You will never have to worry about a cancellation again with Chris Baxter of SuperControl

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As you are watching this, how many cancellations have you had since the 17th of March due to the corona virus? Well, today in this podcast, season eight, episode 24, I am speaking to Chris Baxter of Master Cancel and Super Control, who, who's going to explain why you will never have to worry about another cancellation again. This interview is one that I've wanted to do now since the start of the coronavirus crisis. Way back on the 17th of March, I first heard about Master Cancel from one of Super Control's members. She was telling me about this new thing. I didn't really get it, I didn't really buy it because it sounded too good to be true. But basically the way that it works is that with Master Cancel as part of Supercontrol and Supercontrol and a pms, what happens is they will pay out for any cancellation up to a certain date, period before arrival. I believe it's like 48 hours, no questions asked. They'll pay it out for you 90% of the value. And that's why I would think it was too good to be true. I reached out to Supercontrol, I got on a phone with them, we said, right, let's get you on a podcast. And this is what we are doing today. Sit back, make sure you listen, make sure you take note. And if you are not with super control, then supercontrol.co.uk, give them a call and see if you can make it work for you of your PMS moving forward. If you are with Supercontroller and you've not yet booked in Master Cancel, please get in touch with Chris and he'll set you up. But also as well, if there's any other PMS provider watching this, if you're with another pms, I'd be putting so much pressure on them right now to be getting an equivalent of it, because this is going to save the hospitality industry moving forward. Before I get in with the interview, I just want to say thank you so much to the sponsors, sorry, of the Boostly podcast, which is hostfully, hostfully give you free digital guidebooks. So, so instead of having to wait for your guests to arrive and you've.

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Have a chat with it.

Good evening everybody. So my name is Chris Baxter, I'm a business development consultant with Supercontrol. Supercontrol is a fully integrated property management system and channel manager for property owners, property managers, agencies of all sizes. We offer a complete solution. We're UK specialists. Currently we support around 1900 clients and account for about 45,000 properties worldwide. So I've been with the company since August. I originally came in as part of the client care team, so I've got a really good knowledge of product, how it can support you and all the various parts of the toolkit that we have to help self caterers thrive. I've moved into the kind of industry engagement team towards the end of last year as I have got a kind of, kind of sales background and business development background. So that's a little bit about us and a little bit about me as well. Mark I'm in Dumfries in southwest Scotland, currently coming live from my living room where I have been for four weeks and for another three I believe I will be now.

So how is, how has the current situation in the lockdown, how has that affected super control and how has it affected your sort of day to day work? Do you normally go into the office or are you home based or. I mean how has it affected you.

Normally we work from our office in Castle Douglas, again in southwest Scotland. We are now working from home and we're working really productively and really effectively. We had planned for this scenario so it's not Affected us in the way that we support our clients or the way that we operate. We're all fully connected and wherever we are.

You said the productive bit just in case Melinda and Robert, which is always a good thing to drop in. Let's just get straight into it. Absolute simple terms. Talk to me about Master Cancel. What is it? How does it work? Literally spend forever talking about it if you need to explain it fully, because I think it's super important that we get the simple bits out of the way first.

So Master Cancel, it's flexible, no questions asked, risk free cancellation protection for all of your bookings. So it's protection for property owners, property managers, enabling you to offer guests full refund for any reason at all between 60 days and two days prior to arrival. It will help to protect you against that lost revenue. It will provide guests with confidence to book risk free with you. And as I mentioned before, any reason at all. You don't even need to enter into these conversations with guests.

When I first heard about this, when I was first told about it by a Super Control user, I thought it was too good to be true. You know, I was waiting for the catch. I was really relieved to have a chat with, you know, yourself. And we had Melinda and Robert and we had a few of us from Super Control, we did a zoom call as like everybody's doing nowadays. Can you talk to me a little bit more about the semantics in the back, how you can offer this, how you can guarantee this? Can you talk to me more about how it all sort of works in the back end so that you can offer this to Supercontrol users?

We're working in partnership with Rental Guardian, who are a US based company. But the actual idea for Master Council was born at Supercontrol. It is a Super Control concept. We've always felt this a real sense of responsibility to protect clients to help them maximize revenue. We had integrations previously with sort of guest opt in cancellation protection. Only around 10% of guests opted into that. Really keen to make sure that all bookings can be protected for any reason. So it was born in Super Control hq, if you like. And through our really strong partnerships that we have built up, we were able to take that idea to Rental Guardian, who are the kind of insurance experts, and they developed it into something real, you know, really. And they've developed this product, they went out, they've got it underwritten by Lloyds Of London, so we've got strong backing behind the product. It can work because it's been, you know, developed by experts. The concept was born by experts and it's there to support experts in the industry, which are property owners and managers.

For many, many people that are watching this now live, as we've got many people that are doing, or anybody that is watching back on the replay, everybody that has gone through the past month, as everybody has done with cancellation after cancellation, literally revenue and income has just been leaving the business. People have lost thousands. To have something like this, to have as protection moving forward, I think is going to be massive. So as it stands right now, when does it all kick in? So when can Supercontrol hosts or new members of Supercontrol when they can start.

Using this fully for new signups to Master Council? Any bookings that are coming in that have an arrival date of 1 August or later can be protected by Master Council. It will apply to all bookings and it's whatever the source as well, remember. So it will protect bookings that are coming direct, obviously, but any bookings coming in through channels as well will be covered too. So the crucial thing there is that 1st of August arrival date, which I.

Think is really important to state this, that obviously we want every booking to be a direct booking because you make more profit, you get a better experience. But we are aware that there will be people that book via the OTAs, booking.com, airbnb, you know, HomeAway, et cetera. So it's important to state that this also covers those bookings, which is fantastic because again, you're covered. If there are Super Control members right now that are watching and they are thinking about they want to sign up to Master Council, what is the normal process that you go through? So number one, the question would be, I'm a Super Control member right now the scenario is I'm a Supercontrol member. What's the first steps then need to.

Be doing for a Supercontrol user? You can do it from within your Supercontrol account. It's a couple of clicks to an activation form, most of which is pre populated with your account data and then you submit that off to Rental Guardian and it is as simple as that.

Is there any fancy things that host need to do in the back end or is it all just synced in and all taken care of?

It's all really taken care of, Mark. It literally is a couple of clicks. We have facilities to uplift rates so that prices can be increased to reflect the COVID as well. So there is really very little that clients need to do in order to have the COVID applied.

What is the cost? So I'm a supercontrol host and obviously I'm paying monthly to have super control. What is the extra cost in place for Master Council? Is it a set fee or is it something else?

4.4% of the rental value of the booking.

Yeah but like you say 4.4% but you can actually add that onto your rates that you submit out there. So it can just cover that.

Absolutely. And it's important to note as well with the Master Council it's not because it's not an opt in for the guest, it applies to all bookings and it's not invoiced separately so it's a part of that rate. But as I say we have the facility to uplift that and there's going.

To be a lot of people watching this live or on the replay and there's a lot of people out there that have got current insurance is set up etc with, with a number of sources out there and they will have discovered over the past month or six, six weeks that the current situation as in the COVID 19 doesn't cover them because of the, the word and in the cancellations would with Master Cancel and with the things moving forward with this current situation, in the massive cancer cancellations that occurring right now, would that have covered people moving forward to say that it comes back again? Would, would something like this with Master Cancel in place, would this be still something that would be covered in a situation?

Absolutely. So as it's cancellation for any reason, we're not even needing to ask the guest what the reason for the cancellation is. I mean Master Cancel has been available through super control since October 2019. So people who signed up at that, at that point have had, you know, have been covered for these cancellations. Well, it will absolutely cover this going forwards as well.

So there has already been current supercontrol members who jumped on board right in Octo last year that have actually been covered with this and that their income is secured.

Absolutely. Wow.

Amazing. So like I say this to me is something that I think is going to change the hospitality industry. And I'm not just saying this because I got you guys on. I truly believe that this is massive. Everybody tuning into this will know the effect that this has had on the hospitality industry over the course of the last six weeks around the world. And to have something in place that doesn't matter what the reason you are going to be covered for it I think is massive. Now as I understand it and please tell me if I'm wrong. You've got exclusivity and a head start on everybody else in the UK and Europe on this. Is that, is that right?

Yes. Supercontrol is the only property management system who can offer Master Council in the UK and Europe. Master Council, as I mentioned, is a Super Control concept. It's only available to property management systems within the Inhabitiq family of brands and we're the only one in the UK and Europe.

So you've definitely got a. Got a head start and if there are other PMS is watching, then you've got a lot of catching up to do because again, this is a big one. So talk to me then about Supercontrol. We've mentioned Master Council loads. We've mentioned Rental Guide and obviously we've mentioned Super Control. Who do you predominantly help? Is it just rental or is it bed and breakfast and hotels like how does this, does it all fit within the Supercontrol brand?

Supercontrol has been designed by self caterers for self caterers, so that's entirely the market that we're aimed at. Of course we do have some clients running B&Bs and hotels that it can work for, but predominantly we are very much focused on helping the self catering industry to thrive, to take, to make, to increase their control over their businesses and crucially to make money.

It's a PMS but also as well a channel manager as well.

That's right.

Yep, yep. So it ticks off both of those boxes there. And how does it work with in terms of Supercontrol? Is it a paid monthly subscription and if so, how does that work? Or is it a commission based product?

It's a subscription, an annual license fee for the product. We have a small channel service fee for the top five OTAs of 1% but certainly absolutely no commission for direct bookings through Super Control.

Off the top of your head and I'm hitting you with numbers here, how many members do you have worldwide at the moment? Are you predominantly. So how many members worldwide and are they predominantly in the UK or are you worldwide now?

We have clients all over the world. The vast majority would be in the UK and Ireland. About 1900 individual clients that we have. But in terms of number of properties we're over 45,000 now as well.

The one thing that I've always been ends with Supercontrol on the booking engine but I am happy to say that has been improved. So the big thing for me, looking from an outside in, and I'm not an affiliate Supercontrol. I don't make any money. Just in case people are thinking he's plugging Master Council because you're going to get some financial kickback. I get nothing. But I just love it when people like Super Control. A, listen, but B, improve. And again, in the past, the booking engine wasn't the best, it wasn't easy to do on mobile, but now it is, it's got majorly improved. And again, I look at it from the aspect of a guest booking and, you know, we've been using, and I know that you've got a big development team over in Europe that have been working on perfecting it and there's so many things going on in the back end that is really hard to keep on top of. But I'm so glad that that's being done because again, with the. With the booking engine, it is easy to use. I've been using it today on the website that we've got live, who use Super Control, which is fantastic with this. And as well, you've got the constant improvements as far as customer service and everything. I think I'm really happy with what you guys are. So well done. And I guess the next and the most simplest question is, what's the best way to get in touch with yourself with Supercontrol? If anybody wants to have a chat about joining, do you have a minimum requirement of units to get going? Can people join with one? How's the best way to get started on here?

Absolutely. From one property to a thousand properties, we can cater for businesses of all sizes. To get in touch with us, go to supercontrol.co.uk, you can book a discovery, call a demo, have a trial of our software, pop me an email, give me a ring. Best part of my job is talking to clients, talking to new businesses and learning about what's important, what the needs and drivers are and how we can support businesses going forward. And also, just on the point that you made about developments, we have been super responsive throughout this whole situation that we find ourselves in. We've set about a dozen new developments live to support clients in performing tasks that they've never had to do on the scale that they're doing at the moment. So. And we're always listening, we're always learning and developing.

Really, really appreciate that. And, yeah, good luck with it. And just to stress to everybody watching who is thinking about SuperControl, go to supercontrol.co.uk, you can call. I'm sure they've got like email or things. You can start off the conversation. If you were to join and obviously you're going to join and add Master Canceling that will cover you from the 1st of August is a monthly subscription service to Supercontrol and then it's a 4.4% add on for Master Cancel. But being honest, the safety that you've got in the back of your mind, there's no questions to be asked, you don't have to go for a fine tooth comb for the cancellation reason. It's a massive relief to a lot of self catering people. But B and B people, give them a call, it may be worthwhile you having a chat with them. And the beauty of now 2020 compared to maybe a couple of years ago, if you want to swap your PMS provider, it's super simple to do it so much easier than it was, you know, a couple of years ago. And obviously I assume the people at Super Control will guide you through that process. I know that there are a lot of people out there who will be looking to get in contact with Supercontrol, so thank you very much for that Chris. I like to do quick fire questions, otherwise known as quarantine quick fire questions. Obviously we're on lockdown as it looks like we're going to be for a few more weeks. So there's some couple of questions that I have for you and as always, if you are listening and you are watching this, please leave your answers in the comments below whether it's live or on the replay. Alright, so first one, if you could be on lockdown with one celebrity or famous figure, you know, who would that be? And again, it could be alive or dead. We've had people give all sorts of random answers here then Chris, so who would yours be?

I think I would probably need to go for Joe Wicks so I can be someone to keep me fit and cook my dinner.

As long as you don't mind him going live to the nation at 9am every day in your living room if there is. So obviously when we're not on lockdown we're super busy, we're running around, but we've always have, you know, a movie or a TV series that we just add to that to watch list, you know, or add that to the watch list for when we've got the time. Question is what has been on your to watch list recently and what have you had a chance to watch that you rave about and can recommend to other people?

To be honest Mark, I'm more of a. More of an audiobook kind of person than a movie person. I've got a bit of a cue. I'm gonna start the Philip Pullman books. The. His Dark Materials is on my list. It's been recommended for a while. So that's, that's next on my, on my listen list.

These audiobooks are those ones you have in the car on the walk or can you just. You just put them on at any time you get a chance to.

Yeah, anytime. I just tell Alexa what I want and then. And she. And she provides it for me.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay, I like that audio. The next question. Everybody's given me so many different answers, but what has been the one thing that you've missed being able to do since being on lockdown?

I think like everybody probably seeing people, friends and families. I'm actually really missing going into the office. Not just because I think Melinda's might be listening, but I am, you know, so that interaction with friends and colleagues.

I think for me, I think a lot of people are definitely, definitely missing that. What has been your favorite purchase under 100 pounds in the last year?

I would have to say a new pair of running shoes that I bought the week before lockdown. They have seen me. They're going to get me through my, my government mandated exercise for the next few weeks.

Mine was also trainers, not running trainers, but just a pair of these Adidas trainers that I've been trying to find for ages under £100. I like that. Okay, so you obviously we've established you an audio audio person. Do you have a. When you're not listening to audiobooks, a favorite podcast or YouTube channel that you. That you like to recommend?

I didn't until lockdown never was a big one for things, for YouTube channels and things. But I have recently started watching reruns of classic football matches and I can't get enough of it. I'm just absolutely into it at the moment. So my football club's Aberdeen Football Club and we need to go quite a bit into the past to get the good games. So that's what I'm watching now.

So we're talking the Alex Ferguson years. Are we talking?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Nice. Good, good stuff. And finally, I can't have somebody on from the world of hospitality and not. I'm asking this question, what is your number one advice that you give to supercontrol members or just any hospitality owner when it's around how to boost their diet?

Obviously boosting diet bookings is important. Equally what we are really keen to support our clients to do is to maximize the profitability from their bookings. So whether it's direct, whether it's channels, I think the next game changer really, after we come out of lockdown is going to be dynamic pricing. How are we possibly going to know how to set our prices after this situation? It's going to be next to impossible to do that manually. We are going to be launching, we've already launched our Beyond Pricing integration, but after Master Council, that's our next big thing that we're going to be going to be looking at and I think it's something we should all be paying a lot of attention.

And I'm glad you mentioned pricing because Wednesday 22 April, the live video on there is going to be all about pricing post Corona, which is a lovely little segue into a promotion of next week. So that is Wednesday the 22nd, otherwise known as Earth Day. My calendar is telling me it's Earth Day then. But yeah, fantastic, thank you so much for that and thank you so much for coming on in supercontrol.co.uk to go and start off the communication and chat about joining them if you're not with them and if you're a super control member and if you're not with Master, cancel. I'm sure by now you've had, you know, all the information and if this has done anything, you know, please use it as a chance to join. If nothing more, you now know that Chris is a big audible guy, you know, and you can always sweet talk him by just chatting about audible books to him when you do jump on the phone. But thank you so much for doing this, Chris. Any final words that you'd like to say to anybody that is tuning in or can we let you go?

All I would like to add is, you know, please do get in touch, have a conversation with us. I'd love to learn about your business. I'd love to see how we can, how we can work together. We're here to support businesses in what's an extraordinarily difficult time and, you know, reach out, get in touch, let's have a chat.

Thank you for that, Chris. We really appreciate it. Thank you to everybody that has tuned in live. There's been a whole load of you come in, which is fantastic. And for everybody who's watching back on the replay, thank you as well as always. All I ask for doing these six weeks of live videos every single night, I'm not asking for any money. All I ask is your comments is your currency. So leave a comment Tag people in. Share it into the groups. Share it into any hospitality groups that you're a part of. Tell people about what we're doing. There is 30 days worth of live videos that you can catch up on. We've talked about how you can cut out a necessity, costs. We've talked about how you can deal with cancellations if you're not with super control. We've talked about pivoting. We've done a live workshop with Janet Murray, we had Noah Kagan on talking about all things marketing and productivity and we've talked about social media, We've talked about everything. And we still got another two weeks to go. And I've got loads of fantastic guests lined up to help me get over the line here. Please, please, please share. Tell everybody about it. And if you want to get daily reminders when we're about to go live, just go to booster.co.uk, forward/daily boost and you'll get a little message in your. In your WhatsApp just to say, we're about to go live. Okay, thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you very, very shortly, AKA tomorrow night with another live video.