Wow -- this thread really exploded overnight (well, overnight to me here in the US)!
I probably will e-mail FC to ask about those statistics; one other thing I'd like to know is by what fraction FC's number of registered properties has increased. If the French vacation market is down 18% this year, that's certainly significant, but our bookings from FC are down by about 60% this year, and I don't think all of that can be attributed to lower tourism rates and the availability calendar. However, if there are now so many properties on the FC site that each property's exposure is diluted by a particular factor, that could also account for it and it would settle the debate, for me at least, about the reasons for the decreased efficiency of FC this year. I'll post again when I hear a response to my e-mail.
I think it's appropriate for Karen to say (in essence), "if you have a problem with us, please contact us directly about it." As I mentioned, I will take her advice and do just that, although I will also continue to discuss it on the forum as I previously had. I really don't think my (and others') expressions of discontent were libelous; rather, they were honest, occasionally emotional, descriptions of our experiences.
This is a forum where rental owners engage in mature debate and discussion. Sometimes we rant and rave, but the vast majority of the time we are all focused on finding the best ways to market our properties and keep our customers happy. If there is a large body of negative feedback about any given listing site here, the administrators of that site would be smart to take a step back, swallow their pride/expectations, and ask, "is this true? Are we less effective?"
Of course, I think that last paragraph is echoing what Hanorah and Paolo and others have already said -- I just wanted to add my name to that pile!
Cheers, and may the discussion here live on!
What the users Say
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marcus
- Posts: 624
- Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:37 am
- Location: Lot-Garonne / Dordogne borders
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Time to add my piece since this forum has got me all hot under the collar. I wouldn’t have troubled myself usually but don’t like the suggestion that I should speak to FC about my problems rather than this forum, since I have done that on several occasions this year, as below
We have advertised with FrenchConnections for the past 3 years. For 2003 and 2004 they alone filled our gites. For 2005 we have booked some weeks through FC but no bookings or enquiries since Jan 2005. So overall we are pleased – even this year the rent is much higher than the advertising cost. In part this is of course because as weeks get booked they show as not available, hence no enquiries. In part it may be a difficult year for lots of people. And in part I should have put better pictures n FC but I am unwilling to pay every time I want to change a picture or change text, and these are the same pictures that worked for one of the properties at least in earlier years. I would now only choose sites where I can change things freely. Notwithstanding all that, during the last year I have had the following problems with FC:
June 2004 – property removed from site incorrectly because FC made an error in the renewal date for our ad and then decided that as we hadn’t paid they would remove it.
September 2004 – I queried why our property wasn’t shown on ‘Late Availability’ although I had completed the info on FC, told that it was because I hadn’t updated the availability within the last 2 weeks, but don’t think I had ever been told I needed to update every 2 weeks
January 2005 – found that the additional ‘index listing’ I had paid for (so that our 4 bed house came up on a ‘2 bed’ search, because we rent it as a small property outside high season) wasn’t showing.
April 2005 – pointed out to FC that their search no longer included Aquitaine, although I later found it to be a subset of Pyrenees (for those who don’t know Aquitaine it is NOT part of Pyrenees). With my favourite response so far from FC – ‘This has now been addressed and our website will look into the issue shortly for you.’ As I pointed out, it had not been addressed and I did not know what ‘our website will look into the issue shortly for you’ meant anyway. Some kind of fuzzy logic thing perhaps.
Of course I have emails of all this correspondence but I will not bore you with it. But all these problems have been discussed (and in turn resolved) with FC.
The point is, I don’t check all our listings all the time so when I find an error I usually have no idea if it has been there a day or three months. Statistics are all very interesting but it is results that matter. Being top of the charts with Google is good but only if it ends up as cash in the bank. If people find the site through Google but then can’t find properties on the site itself that is no use.
Again I reiterate that we have got bookings from FC this year that exceed our expenditure, and have had good results in previous years, but will not be renewing our ad until we hear more positive feedback from others that things have improved. Oh yes, best be clear, I don’t work for FC or any company related to FC!
We have advertised with FrenchConnections for the past 3 years. For 2003 and 2004 they alone filled our gites. For 2005 we have booked some weeks through FC but no bookings or enquiries since Jan 2005. So overall we are pleased – even this year the rent is much higher than the advertising cost. In part this is of course because as weeks get booked they show as not available, hence no enquiries. In part it may be a difficult year for lots of people. And in part I should have put better pictures n FC but I am unwilling to pay every time I want to change a picture or change text, and these are the same pictures that worked for one of the properties at least in earlier years. I would now only choose sites where I can change things freely. Notwithstanding all that, during the last year I have had the following problems with FC:
June 2004 – property removed from site incorrectly because FC made an error in the renewal date for our ad and then decided that as we hadn’t paid they would remove it.
September 2004 – I queried why our property wasn’t shown on ‘Late Availability’ although I had completed the info on FC, told that it was because I hadn’t updated the availability within the last 2 weeks, but don’t think I had ever been told I needed to update every 2 weeks
January 2005 – found that the additional ‘index listing’ I had paid for (so that our 4 bed house came up on a ‘2 bed’ search, because we rent it as a small property outside high season) wasn’t showing.
April 2005 – pointed out to FC that their search no longer included Aquitaine, although I later found it to be a subset of Pyrenees (for those who don’t know Aquitaine it is NOT part of Pyrenees). With my favourite response so far from FC – ‘This has now been addressed and our website will look into the issue shortly for you.’ As I pointed out, it had not been addressed and I did not know what ‘our website will look into the issue shortly for you’ meant anyway. Some kind of fuzzy logic thing perhaps.
Of course I have emails of all this correspondence but I will not bore you with it. But all these problems have been discussed (and in turn resolved) with FC.
The point is, I don’t check all our listings all the time so when I find an error I usually have no idea if it has been there a day or three months. Statistics are all very interesting but it is results that matter. Being top of the charts with Google is good but only if it ends up as cash in the bank. If people find the site through Google but then can’t find properties on the site itself that is no use.
Again I reiterate that we have got bookings from FC this year that exceed our expenditure, and have had good results in previous years, but will not be renewing our ad until we hear more positive feedback from others that things have improved. Oh yes, best be clear, I don’t work for FC or any company related to FC!
Perish the thought! You can say what you want here. I have edited Karen's post, and others from rental listing site owners and staff, where they stray from answering questions raised about their service, into the realm of self-promotion. Karen posted some customer satisfaction figures which cannot be corroborated and without any context are largely meaningless.Stu & Syb wrote:Apologies Paulo if this seems a tad 'harsh' on Karen, please feel free to edit.
The gist of it was - the vast majority of people are happy with French Connections. It's just that none of them are (legitimately) posting on this forum I guess.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Lay My Hat
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Normandy Cow
- Posts: 2687
- Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:14 am
- Location: Normandy
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As I see it, the main problem in my case was that whichever sort option was chosen, my gite always appeared on page 8 or even lower, so people never got as far as even seeing it. On the original site, they used a random sort macro which meant that everyone got their turn at being top of the list at some point.
So, the people whose properties are constantly at the top of the lists are probably very happy with FC, and those of us at the bottom of the pile are obviously not, as no-one ever finds us
(Well, no-one definitely finds me now as I have not renewed).
So, the people whose properties are constantly at the top of the lists are probably very happy with FC, and those of us at the bottom of the pile are obviously not, as no-one ever finds us
(Well, no-one definitely finds me now as I have not renewed).
Paolo,
I've asked Karen to e-mail me those statistics, and I heard back just now. All the stats I got were collected from holiday-makers, though, not from rental owners.
I think it's absolutely possible that the people using the site to find properties are overall at least satisfied with it, but that may not have much bearing on what the owners think. And if they've really had a big increase in traffic and enquiries, then it stands to reason that there will be a happy rental owner for every unhappy one. The question is whether the two samples (happy/unhappy) are anywhere near the same size, and whether they're uniformly distributed, or whether there's a bias somewhere -- e.g. a regional issue or a property size-based issue.
If people are interested in the FC stats, PM me -- but honestly I don't know that they're that helpful from a rental owner's perspective. I don't think FC has done an owner's survey -- please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd participate in that and be very interested in the results.
Edit: Catherine, I think you hit the nail on the head for many properties. The e-mail reply I received from Karen referenced this:
I agree, I miss the completely random display. Since people can sort the results once the initial results do come up, it seems like it would be useful to make the initial search results displayed either in truly random order, or in semi-random order with a bias toward higher priority on properties with up-to-date availability calendars.
I've asked Karen to e-mail me those statistics, and I heard back just now. All the stats I got were collected from holiday-makers, though, not from rental owners.
I think it's absolutely possible that the people using the site to find properties are overall at least satisfied with it, but that may not have much bearing on what the owners think. And if they've really had a big increase in traffic and enquiries, then it stands to reason that there will be a happy rental owner for every unhappy one. The question is whether the two samples (happy/unhappy) are anywhere near the same size, and whether they're uniformly distributed, or whether there's a bias somewhere -- e.g. a regional issue or a property size-based issue.
If people are interested in the FC stats, PM me -- but honestly I don't know that they're that helpful from a rental owner's perspective. I don't think FC has done an owner's survey -- please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd participate in that and be very interested in the results.
Edit: Catherine, I think you hit the nail on the head for many properties. The e-mail reply I received from Karen referenced this:
I just did a search on any property in my region (Burgundy) on FC and confirmed that the default display order for query results is to sort by number of bedrooms first (in ascending order), and then randomly. Our property is on the top of the second page right now because it's a 2-bedroom and appears in the middle of those. So if you're a three-bedroom property, you have no hope of ever appearing on the first page if someone searches for all properties in a region with as many properties (61) as Burgundy.Karen Viney wrote:You also queried your positioning in the indices. The order of display in the indexes is not static. At the moment, properties appear at the top of the list within bedroom size grouping and they are prioritised again when an owner has just updated their availability.
I agree, I miss the completely random display. Since people can sort the results once the initial results do come up, it seems like it would be useful to make the initial search results displayed either in truly random order, or in semi-random order with a bias toward higher priority on properties with up-to-date availability calendars.
Last edited by vrooje on Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Brooke
I am only with FC for the second year and so don't have the track record of bookings to compare 2005 with other years. I do think well done for openly responding to concerns here but this is a forum for property owners and I support the point of view which says we need to discuss issues of concern whatever they are - Paolo does a great job managing the site so I think everyone including listing sites can be assured that issues will be dealt with professionally and courteously here. I do still have availability for this year but not as much as my neighbouring French gite owners with much longer track records than mine. They say no-one is moving this year!! It is a swings and roundabouts kind of business I suppose. I am delighted to have an enquiry from someone recommended by our plumber - even if it doesn't become a booking it means more to me than a recommendation from any listing site. He told them our gites showed very bon goût - good taste. Good old bouche a l'oreille ( literally mouth to ear - word of mouth )!
I think that from a user's perspective the French Connections site is much better. Regions are broken down better, you can see a thumbnail pic before clicking through to a page, and you can check by availability. In other words, in terms of technology it is in line with the best of the listing sites.
The more pressing issue must be whether it is getting found in the search engines like it was before, or better, or worse. If it is not easy to find on page one of Google for your region and accommodation type, it doesn't really matter how wonderful the site is, because few people will find your ad.
As an advertiser I seem to remember being promised extra functionality in the new year (2005) - most importantly the ability to change the text. This was one of the reasons I renewed my advertising but as far as I know that is still not possible six months into the year.
The more pressing issue must be whether it is getting found in the search engines like it was before, or better, or worse. If it is not easy to find on page one of Google for your region and accommodation type, it doesn't really matter how wonderful the site is, because few people will find your ad.
As an advertiser I seem to remember being promised extra functionality in the new year (2005) - most importantly the ability to change the text. This was one of the reasons I renewed my advertising but as far as I know that is still not possible six months into the year.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Lay My Hat
I was also disappointed that the facility to change text was not available,as it was one of the things I thought was promised with the new site. In addition to this, the fact that you have to pay to have photos renewed instead of being able to update them free of charge (a facility many other sites nowoffer) is a disadvantage. If I do a search on Google for the words I think people would look for to find a property like mine, FC is nowhere to be found on the first few pages. I have to say that they have always responded quickly to my (fairly numerous)complaints, but one of their answers - "maybe you need to look at your prices compared to other similar properties in Brittany"was rather offensive - our prices are in no way excessive when compared to other similar gite properties and we have done our homework to make sure this was the case.
Anyway, we are more booked this year than last, but FC came up with only 2 bookings. I have paid out a lot to advertise on other sites, who have all brought in several bookings each, but I have yet to find one site which will do this (as FC did in previous years), so its been an expensive exercise.
I really don't know what to do next year! If I was brave enough I would just rely on my own website which seems to have apretty good Google rating at the moment - and from what my customers say, they found my site direct through an Internet search and not through an advertising site, but I'm not that confident to ditch all the paid advertising!
Anyway, we are more booked this year than last, but FC came up with only 2 bookings. I have paid out a lot to advertise on other sites, who have all brought in several bookings each, but I have yet to find one site which will do this (as FC did in previous years), so its been an expensive exercise.
I really don't know what to do next year! If I was brave enough I would just rely on my own website which seems to have apretty good Google rating at the moment - and from what my customers say, they found my site direct through an Internet search and not through an advertising site, but I'm not that confident to ditch all the paid advertising!
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marcus
- Posts: 624
- Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:37 am
- Location: Lot-Garonne / Dordogne borders
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Dont do it! We are very high in google and Yahoo for almost all local combinations at the moment - gite villereal, gite monflanquin, gite monpazier, gite lot and garonne all first page, but we weren't last month and probably won't be next month. These things change very quickly.
I also suspect people just prefer to book through a 'gite listing' site, for a (false) sense of security it gives them.
Otherwise as I have said elsewhere here we are in the same position, I guess the marketplace of gite sites (and gites?) is just too crowded and we all need to pay up for several sites now.
Hope Im wrong or someone sets up 'the ultimate site' thats good for all of us soon. A 'LayMyHat' subsidiary site perhaps?
I also suspect people just prefer to book through a 'gite listing' site, for a (false) sense of security it gives them.
Otherwise as I have said elsewhere here we are in the same position, I guess the marketplace of gite sites (and gites?) is just too crowded and we all need to pay up for several sites now.
Hope Im wrong or someone sets up 'the ultimate site' thats good for all of us soon. A 'LayMyHat' subsidiary site perhaps?
Wouldn't it be great if we could find a site that worked well for all concerned?Wouldn't that be nice?marcus wrote:Hope Im wrong or someone sets up 'the ultimate site' thats good for all of us soon. A 'LayMyHat' subsidiary site perhaps?
I think the reality for listing sites, and us as owners, is that there are so many of them now that it is very much harder to rank highly than it was a year or so ago. There is no ultimate site, nor is there likely to be. You just have to pay for the advertising you can afford across the best sites for your particular property.
Added to that, once someone does find the site you are listed on, they have an ever-growing number of properties to choose from. It's diminishing returns all round, but that's progress!
Paolo
Lay My Hat
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Yvain
- Posts: 34
- Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:01 pm
- Location: St Fort Sur Gironde & Mortagne Sur Gironde
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FC & VF
I have considerable experience of both. Fact - FC bookings are way down this year - interesting to see that finally they're not denying it. I don't buy the reduction in travel to France.
We were using the VF people for our web design and support but I got so fed up with lack of response that I moved it. The final straw was to speak to them and learn that they were so frazzled they didn't know how they were going to cope and that they "needed a holiday".
Just about to go through the process of working out where we should be advertising using Paolo's guidance (thanks Paolo!) as Chez Nous is even more useless!
Yvain
We were using the VF people for our web design and support but I got so fed up with lack of response that I moved it. The final straw was to speak to them and learn that they were so frazzled they didn't know how they were going to cope and that they "needed a holiday".
Just about to go through the process of working out where we should be advertising using Paolo's guidance (thanks Paolo!) as Chez Nous is even more useless!
Yvain
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Alan Knighting
- Posts: 4120
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- Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France