell X, Y and Z, give people driving directions, check in times, et cetera, post stay, you know, seven days after they have got home and checked out, have an email go out thanking them, ask them to follow our social media automated rules email system. Is that in the plans? Is that in the making? Is that something that we can expect?

Yeah, it is and it's going to be in the kind of the format of like messaging because I think that's probably, you know, more future proof is some form of messaging and we have done some tests on that already and got like a demo thing up for ourselves to work that out and how that should, you know, operate. So that's definitely in the plans and we've done some work, but it will be more like a messaging platform. And again, we might hook that into the app, but that would be where automatically messaging, you know, like you've just said you'd be able to set up certain rules to send a message to a guest, you know, X days before arrival or just after the booking, you know, has taken place, that sort of thing. So yes, that's. There's a big demand for that and there has been for a long time. And we, yeah, again, for us, a lot of this is. Have we got the capacity to build all these things? And we have. We've got more now than we've ever had. So there's a lot of work going on and that's probably going to be in the format of messaging, but it will be that similar format. You'll be able to set up your rules and set up your text, etc. And who it would go to and that sort of thing.

When you say messaging, can you just expand on that a little bit? We're talking text. Are we talking email? What we say in here?

Well, it's a bit of both. I think it sends out an email or a text to alert somebody that there's a message for them and then they can click on a link and then they can read that and it could be either just like, you know, something set, so they can actually, you know, they'll see it live on the web, live on their page and they can actually go in and send a message back and it would come back to you and again, you'd get a ping, you'd be able to go in and see that and then respond. So it's kind of, it'll be like a board, you know, so you can keep like a, you know, it's more of a conversation with the customer, but you would be able to have certain amount, you know, information which is sent out and, you know, they would be able to see that.

Would this be like a. So we would have a, an individual free to book webpage. So it'd be like granary.freeto book.com and on there we'd be able to go in and interact with guests. Is that what we're sort of saying or is it something a little bit different?

Something like that? I've not actually worked on that project in too much detail, but it would be something like that. Yes.

Nice. Interesting. Okay, so we're sort of asking about things that maybe further down the line, if you could just lay out what your plans are for the end of this quarter for the first quarter of 2019, just so we can know what we came can expect, or anything that we've not touched upon. That would be really good as well.

Well, you've probably touched upon most of the stuff. I think that the big key thing, I think, is the Google, you know, the Google advertising. I think that's a real game changer for small independent businesses globally. So that that's something we'll focus on probably in the next couple of months to get that rolled out and to get that working really well, because there's a lot there in terms of reporting back to properties about how it's, you know, how it's, how it's delivering. The other thing we're working on, which I said before was the app, and that's really about messaging properties, to say, you know, you've got a new booking or a booking's been cancelled, or can you see what your availability is when you're out and about? So those are kind of the two big things. The other thing we're sitting there waiting for really is. And we would drop quite a few projects if we can get that, which would be the Airbnb link. You know, go ahead. We would move things around to make sure we could resource that. There's another thing that we're looking at as well, which is more probably long term, which is about really giving creating a website where every property could have their own page with all of their sort of direct booking details on it, like their phone, their website, there's some content, etc. And maybe just looking to build out something that is, you know, will evolve into like a space where any independent business anywhere in the world can have a page on the Internet, Internet for nothing. Where, you know, if customers were looking, how do I contact that property directly? They could go there and find that. So you'll be seeing more stuff come out about that. And that's more of a slow burner. But again, saying that, you know, it's becoming more and more difficult to find independent, smaller, independent businesses online. And then I think there needs to be a space, a home for them where they can all just opt in and put some information there about themselves and have a really good page, but all focused on how anyone searching for them can contact them directly. And initially it would be something in the format of like a good, you know, probably a directory site, but then it might have some sort of messaging at the back end as the next stage. And then further down you might look at having some way of, you know, giving some sort of Booking functionality. But initially it's about, you know, businesses working together and just having a space on the Internet for nothing, which gives the customers all they need to know about that property, especially about contacting them directly.

That would be good from personal speaking, it would be good if, because we get loads of reviews left on free to book via the email out that you send after a guest to stay. But I find that they don't go anywhere. They don't influence Google Maps, which would be lovely. So if there's a web portal where all of that just feeds in and it's just presented and especially with the messaging function and it's automated, I think everybody in here who uses free to book and takes advantage of the templates. So what we do is we at the granary, we have templates, lots of them set up for just after a booking has been made or after a guest has left. So we can, we have to do it all manually at the moment. It would save us hours in a week if we could have it where it is automated base and to build all of what you said there would be fantastic. Couple that with Airbnb, Google Ads. It's just making a product which I believe in. I shout about to pretty much everybody in here where it benefits. I think it'll just make it even better. So I just want to say thank you for this today. I guarantee that they're going to be more questions on the back end and I promise that anybody that does have any questions, there's things coming in talking about payment tracking and invoices. But what I want to do is I want to put that down, send it off in an email so you can answer back and I'll post it back in the group at a later date. But I've kept you for a long time. I know you're busy, man, so I really do appreciate it. Everybody who's watching, I would really appreciate if you could just pass on your appreciation, your gratification for this happening today because it's taken a long time to get it to happen. So I really do really do thank you for that. Ian and Caroline, if you are listening to setting this all up. But before we leave, is there anything that you want to direct people to as a blog or a website or anything that you want to send people to that they can get in touch with you who have any further questions directly?

I mean, usually if it's specific about their free to book, you know, setup and that, you know, they can use our help desk system, which we respond to very quickly. But no, there's. If you channel them through to me, I'll respond and I'll give it a full response to each one. But with our customers, if they are using our system, they know that they can always call us and ask. It's good in an environment like this where you've collected a lot of questions because this themes start to come through and that's easier for us to kind of focus because we start to get lots of questions about the same thing and that allows us to know. Right, okay, this is important. But yeah, so just the normal channels or if through yourself or through, you know, sending it through to us, that's, you know, I've got nothing specific that they could do apart from what they normally do. And we're always keen to listen. I mean, that's kind of. Yeah, that's how we decide what to do next.

One thing I will say about free to book and one of the reasons why I've stuck with them and I recommend so many people to it, is the customer service. Way back when, when we were first getting started, whenever we had a problem, I always used to speak to Eleanor. I've got to know her well over the years and now she's obviously progressed and if you ever watch this. Eleanor, hello. We've always had some good chats and I know that a lot of people have really appreciated today. Sharon, Niv, Grant, Hayley, Catherine, Tricia Harrow, Nicola Helene, Catherine Roh and Catherine Robinson, thank you so much. Ben, Julie and Tom, you've caught the tail end of this interview. This is now ending. Everybody who's watched this live, thank you so much. If I didn't answer your question, I apologize. If anybody who's watching back on the replay, you've got your questions, please comment in this thread. Don't start loads of different threads because it'll be a nightmare for me to keep track of. Comment below, ask and I will promise I will send them all over to Ian and the guys at Free to Book. But going to stop this live stream now. For all of you who have been bombarded with posts from me today and you're wondering what the hell is going on, do not worry. What I wanted to do is asking loads of these questions. I have been in these polls over the last week. I wanted to try and figure out what you come back to for the hospitality community, why you joined, what you want to see in the future. And one of the overriding themes is that the reason why you come to the hospital community instead of all the other Facebook groups that are out there is A, because of the community aspect, B, because of the good rant, the Tuesday rant is coming, by the way. But also as well, the marketing advice and my mission and my aim for everybody in here, everybody who's watching, everybody who is watching back on the replay, is that I'm going to give away my best bit of free advice. The basics that everybody should be doing to boosting their direct bookings. My goal is to make sure that those five steps that I put in the videos today, you can find them at any point by going to boosi.co.uk email. You can then get access to those five videos. And those five videos are some of the best bits of basic advice that everybody should be doing. So bidding on brand email marketing, making sure that you're on the right listing sites for yourself, making sure that your website is set up to work, which is key, and obviously your Facebook competition. So those five videos are the basic watch, have a listen to it and I promise you that those five videos will help you with your basic bookings. Those five videos are the free advice that I give away that is the better than what anybody else out there is charging for. And then if you want further help, come to me. That's what the Boothly Academy. So that's the thinking behind it. That's why you were bombarded with videos, because I created it all today. It's a place and an avenue and a resource for you to keep going back to. Anybody's got any questions about that, let me know. Ian, thank you very much. Everybody else, I'll let you get back to your day and we will back in here soon with more videos, more interviews and other things that will help you achieve all of your goals for the next year. Alright, thank you very much and I'm going to stop the stream now. Thank you, Ian, for that.

Thanks. No worries.

Apologies is a bit quick getting started, but for whatever reason, Zoom just decided that it wasn't going to let you in until I hit the broadcast button.

Yeah, it was just whirring and whirring away and then eventually, anyway, we could.

Have done the comment. I know you can't see the comments and the things, but they're flying through and they're all really enthusiastic and I know that there'll be a lot of people who watch these things back on the replay. Just how it works with, with these sort of things. There's a lot of people who are thinking about switching and now's the time of the year when they're thinking about doing all these things. So I think it's just really good timing to put free to book in front of people. Yeah, amazing. All right, I'll let you go if Caroline's there to say thank you very much for setting this up. And, you know, any more questions that come along, I'll send them through.

Yeah, please do. I really appreciate that.

All right, my pleasure. All right, I'll let you go. Cheers.

Thanks, Mark.