Charging for changes

[Alan Knighting]

Maisy,

I too have just recently renewed my subscription to French Connections for the forthcoming year. I didn’t get a message anything like the one have had. They did tell me that they were working on the site and incorporating some additional features. My amendments for 2005 were very small, mostly updating dates and prices but they were done right away.

I do suspect that French Connections is either a franchised organisation or at least run through local representatives. My contact point is quite local to me, they are nice people to deal with and what small changes I have asked for have been done promptly and without additional charges.

I know other people have different things to say about French Connections but I can only go on my experience. I know it is not a site full of all sorts of features for the property owner but it is very visible through search engines and it does produce the results I am looking for – bookings. For me that’s its sole reason for existing and the sole reason I use it.

There are so many mutually exclusive interests in all of this. The programmer who wants to show off his abilities, the Holiday Rental Company which wants to increase its client base, the Property Owner who wants to increase his/her bookings and the Holidaymaker who wants to find a good holiday for the family. Tell me the name of the site that incorporates it all to everyone’s advantage and I will advertise there. In the meantime I will stay with what works for me, the Property Owner, and for my client, the Holidaymaker.

Alan

[John Borg]

Well, there you have it. It seems that maybe people at sites such as French connections are stopping to listen. This forum is growing in strength everyday, and yes, this thread has shown that people do listen, be they the people who run the site or be they the people who give the sites their custom.
It's not a matter of taking sides on this issue; it's a matter of saying what you have to say, listening, evaluating - then making choices. This is after all what makes the world go round!

[Darren]

There's not one company within a specific industry, be it holiday rentals or travel agents, that are completely perfect - this is why companies need the customers, i.e. in this case owners to provide constructive critism.

You cannot build on your imperfections unless you know about them - this is why this and many other forums are good for discussing issues.

I think this thread has highlighted that whilst one company may be the best thing 'since sliced bread' for another owner the company maybe poor

Darren

[paolo]

French Connections is currently undergoing an expansive programme of development to enable us to include many new and useful features for both property owners like yourself and for holiday makers searching for properties.

Excellent news! I look forward to seeing the improvements.

[tansy]

I'm out of the loop here so this is a tardy reply...but the comments re VRBO being, well, in my mind with that font - ugly - I am getting enquiries - a trickle and some quite odd ones from the States (one lady wants a lift...I think she is looking for a hotel), but one comment caught my eye -

Alan I think it was

One can differentiate between Matabeleland and Mozambique (actually you can’t) but not between Marseille and Montpellier. What use is that when you want to take the family to Marseillan?

and I have to say - bless them the Americans aren't always very hot on their geography...some of them do think that the world is America...so I will wait and see before I comment further - I still maintain though that holiday-rentals.com keep coming up with the goods!

[Darren]

.. and it's the goods that matter tansy

I must be the only person who likes the VRBO.com layout! Yes, there's room for improvement (just like any site!) but you can find what you are looking for quickly, and that is what it is all about.

Darren

[Linda Freese]

Hi Darren

Then I must be the 2nd person that doesn´t like the look of VRBO!!! It´s a pretty uninspiring design. I also only achieved one booking throughout the year and just a handful of enquiries. I think it´s because it´s an American site and most Americans seem to prefer France to Spain........!

Linda

[altyfc]

I've not been on for a few days since posting the original message... and look what happens!

I've skim-read most of it but I would like to pick up on a couple of points you raise, Paolo.

I quite understand if you are a smaller, no-frills outfit, and don't charge very much, that your site wouldn't be fully automated, so you charge for changes.

Our UK self-catering site isn't fully automated because we are small. It isn't fully automated because past experience tells me that the majority of owners are quite bad at editing their details. They mis-spell words, they use poor grammar, and They Insist On Doing Thing Like Start Every Word With A Capital Letter - to name a few. All this reflects badly on the site IMO. I don't think we are dealing with your average property owner on this forum.

But if I were one of your advertisers I'm afraid I too would complain about £30 as a minimum fee. If changing a couple of words or a rate costs that much, what's the hourly rate for whoever is doing the work? It must be several hundred pounds!

That's a rather blinkered view of it all, if you don't mind me saying, Paolo. It isn't just about the employee's time to perform the amendment. There's a much bigger picture to consider. There's the rates I pay for our office. There's the heating of that office (particularly at the moment!). There's the computer I'm working on and there's the internet connection I'm using. There's the interruption to what I was working on at the time of receiving an amendment request. There's those that request amendments and decide not to do them on hearing there's a fee (it all takes time). There's the invoice to do and the payment to chase. Or, if they pay online, there's sometimes the credit card transaction query to deal with because they forgot they authorised the work. What I'm saying is that there's a myriad of other factors and cost involved. In this day and age, I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect anyone to drop what they're doing and do something specifically for you, for a fee of £30. If you call out BT with a fault, and they come out and discover they're not responsible for the fault, it's a £50 charge. I just mention that for the sake of comparison.

Aaron

[paolo]

Aaron,

Something tells me we're not going to agree on this

As Ross from holiday-rentals says elsewhere, his site was praised for the quality of the copy - all provided automatically by owners. He also says they make no changes to that copy unless it is in breach of their regs.

We're coming at this from different angles, I'm an advertiser, you're an advertising site owner, so we're looking for different things. My view of your business is indeed blinkered - it's the punter's prerogative to be blinkered! I'm not interested in your heating bills, because as far as I am concerned I pay all your overheads when I pay my annual fee. If at that time you state that any changes will cost £30 minimum, that’s fair enough.

I think owners should update their ads regularly. There are times of year when you want to be emphasising the benefits of visiting in different seasons. And unless you start out with the perfect rental home, you may be continually adding and improving, or just changing, what you offer in your property. That goes for pics as well as copy.

You say that some people decide not to make changes when they find out it will cost £30 - that’s good for you, but it isn’t actually good for advertisers if they’re left with out-of-date ads.

[Maggiem]

You say that some people decide not to make changes when they find out it will cost £30 - that’s good for you, but it isn’t actually good for advertisers if they’re left with out-of-date ads.

In the long term, it won't be good for the internet site owner either, as their advertisers may not stay with them if they are unhappy with the service they receive.

As an aside, I've been interested to read the rather patronising dismissals of the literary talents of advertisers, particularly from one of the critics who tends to finish sentences with a preposition!

Maggie

[Christine Kenyon]

I've read this discussion with interest and reply as a "non-techie".

I ask two things from any listings site I advertise on:

1. A good level of enquiries - which I will do my utmost to convert.
2. The ability to update some or all of the cottage info myself.

Our cottages are now listed on a number of sites, but we only actually pay for 3 - and the maximum we pay is £80 per year. One site we can update ourselves; the other is only a line entry (and at £10 I'm only really on it for the inward link); the other site generates most of our new bookings and I can update things like availability and the noticeboard and can have 3 changes per year made to the cottage page free of charge. Any other changes or new photos and I pay a nominal fee (£10.00).

The bottom line is that I pay out about £145 per year for listing sites and my cottage is virtually all year round. A pretty good payback!

Cheers

Christine
www.stybarrowcottage.co.uk
www.troutbeckcottage.co.uk

[altyfc]

Aaron,

Something tells me we're not going to agree on this

No, I think you're right... But I'll at least respond to a couple of points...

...I'm not interested in your heating bills, because as far as I am concerned I pay all your overheads when I pay my annual fee.

I don't know why you should make that assumption.

If at that time you state that any changes will cost £30 minimum, that’s fair enough.

It is stated very clearly that our minimum charge time applies to any changes made at a time other than renewal. We don't specify £30 so that our leaflets may last for several years, but as it so happens, this minimum charge hasn't changed for several years now and isn't likely to in the near future.

I guess we'll just have to politely agree to disagree on the issue.

Aaron

[Darren]

Linda, I actually had a typo in there, which I have now edited, it should of read

"I must be the only person who does like the VRBO.com design"

Yes, it could be improved, but in my opinion, from a holidaymakers point of view you can find property quickly, and there's plenty of properties for you to choose from.

VRBO.com are someone to aspire to if your a vacation/rental company, but the problem they will have (like many) is making sure that they have good traffic to warrant the 20,000+ properties - unfortunately, there's going to be people unhappy but I think that's fair to say about most holiday rental companies - it's how the company react's to unhappy owners that is most important in my opinion.

Would you agree?

Darren

[ross]

Darren,

To reply to your comment "it's how the company reacts to unhappy owners that is most important in my opinion", i would have to agree with you on this. holiday-rentals.com has the technology in place to identify properties that are not doing well. When we have identified the properties, our staff will look carefully through the adverts to see if there are any glaring mistakes. Sometimes it can be a minor thing in the copy, it could be the quality of the photos, it could be the advertisers rates compared to other like properties in their area.

There is a multitude of things that make the advertiser unhappy. If the service is good and the booking are not, would you continue to advertise? At holiday-rentals.com we have a duty to our advertisers to try our hardest to generate bookings for our clients as well as service their requests quickly and efficiently.



There is always going to be a few properties that we didn’t work for. It could be the area the property is located, i could be as simple as the property itself.

[Darren]

Hi Ross,

If the service is good and the booking are not, would you continue to advertise?

Simple answer, yes.

My parents own an apartment in Spain, and are not familiar with the internet, so leave me to do the marketing, which so far has being fairly successful, but not as successful as offline marketing.

I've advertised on many rental sites, including my own, and I would have to say that 60% of these companies, were quick to take my money, but not so quick responding to my unhappyness with a lack of enquiries.

It's the pro-active companies which stand out and long term will be the most successful companies.