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[Music] so in this segment of the virtual vendor showcase i am really pleased to focus on the guest view guide from sharp nec known as the digital concierge for vacation rental properties and i'm really pleased to have with me sunil goud who is from uh sharp nec from the global innovation and solutions group and so welcome sunil thank you heather it's nice to be here and also we have with us sam anderson from savannah luxury rentals and they manage over 80 premier vacation rental homes in downtown savannah georgia and sam is a user of the guest view guide so i'll come back to you in a second sam let's just kick off with you sunil and tell us a little bit about what the guest view guide actually is because there's a range of digital guests yes digital guides available um what makes the guest view guide unique sure sure well so first of all as you mentioned it is a it's a digital concierge that gets mounted on the inside wall of a uh rental property in a high traffic area and we we what really differentiates differentiates guest view guide is that we've used a large uh format interactive touch display so it's almost two feet by um about a foot and a half wide and so it's something that guests are going to notice right when they walk into the unit and basically the the concierge provides guests with all the information that they need to know about the property and local areas so they have what they need during their state that's fantastic and to in full transparency my company test test drove the guest view guide uh earlier this year in a property throughout the summer so while we're talking through this i'm going to refer back to the experience that uh that that owner and our guests had as well so i actually know what the guests experience when they walk in the door but perhaps you could describe it from from your point of view sunil as to you know what you wanted guests to experience well i you know when you think about a guest walking into a unit uh they're arriving at a property that is not their home right and so things are unfamiliar so what we've done with guest view guide is to make sure that when a guest walks in they can find they can find all the information they need to know about where things are located and how to use things so whether it's using the jacuzzi or uh you know using the appliances in the place they can watch videos for example on how to use those things so they're not constantly calling the property manager to figure that out or having to sit there in front of a paper guidebook and read like they're they're studying uh while they're on vacation so so really what we've we have done is tried to create something that's going to be a highly engaging and fun experience to use i know that when guests walk in they're welcomed by their name on the screen it's it's like um it's like that warm really warm welcome and you get it in hotel rooms but actually it feels it felt a bit warmer right the guest view guide i'm not sure why maybe it was because it's on a separate stand-alone screen and not on the tv how does that personalized information get onto that screen now talk to me like i'm a novice because sure sure basically what we're doing we're doing is um you know we we basically integrate with your property management software system and so we essentially pull reservation data such as the the check-in date the checkout day and uh the guest name so when a new guest comes in um it's going to have their their name on the screen and welcome well welcoming them to the place yeah i know that our guests at our property absolutely loved that and and they commented when they called and said it was so nice to walk in the door and get and and feel that we were we were actually people and not numbers and that's that's great i mean we we definitely get that comment a lot i think it surprises a lot of guests uh so it's just i think something that um turns out to be a very nice touch for customers when they arrive so how many pms platforms are you actually integrated with well right now we have customers that um represent about nine different property management software systems but um you know basically we you know you can go to our website at www.getguy.com and see a full list but if you don't see your system there it's usually a pretty uh easy addition to add a new pms system so definitely uh you know check out what we have and if you don't see it reach out to us fantastic now we talked just talked a little bit about about how guests experience it and i'm going to come back to sam in a minute and ask them how his guests experience it but what are the benefits uh sunil to owners and managers well i think um there are a few different things so um number one is that you know at a high level it provides property owners and managers with the opportunity to earn more uh money because they can put things on there like value-added services uh and other things that that guests can book right on the spot the second thing is that really i think it helps with driving down um service calls because guests can go and use that device to find instructions on uh how to find things or how to use things within the property so they're not calling the property manager for all those things so whether it's like you know especially like one good example i think when people walk into a place and they see the tv uh and there are six remotes sitting on the table and they don't know how to use it and that can be really difficult to describe to someone over the phone or to you know read in a book and so they can just quickly watch a you know a video on that type of stuff um so and then i would say the third thing is just giving um giving being able to give that guest a just like a uh like the insider tips about the local area so um you know a property manager can provide those insights to them and they can do it at scale so they can you know just update that remotely through the web and uh they don't have to go out to the units and update all the different guidebooks that's a great benefit so you also talk about upsell and services that can be offered via guest view guide can you give me some examples of the types of upsells that that are being offered sure sure well you know there are a variety of uh value-added services that our customers are offering today so i i would say probably the biggest thing and that everyone should be doing is late checkouts um because it just makes it really easy for the customer to the guest to just hit that button and um extend their stay but i would say there are a lot of different types of things like luggage storage ticket sales breakfast happy hour pre-arrival grocery delivery so i mean it really can be anything that the property manager you know wants to provide provided that they can fulfill that so um the important thing i would say is to make sure that it's they're things that are value added so you know what what we've found is that guests really appreciate and they're willing to pay a little extra for the things that make their vacations easier and and more enjoyable and they love the fact that they can you know learn about and pay for things you on their own time uh without having to talk to you know to call a property manager well that's great and just before we move over to sam i just want to mention one thing that we experienced and that is that we could schedule automatic messages notifying guests about trash day right because in our neck of the woods if the trash doesn't go out then it's going to sit there in the heat for some considerable time until until the next time so and that and it really worked that was the other thing it worked yeah and that's right and i mean i think there are a lot of things so it's first of all i would say for the property managers it makes it really easy because they can schedule that once and then you know crash days on tuesday that's always going to come up across all your properties whenever you schedule that for but it's also great for one time thing so let's say there's a festival going on and so you can send guests a message and say hey you know make sure you go down to this uh festival that's going on on saturday at 8 p.m right so i you know things like that i think are a really nice touch for the guests yeah well thank you sunil that uh that that's a great overview of guest view guide let's uh move on over to to sam uh sam you your company savannah luxury rentals manages over 80 properties and do you have um guest view guide installed in all of them i have them in about half of the inventory at the moment and we're looking to add more units once we enter the spring season so i've got 45 units installed right now at our um you know our highest end properties and then i'm going to be adding more units in 2021. so what were your objectives in in implementing the the whole program to install them in the properties it was an interesting timing um when they reached out to us with a cold call you know in in terms of how the year ended up evolving but they reached out to us with a cold call an early march um cold call email and followed up with a phone call and he was like listen the guest view guide will do three things it'll make you more money it'll make your business more efficient and it will really delight your guests you know so i i i urge you to give it a shot and so my initial order was for five units and got those uh up and running right before the sky fell with covid but could immediately tell the impact that it could possibly have on our business moving forward obviously going into covet times for property managers it was a really scary thing but at the same time you know during lockdown when you weren't fielding cancellation phone calls you had plenty of time to think about how to reorganize your business how to make yourself more lean and more competitive when we could eventually exit uh you know coveted times and this really seemed like the exact kind of product that might be able to do that for us and it really has turned out that way we are making um additional revenue through three different streams um selling lots of late checkouts but we used to just give late checkouts away for free you know when someone called just hoping you would get a five-star review you know in return but now when you make it so easy for a guest to just press a button um they know what it costs up front so they don't have to have any sort of awkward conversation about uh are you gonna charge me for this or not it just makes it so easy um we sell uh trolley tickets for the old savannah tours trolley company in town um and that is it's a really growing business now that more and more people are feeling comfortable doing the tours around town and then also recurring monthly uh ad sales one of the best restaurants in town corleone's the best italian restaurant in the historic district now pays us monthly to have one of their ads show up as sort of wallpaper art beautiful spread of italian food you know makes everyone's mouth water as soon as it shows up on this gorgeous screen um and so we're sending lots of customers their way and they're paying us you know a monthly fee for that so as far as revenue goes it's been a dream well what other feedback do you get from your guests about the units we're getting lots of feedback and you can see it in our reviews on vrbo airbnb on our own website um guests are really tickled with it they uh it's it's really shown that the guest book is just dead you know no one no one you know would go past page one once they found the wi-fi code okay they toss it over their shoulder this is such a beautiful engaging format the interactive map all the restaurant recommendations that can pop up on there you know that i've provided it's really allowed us to curate the guest experience in a much much more engaging way than we were ever able to do and just a guest book um so they're they're really delighted with that and one nice feature about the guest view guide is it has a whole series of analytics where you can see how guests um you know are rating you know their initial experience they even rate the guest view guide themselves and then you can see you know what percentage of your reservations are actually engaging with the screen i mean my percentage is is nearly 100 i think it's 98 99 of my guests are engaging with the screen and it's nearly a five-star rating for the guest view guide itself when the guests are rating it that that's that's terrific as i say we we just um trialled a single one in a single property but certainly the feedback that we got uh has us definitely moving towards uh purchasing more for our for our units next year so thanks so much sam for uh for um joining us to talk about that so let's go back to sunil so you can tell us a little bit about how people can get in touch with guest view guide and find out more sure sure i mean the best way is to go to our website which is www.get okay that's it that's all they have to do so there's a contact form on there yes there is yeah and for those of you who are listening and watching this you can go just below uh just below this video and see the uh the link to guest view guide um so if you're hearing this on audio you'll you can either write it down or you can go check out the youtube video so thank you both of you for for joining me it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you um as as a user myself as those of you watching know that i only endorse products that i either either have used myself or have heard of from um from very satisfied customers um but this time i have used it too so that's my vote as well sunil well thank you heather and and we i really appreciate you having me on today not at all thank you both for joining me yeah thank you sam thank you guys okay um sam so how did did having these units increase your business efficiency it's made a tremendous impact and it was kind of um surprising how big of an impact it has been in terms of the notifications that you receive when a guest checks in and when a guest checks out you can have those notifications sent directly to your cell phone as the property manager or in the case of checkout notifications we have those sent directly to our housekeepers so the housekeepers immediately get pinged and instead of having to wait till 11 o'clock just assuming their guests would wait until the the last moment to check out if a guest checks out at 7am a housekeeper her her business day can become so much more efficient she knows she has more time to spend cleaning the property she knows how to allocate her resources more efficiently so that has been a major impact of these that um is worth its weight in gold uh and it has really you know if i didn't make any revenue you know from late checkouts or from selling ad space or trolley tickets just that fact alone the way that it sort of automates that communication with our housekeeping team across 45 properties is has been brilliant and really a game changer for us in terms of efficiency what a great benefit indeed absolutely so sunil what are the benefits of guest view guide to owners and managers sure well at a high level i would say there are really three key benefits for property owners and managers first of all it it provides an opportunity to earn additional revenue by allowing the property managers to offer guests value added services that guests can pay for on the spot right through the platform the second thing is it helps to reduce uh time spent fielding phone calls from from your guests and so you can provide instructions on how to find and use things within the property so for example if you know a guest was trying to use something like the dishwasher or stove which might have some unique aspect to it they can just watch a video on it and versus trying to have someone describe that over the phone um i would say the third thing is it just helps property manage to property managers to deliver a gate great guest experience so if you've ever stayed in a uh traditional bed and breakfast you know that what really makes it special is the personal interaction and inside tips that you get from the host so guest view guide essentially allows property managers to provide a similar experience with curated information and local insights but to leverage technology so they can do it at scale uh this has really been helpful for our customers to ensure that customers have a great stay and it's critical in helping them to get great ratings and get rebookings that's terrific [Music]