Imagine managing a glamping pod business with stunning ocean views. Guests love the place, but managing bookings is a nightmare. That’s exactly what Kerry, Accommodation Supervisor at Ocean View Pods, faced. Their previous system, was frustratingly clunky. Finding information was like navigating a maze and forget about talking to a real person for help!

The Problem: Frustration with Cloudbeds

Kerry elaborated on the challenges with the previous system. “It wasn’t a particularly easy system to use. Whenever you needed information about what we call ‘add-ons,’ it would be five clicks later before you would get to the information that you need.” These frustrations extended beyond the Ocean View Pods team. “Guests were frustrated when add-on requests were missed, and communication with our previous system was difficult,” Kerry revealed. Thankfully, they discovered freetobook, where the Messaging feature facilitated seamless communication, ensuring a frictionless guest experience from booking to checkout.

The Solution: A Smooth Transition with freetobook

Freetobook was a welcome change from their old system. “The amount of training you do and the short explainer videos”, Kerry explained helped the team to find it “quite straightforward to get ourselves through the set-up process.”

But the real win for Kerry was the human touch. “It was nice that Heather [freetobook’s Account Manager] gave me a call just yesterday to say, ‘Have you looked at turning on your Google Zero connection?’” Kerry shared. “It’s nice to feel that someone else from freetobook is being proactive and looking out for ways that we can make opportunities to improve our business.” This echoed a sentiment Kerry expressed earlier in the call, “We wanted something that was easier to use…and also a change to mark the new ownership.” Freetobook provided both with a user-friendly system and a dedicated support team.

Freetobook’s transparency and visibility were other key benefits. “We can clearly see on freetobook how the channel rates compare to our own rate on the website,” Kerry noted. “Since changing over and looking into channels like Booking.com more, we’ve realised that we’ve been hammered through offers by them, so we’ve changed quite a few of our OTA rates now.” This addressed a specific concern Kerry raised about Cloudbeds, “They didn’t have visibility of rates. You can clearly see these on freetobook…”