Holiday Lettings - Booking Manager

[greenfrog]

The Booking Manager upgrade seems to have settled down somewhat with HL fixing most of the bugs.

Well, I'd just like to pick up on that and say that NO, the bugs are far worse!

I don't know if anyone has taken a booking recently but I've just had two become nightmares.

The first, I set up a quote for someone who booked via my own site, to take advantage of the lower paypal rates, and followed HL instructions. But the guest couldn't manage to pay. I thought it might be cos they weren't originally HL bookers, but no. (I cancelled quote and sent direct request.)

Then I got a booking through HL - only my second (if they confirm) in a year, another in the very long line of reasons why there is no way in the world I will renew with them.

They initiated payment via the site before I could ask them not to (love keen guests but not just now...). And I couldn't collect payment via Paypal. Paypal told me it was an HL bug. HL is on holidays for Easter since yesterday and no one picked up the phone or responded to emails.

So I decided to "reject" the booking on HL, so I could start again.
Because I'm not actually rejecting the booking, I wrote a personalised message, as prompted, to send to the guest. I discovered it was not sent and this was sent instead:

Hi xx,
I’m sorry, but I’m unable to take this booking. I hope you find somewhere else to stay instead.



My "rejection" did at least cancel the payment order. But I now need to ask them to send me a payment directly, and understandably they are concerned that they are being asked to pay twice.

Frankly, this is totally unacceptable and I have no idea how HL can conduct business in this way.
I'm now very happy that I will not have to deal with HL again once my listing expires in coming weeks. They have taken up so much of my time, and caused me so much stress, and for one booking in a year??

I'm done with them.

[Essar]

Alvaro & nijntje
My original post still stands. You can blame HL for using a worldwide email system that is inherently flawed. You can't blame them for which email provider the enquirers use or that it puts their messages into the recipients' spam or junk folder. It's the nature of the beast.
The real solution to this problem is not to use the HL (or HA) systems for sending responses to recipients, go directly. Yes, it involves more work because HL make it difficult to circumvent their system - if you're not getting the enquiries or bookings through HL, then dump them.
I use both the HL Booking Manager & HA Reservation Manager for simply receiving enquiries - I never send responses or quotations using these systems. I retrieve the recipients' information from the record and deal with it using my own system, as do many others on this forum including the PIMS users. I will accept payments and allow on-line quotations but will never use the messaging systems because they are unreliable; HL can improve their software (although, their history doesn't confirm this) but that does not and will never solve the spam/junk email problem.

greenfrog
The post you refer to is dated the 19th February, I agree things have changed since then, however, my post was about the latest changes made between the 15th/22nd March.
HL's software is not-fit-for-purpose; the front-end gives the impression that everything is working fine, but the back-end processes are the ones that are bug-ridden. The fact that messages don't get passed on or are delayed when in essence they should be time critical means that the servers and communications at HQ are not up to the job. Back-end processing takes time when you're dealing with thousands and thousands of messages, throwing hardware at it will solve the problem and fixing the software will ensure messages are not lost. The same applies to communications, upgrading hardware for higher capacities will eventually solve the slowness of communication. With the subscriptions and commission levels that HL receive there is no excuse for this.

[Alvaro]

Alvaro & nijntje
My original post still stands. You can blame HL for using a worldwide email system that is inherently flawed. You can't blame them for which email provider the enquirers use or that it puts their messages into the recipients' spam or junk folder. It's the nature of the beast.
The real solution to this problem is not to use the HL (or HA) systems for sending responses to recipients, go directly. Yes, it involves more work because HL make it difficult to circumvent their system - if you're not getting the enquiries or bookings through HL, then dump them.
I use both the HL Booking Manager & HA Reservation Manager for simply receiving enquiries - I never send responses or quotations using these systems. I retrieve the recipients' information from the record and deal with it using my own system, as do many others on this forum including the PIMS users. I will accept payments and allow on-line quotations but will never use the messaging systems because they are unreliable; HL can improve their software (although, their history doesn't confirm this) but that does not and will never solve the spam/junk email problem.

greenfrog
The post you refer to is dated the 19th February, I agree things have changed since then, however, my post was about the latest changes made between the 15th/22nd March.
HL's software is not-fit-for-purpose; the front-end gives the impression that everything is working fine, but the back-end processes are the ones that are bug-ridden. The fact that messages don't get passed on or are delayed when in essence they should be time critical means that the servers and communications at HQ are not up to the job. Back-end processing takes time when you're dealing with thousands and thousands of messages, throwing hardware at it will solve the problem and fixing the software will ensure messages are not lost. The same applies to communications, upgrading hardware for higher capacities will eventually solve the slowness of communication. With the subscriptions and commission levels that HL receive there is no excuse for this.

Can´t be done with the commission based listing.

[pepsipuss]

Question for Essar from technoprat: is the back-end problem one of the reasons that they 'lose' reviews?

[Essar]

Alvaro
Yes your quite correct, the commission based system is an "enclosed" environment, almost exactly the same as eBay's business model. HL's Booking Manager is the same software base regardless of whether it's a subscription or commission account set up. If you chose the commission based route because it provides the enquiries and bookings for you and you are happy with the alleged illegality of the terms and conditions, and you can live with HL keeping your money until after the guest is ensconced then you do have software problems that do not seem to be getting fixed. The spam/junk problem is the nature of the beast and HL cannot really do a great deal about it until the email daemons recognise that HL domains are legitimate (as they have always done with eBay), this could be as simple as a time lapse for them to "learn" about HL; HL should ensure that the big email providers recognise their messaging properly, we can all then be assured that our HL communications will not go into these folders. eBay started their auctions software with a prime communications hub as the core of their overall system - HL have adapted existing systems to do the same; hence all the grief we are experiencing. eBay built the base hardware of servers and communications equipment to the size needed for such a mammoth undertaking; HL are having to upsize their hardware to cope with the quantities that they seem to be swamped with.

Pepsipuss
The back-end systems - a simple process triggered by your own actions or an automated control that is initiated either outside of or inside the core software. In the case of reviews this is straightforward in the concept but complex in the execution - when a guest enters a review via HL or FK then a process within these systems will log-in to the remote TA servers and initiate a transfer of the review file to the TA records for your property. This is exactly the same process as a guest entering the review via a screen on the TA system directly. The TA system then executes a series of programs that authenticate the review using their control algorithms, communicate with the guest and eventually accept or reject it. It is probably these processes that lose the reviews because of either time restriction expiration or through rejection for some obscure reason. HL and FK only show the reviews from within the TA system as a remote access point - you will be aware of this when you go into the reviews page and the little blue box at the bottom tells you it is logging into TA - the subsequent display and user interaction takes place directly with the TA system through a communications gateway, the HL and FK systems merely act as "windows" in this process.
Basically, it's TAs fault they get lost.

[Richy]

Just a note of warning to anyone on here. If you were using the manual quote method within the booking manager, (not using it just responding to enquirers directly via email)
HL lettings switched over my account to accept booking request and online payments. Go into your account and switch it back again. No warning Not acceptable HL.

[greenfrog]

I will say one thing about HL, they have a good team of very patient customer service people who do follow up (even if not immediately).

However, they don't seem to have a lot of power because other than noting complaints and sympathising, they seem unable to offer free listing extensions or other deals which would help ease the pain of the shockingly bad website service.

[Essar]

Richy
I have just checked my account settings and it is the same as I previously set it.
If HL are still updating their systems - the notice is still on the systems (15th to 22nd March) - then they could be making mistakes and changing data for certain accounts, however, if this is the case for such a fundamental setting then they need informing immediately.

[snoozeboy]

I will say one thing about HL, they have a good team of very patient customer service people who do follow up (even if not immediately).

This is not my experience of them at all. HL is without doubt the worst customer service I have experienced, not just of listing sites, but of any company that I can remember that's still in business.

All I needed was a RAUS code to sync my calendar (PIMS) with them...

I called their customer service line. The recorded message asked me to leave my contact details for a callback. After no response, I did the same thing again, several days later. Again, no callback.

A couple of weeks later, I call again and get through to someone, who will send me the RAUS code in 10 mins. Two weeks later, I receive an email from the famous Jessica, who sends me a web URL to embed the HL calendar in my site, which is not what I was asking. I reply and ask for the RAUS code again. That was 3 days ago. No response yet and I'm not holding my breath. Yes, I have checked my spam folder.

All this, plus the fact that HL emails go to my spam folder and I would guess also to those of enquirers, rendering their commission system a frustrating waste of everyone's time. Whilst I understand Essar's argument that the spam problem is a feature of everyone's email system and not in HL's power to solve, it's a fundamental flaw in the system that I haven't experienced with any other listings site (Homelidays, Airbnb etc.)

It won't be long before I'll be cancelling my HL listing, for the second time, having cancelled a subscription listing following a useless free trial.

SB

[greenfrog]

I called their customer service line. The recorded message asked me to leave my contact details for a callback. After no response, I did the same thing again, several days later. Again, no callback.
SB

Actually, yes, that's true for phone calls. I have never managed to find a human at the end of the phone when I have called, unless by previous appointment. I was referring to the ones who've e-mailed me and then followed up with a call. Cause some of them are sweet and seem helpful. (but, as I said, can't actually DO anything...)

After my final phone call today, from someone sweet and helpful, he asked what else he could do for me and I replied that unless he could offer me a free month's extension, I was gone, I got an email from someone else saying "according to your request" I'm gone.... Didn't even try to dissuade me. (I hasten to point out that my listing expired this weekend.)

If I were running any kind of service industry that had provoked the same level of anger and clear dissatisfaction with service, I would have immediately offered to make amends with an extension, highlighted feature, whatever. HL has, in a year of completely legitimate complaints from me about serious problems, given me an extension of 1 free day. And a spotlight offer. This in return for having been offline, misadvertised, messed around...

I am hard pressed to find a comparison to the truly awful service they've provided.

I made it clear to them that I know other people in the industry - not as any kind of threat or leverage, just info re we're all unhappy - but clearly nothing makes any difference to them. They do not understand the basic notion of customer service. And I choose to no longer be a customer. And I will have no compunction whatsoever about sharing my feelings about them.

[Essar]

Greenfrog
This is just a notion I have; but have you thought that this could be a deliberate ploy on behalf of HL not to encourage subscription owners to renew. By not pressing too closely those owners who have had problems and do not have automatic renewal enabled they can then, in a few weeks, invite you to take up the commission based listing. Therefore moving owners over from subscription to commission an awful lot quicker.
Just a notion but the consistently unhelpful (so it seems), but ever so friendly customer services, maybe deliberately just going along with the us to maintain the aura of trying to assist.
I think most owners who have not had the level of enquiries through HL recently, having not renewed their subscription, would be fairly happy to take up the commission system - if only for the shoulder weeks when all the peak periods have gone.

Or it could be that they are playing hardball and just want the owners who don't cause them grief - like agencies. After all with 95,000 properties what does it matter if your lose a few dozen owners who give you earache.

[greenfrog]

Greenfrog
This is just a notion I have; but have you thought that this could be a deliberate ploy on behalf of HL not to encourage subscription owners to renew.

Oh, I really don't think so.
That would imply a level of competence they have yet to display.

[Essar]

Greenfrog
They though you'd think that, or did they? Then again, they could have and hoped you wouldn't notice the double bluff!

[pepsipuss]

Or it could be that they are playing hardball and just want the owners who don't cause them grief - like agencies. After all with 95,000 properties what does it matter if your lose a few dozen owners who give you earache.

Wouldn't be a bit surprised - one particularly frustrating session with a 'Customer Service' person ended with a promise to make a note on my account about how unhappy I was

[DaveN]

At the risk of fanning the flames...

Although I don't list with HL, I received a sales call from them yesterday, suggesting I sign-up for the commission model.
I told the chap that I am hearing far too much negative stuff about Booking Manager, mails going to spam etc, and he told me about last night's major IT upgrade.

I also explained the other two things that would stop me from signing-up - namely retention of funds and T&Cs.
For the former, he couldn't tell me where the money is held (and what would happen if the company went bust), not what the dispute resolution service would be if the customer checked in and wasn't happy. He did suggest that this would be handled by Customer Services - which made me chuckle a bit given the amount of work they have at the moment placating paying owners. He couldn't explain what criteria would be used for arbitration, and suggested that this has not yet been put to the test.
For the T&Cs (i.e. imposed by HL, with no scope for manoeuvre by owners), he said that this was a common feedback theme from other owners, and would be kept under review.

I'm just a bit bemused that, with all the current problems to solve, resources are being used get more customers on board, rather than addressing the issues. It also struck me that I had heard about last night's upgrade (albeit in passing) while paying customers had to find out for themselves.

I'll be sitting on the sidelines for a while yet by the look of it...