Can you tell me a bit about your role and your company?
Hello, I am Angie Schnell, Marketing Manager at Island Realty. I’ve worked my way up from that position to Owner Representative Assistant, Owner Representative, and Revenue and Systems Manager before being named the Marketing Manager in 2019. Island Realty has been in business for over 40 years, and is the oldest family-owned and operated property management company on the Isle of Palms. Currently, we manage about 290 vacation rentals with in-house maintenance, housekeeping, long term rentals, and a reservation call center.
How did Island Realty manage pricing before Beyond Pricing?
In 2014, during my role as Revenue and Systems Manager is when Island Realty really began to dip into revenue management and dynamic pricing. Traditionally we would increase a couple of times a year that we knew had more demand, but it was very basic.
In 2014, all of that changed. We began to look at different KPI’s as well as other information, such as location, to start grouping some of our units together and pulling more data to make pricing decisions. We also began to look not only at seasons and units but at our overall company pacing to make changes based on the entire book of business, in addition to individual unit pricing changes.
Until we started with Beyond Pricing, all of our data collection was done manually pulling various reports from Escapia and then manipulating those reports to be able to analyze the data and make decisions on what changes we needed to make. This was very time consuming and I still had to implement the changes in Escapia.
How did you discover Beyond Pricing?
We looked into Beyond Pricing a couple of years ago but decided at that time we would hold off and continue to manage our pricing the way we always had. Part of our hesitation was that we didn’t know if we’d be able to get enough owners to agree to let us do all of the pricing because owners had always had a say in pricing they wanted for their units, which presented some pricing challenges.
Once we decided to sign up for Beyond Pricing, their team helped provide us with tools to help communicate with our owners and we were amazed to see that the majority of our owners were on board with the change. Beyond Pricing made the transition much easier than expected.
What do you find most useful in Beyond Pricing’s platform?
The important data points I need to make decisions or identify potential pricing issues are displayed in the Beyond Pricing dashboard making it easy for me to quickly access and analyze without having to pull multiple reports. I am able to quickly and easily make customized pricing changes that sync over to Escapia allowing me to bypass setup in Escapia that has some pricing limitations. Beyond Pricing saves me many hours of pricing work every week, which allows me time to focus on other marketing needs while allowing us to continue to build on the revenue management strategy we have built over the last six years.
Do you have any advice for Property Managers in this volatile time?
My advice for property managers, especially during these uncertain times, would be that now more than ever data is key. You can see so much in the data that will help you stay ahead during these changing times if you take the time to utilize it. If you aren’t currently doing any revenue management or looking at your data, I would urge you to start. Even if you start small, it’s a big step towards solidifying your company’s future.
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