The Future of Guest Services: Software Innovations for a Professional Touch

The difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person's determination. I think, you know, that is a mantra that fuels a lot of my work, a lot of my efforts. Progress is hard earned. Stick with it and you'll be able to accomplish hopefully some pretty great things.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard on the T is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. If you want my respect, you'll better put Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.

Welcome back to the Brucely Podcast, the podcast that gives you the listener, the tools, the tactics, the training, most importantly, the confidence so you can go out there and get more direct bookings. On the Boostly podcast, we shine the spotlight onto services, businesses and people that you need to know about as a host. These can be anything from tech to awesome people. And today we are actually diving into a person who is the CEO and founder of their software and someone who I'm really excited to talk about today, software that I actually use personally in my STR business. And we've got Jeremy from Breezeway with us today. So this is going to be so much fun. Welcome along, Jeremy.

Thanks Liam. Happy to be here. Excited.

So, Jeremy, I know I've kind of teed you up there. Can you give everyone a short introduction as to what Breezeway is? For those who have never heard of it, sure.

Breezeway is a property operations and experience platform to help you really professionally deliver on, you know, what we think are the most important parts of the guest experience? How is the property prepared? How do you clean and maintain this property so that your guests have a great experience? And then while they're there, how do you communicate with them? Make sure they're enjoying your home, provide other services and make sure they truly have a great experience while they're there.

Why do I need a second product when I've already got, say, a property management system?

Sure, yeah, we think. And I've got a lot of history in, in the STR and in the vacation rental space that vacation rentals and short term rentals have become so much more experiential than transactional. Your property management software system is really your transaction hub, your channel manager, and how you get new guests and manage your reservations and your bookings and your occupancy separate from that, how you touch the property, how you coordinate tasks, task management and the experience that goes along with it. It's a really big part of the job. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners and hosts feel the pain of what it's like to deliver over and over again and make sure that they, you know, have a great experience that they bring to the guests. It's not easy to do, especially if you're remote. You've got a property or home someplace far away from where you are, and really dialing it in to understand how you're doing it, it's challenging.

Give me a history of the business. How did this start? And can you take me back to the beginning and give us kind of like the why you've done this?

Yeah, sure. I'm a talker, so I'm going to. I'll keep it. I'll keep it short. I'll keep it sort of succinct. The. I'd started a previous company in the vacation rental space called Flipkey, sold that company to TripAdvisor and Expedia, which was a marketplace for vacation rentals. While I was doing that, we built that up to about 500,000 listings worldwide. Made a lot of friends with property managers and hosts, started talking to them about their business and what it was like, what it was like to deliver service to the guest. And I felt that, you know, vacation rentals and short term rentals were converging more and more with hotels and hospitality. The magic of a great short term rental is a unique property that feels so personal to you as a guest, but is prepared, cleaned, your interaction feels like you're at an incredible hotel. Right. It's really perfectly set up, like that's what you want. You want authentic, but you want this hospitality level service and experience. And I felt like it was really hard to accomplish that. So I talked to a lot of property managers and a lot of hosts about how they did this. A lot of people told me it was painful. This was a really hard part about their business. They didn't think they had a lot of insight into it. And then I approached the PMS partners that we had had all the way back at Flipkey and said, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. We think there's an opportunity here for a point solution that's totally focused on operations, property care and the experience. We started in 2017. Over the years, we've built up now, I think, 45 different integrations with property management software systems, with lock systems, with supply providers to help with amenities in the home on each stay. Now we work with about 200,000 units worldwide and in 90 countries. And we help millions of people, millions of people have a great vacation.

So let's dive into the product because there'll be people out there still not fully understanding what it is. So as a host, how does it work for me and what is the big benefit?

Yeah, think about, I think the easiest way to orientate to our product, it's an operations and experience platform. We have a couple of different products. One of our main products is the operations product, which is everything you need to do. Someone has to touch the property to get that property prepared. From cleaning to quality assurance, inspections, routine maintenance and fixes. And you know, a lot of the power of the breezeway platform is how you schedule and coordinate those tasks, how you automate it. You have a workflow, you have a standard that you want to operate to and that you want your properties prepared to, you know, in accordance with. And we help you do that by, you know, photos to help guide cleaners and inspectors and maintenance folks exactly what should happen at the property, how you want your, your property positioned, exactly what it's supposed to look like, Very detailed task management and coordination to get the right people at the property at the right time, understand and track their work, pay for their work, and help them, which is equally as important. A lot of these service providers, they might be working for a number of different small hosts, help them understand exactly what is expected, where they're supposed to be, what they're supposed to get done, when it's supposed to get done. It's a detail orientated job. You know, Liam, you said earlier, and I agree, like as soon as you have more than one property, you know, your, your burden starts to extrapolate and become bigger. But even with one property, you know, it's a complex dance that happens when you turn over a property and there's so many points of failure and risking that failure and risking, you know, a bad review or letting the guest experience at the property start on the wrong foot so that you're behind the whole time. You know, it's pretty, it's pretty tough. So the operation system sort of dials all of that in. Make sure that it happens with a lot of automation. And then separately we have a messaging product so that as your guest is arriving while they're staying with you, you can automate certain touch points through text messaging to interact with the guest, offer more services, make sure they're having a great stay, you don't have to worry about remembering to send that message. And then if they write back, you can coordinate and you can communicate one to one, two way texting and Pick it up and personalize it. And that's integrated directly with Airbnb messaging or directly with your PMS system.

What has been the biggest wow moment over the last seven years for you?

Yeah, it's really interesting. I think when I started I. You have to have a level of naivety to sort of start one of these businesses, I think. And I, I think when I first started I was, I was a bit concerned about operations and the scope of the value we could deliver to clients. I think part of the wow moment for me is seeing how these products are connected and how operations is a loaded word. Right. And I think I worry sometimes that it doesn't totally resonate with hosts and managers. They think to themselves, like operations, like what exactly is that? Right. But what it is is it's, it's the nitty gritty work of actually being a host. It's everything except marketing and taking the reservation. Right. And there's so much of that that has become so much more important in the business. And I think we've just, I've really enjoyed. It's such a dynamic industry, travel in general, but short term rental and vacation rental specifically is so dynamic and ever changing. And I think another interesting sort of trend over this time has been professionalism and quality and how you can see it at Airbnb throughout favorited homes and kind of the prioritization and the changes that they're making. In search, everyone's focusing on quality and how to surface these quality experiences to guests and I think it's incredibly fascinating.

So there's going to be people listening to this who want to find out more about Breezeway. Where's the best place for them to go and do so?

You can go to Breezeway IO, you can shoot us an email at VIPreezeway. IO would love you to say that you heard us on the Boostly podcast, but you don't have to, of course. And reach out super consultative. We're happy to chat, give you some more tips, help you think about safety and a couple other things at your homes.

So that brings me to the last question, Jeremy, which is is there a motto, a mantra or a piece of advice which has stuck with you over the years, which you'd like to share with us?

You know, I don't know if, I don't know if you do this in the uk, in America, oftentimes like at the end of high school you have to like put a little quote in your yearbook or something like that. And mine was the difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person's determination. And I think, you know, that is a mantra that fuels a lot of my, a lot of my work, a lot of my efforts. And that, you know, progress is hard earned. Stick with it and you'll be able to accomplish hopefully some pretty great things.

So true. And what a nice sentiment to, to bring it to an end. Was there anything we missed along the way?

No, I think it's great. We appreciate, we appreciate you having me on the show. Thanks so much. We appreciate having you as a line as well. Don't be a stranger and make sure you reach out.

Thank you so much. Thank you too for listening to this on the Bruce Lee podcast. We know there's lots of places you can put your attention. Really thank you for putting it with Boostly. That's it from me. That's it from Jeremy. We'll see you on the next one. Thanks for your time today, Jeremy. Bye for now.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.