2 questions about Sykes & yes I know you are not fans!

If you are planning to buy a rental home, or you're thinking about what to do with one you have just acquired, this is the place for any questions about starting out in the rentals business.
Chinadogs
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Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2017 9:26 pm

2 questions about Sykes & yes I know you are not fans!

Post by Chinadogs »

We are giving Sykes a go - I know that there are a lot of detractors here and maybe I'll be joining them in 12 months time but we are giving them a try. You can say 'told you so' in unison when I come back to have a grumble later.

I have 2 questions that I hope someone can help with

I expect that they have rules to prevent you trying to steer interested guests to you directly for a private booking rather through Sykes. However I'm wondering if there is anything to stop me setting up a twitter account, facebook account and a 'brochure' type website that only have links to the Sykes website? I don't want to be passive and just hope the bookings come in, I'd like to do what I can within their rules.

Also looking through holiday cottage photos online from various sites (it's my new obsession) I'm seeing some quite mundane images and others that look to be professional. Do you know if Sykes are agreeable to using photos taken by an outside professional instead of their own in-house photos?
newtimber
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Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
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Post by newtimber »

When I was thinking of going with Sykes, owner bookings were no problem.
But as they advertise in lots of places, there isn't a lot of point as no-one will see your advert.
And as they price cottages "to go", you'll probably get lots of bookings anyway.
I can't see why they would object to your photos.
The best thing to do is to get them round to look at your property and ask them everything you want to know.
zebedee
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Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 2:57 pm
Location: yorkshire dales

Post by zebedee »

If you are going into contract with Sykes, or for that matter any other agency, then you need to read the contract to know if you can do what you are suggesting. (I suppose I am trying to nicely say how would we know if they amend their contract to put any prohibitions in. You would have to be signed up with them to know.)

Or, you could have a conversation with them before you sign up.

It’s a lot of additional effort on your behalf to give them their pound of flesh though. With the right agency, that commission could go to you as an owner booking.
Chinadogs
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2017 9:26 pm

Post by Chinadogs »

Thank you for your helpful replies.

The reason I wanted to make an effort myself is that I can cross-promote the cottage with our other business if I can quickly and easily take them to the cottage page.

If I was to say to my contacts search 'xxxx cottage' on Sykes they'd find that the search facility at the top of the page is really a filtering facility and you can't type in a cottage name or cottage reference code to get to our page. However there is a search box for typing at the bottom of the page but it's really clunky to have to explain where they must go to find this search box.

I could add a link in an email that would take a guest right to the Sykes page but I intend to use printed flyers so I think having our own website address is far easier to use than 'go to Sykes and scroll to the bottom of the page and look in the righthand corner for the search box and type in ref123456'
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greenbarn
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Location: The Westmorland Dales, Cumbria

Post by greenbarn »

Sykes operate on the “sell cheap and pack them in” model, so numerous bookings isn’t a problem; a reasonable profit, excessive wear and tear, and the wrong guests is the problem.
Hence I don’t get why you’d want to set up a website just to route potential direct bookings to Sykes rather than handle them yourself?
If you don’t think Sykes will allow your own bookings, and if they won’t state very clearly in their contract that you can take your own bookings (especially as their contracts are notoriously difficult to get out of), go with an agency that provides the level of service and the relationship you want.
newtimber
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Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
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Post by newtimber »

Chinadogs wrote:Thank you for your helpful replies.

The reason I wanted to make an effort myself is that I can cross-promote the cottage with our other business if I can quickly and easily take them to the cottage page.

If I was to say to my contacts search 'xxxx cottage' on Sykes they'd find that the search facility at the top of the page is really a filtering facility and you can't type in a cottage name or cottage reference code to get to our page. However there is a search box for typing at the bottom of the page but it's really clunky to have to explain where they must go to find this search box.

I could add a link in an email that would take a guest right to the Sykes page but I intend to use printed flyers so I think having our own website address is far easier to use than 'go to Sykes and scroll to the bottom of the page and look in the righthand corner for the search box and type in ref123456'
If you want to do this, then you just need to get a domain name and re-direct it to the Sykes page. That way if the page changes, you just need to alter the re-direct without having to change your printed flyers.
When you want to change from Sykes to book direct, then it's a simple matter of removing the re-direct and taking the bookings yourself.
Sapper
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2013 2:42 pm

Sykes

Post by Sapper »

We have now been with Sykes 4 years , we have had 1 lot of messy guests and have had very little damage to our cottage . Broken cup or glass .99.9% of our guests leave the cottage in good order. I’m sure no matter who you are with , there is the possibility of poor guests , in fact that is obvious from reading these pages.
We have no problems with owner booking and we have no restrictions on this. However we have a great occupancy rate and are more than happy with the guests that Sykes find . We have also put some of our own photos on the site but Sykes will send a professional photographer to take photos which you will then be able to vet . Good luck, Sykes are not all bad .
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