Episode 020 – Tech Tools: Comparing Electronic Concierge Pads & Apps

There are some pretty nifty Electronic Tools and Tech Devices out there for your BNB.  Today we are comparing Electronic Concierge Pads and Apps.  What kinds of things can they do and what can they do for your business?  Plus, what do they cost, and what if they get stolen?  We’ll answer these and lots more questions in today’s show.  

Plus, contest details are inside this episode!  Enter to win BIG!!  Go and Grow!

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, this is Michelle, the master of money mindset, and you are listening to.

The BNB dash boss podcast. And in today's episode, we're going to compare electronic concierge apps, pads, and then I'm going to give you a little bonus. I'm so excited because there's a lot of really cool things on here. Some of them, I have tried some of them. I have not been brave enough to try yet, but we're going to check them all out here today.

On this episode, our show today is brought to you by audit. Audible is where you get your audio books online and get a 30 day trial into the audible membership for free. By going to audible trial.com forward slash S T R revenue that's audible trial.com forward slash S T R revenue. You'll get your first audio book for free and 30 days into the audible membership just for trying us out.

You'll love autumn. Right [email protected]. You can find our $7 courses available for you to try out, find out how to cohost, how to do rental arbitrage, or how to invest in real estate. We're all three, by going to B and b-boss.com and clicking on our store. And you'll find our $7 courses right there. Try us out.

You'll love it. You'll love those courses and they're only there for a limited time. So. Also, don't forget our contest. We've got our contest running right now in every week. We're picking up. And everyone's names are going to be put into a drawing at the end for a final prize of an Amazon Dodd with a little clock on it.

And your guests will love that. They'll be able to walk right in, ask Alexa to connect to their account, and there'll be able to play their favorite music, ask for the weather or whatever else they want to ask Alexa to do pretty darn awesome. And I would really greatly. You going to iTunes and leaving me a five star review.

I appreciate it. So please do take a picture of it. Send it over to me at Michelle at BNB dash boss. Let me know that you did and we'll enter you in those drawings. Okay. So we're going to be keen about these techie gadget things that are electronic concierge is they can come on an iPad all by itself and you provide.

To your guests or they can download the app and use it while they are staying at your property. So we're going to talk about the differences between all of those and at the end, I've got a great little bonus for you. Things that will make you as a host really stand out. I mean, there's just so much technology now.

We've got this whole resource page that we're building for you. That is amazing. It will have, uh, so much, so much information. And as I was going through all the new stuff, I was like, wow, this is great. Now this little gadget we've had on our website, short-term rental revenue for about three years. I think it was about three years ago.

I'm not positive. We've had it for at least a few years. And obviously we've got it right on our page. It's one of my favorite little tech things. The company's name is called your welcome and what it is. It's a tablet that you have inside your property. And it has like a little stand. And when people walk in.

They can see right away, it welcomes your guest. It's pretty darn cool, welcoming your guests and they can sign in. And when they sign in, they can do all kinds of things. You can have on there, let's say you have a lease agreement, you need them to sign great. They can put their email address in there, see your grandfathering, their email information.

One of my favorite things, they can see your branding. So let's say you have other properties, they can see all your other properties. So if they got your listing through Airbnb, they're now in your data system, they can see your, a specific properties. You can offer them all kinds of incentives for being a guest with you, you know, 10 stays and get one free or whatever the heck you've got, you know, just to bring them over to your company and let them be introduced to your brand.

One of the greatest things about this is you can make a lot of extra income from here because you can have all these ad-ons inside here. So things like. Having an early check-in late checkout and with a small charge, right in house cleaning while they're there visiting, you can have groceries that you have delivered all your extras can be right in here on this tablet.

Not just that this thing is pretty great too, is that you can have videos so you can have a welcome videos when they come in, you can be standing inside your property and be welcoming them to your property. Say, you know, hi, my name is Michelle. Welcome to my property on the beach, you know, beach side, Bayou and beach side.

Bye. Is an ocean theme property. And then I can just show them around the whole property. I'm standing in the property. I did the video in the property and now I get to walk them around. I can even show them how to use things like the nest thermostat or TV remotes. I can have videos on every single thing.

So when they can't find something, I can make a video for almost everything that's in there and how to use it. I mean, you probably could, if you could think of everything, but it would be right. You're going to get a lot less calls because it's all automated and it's right inside there. And the messaging is inside there too.

Also. What's pretty cool is right when they get in. There's a little rating system that says, okay, how does the place look right now when you walked in? And if it's not five stars, as soon as they walk in, you have an opportunity to fix whatever the heck is wrong. Why is it not five star? When you walked in, what was wrong?

What can you fix? And you can fix it right away before they leave their review at the end so that you can always have a five star review on whatever platform you're using. So I love this service. This service is not that expensive. It's about 20 some dollars a month. It can be as low as 15, depending on the amount of properties you have.

But that little tablet is completely free for you. As long as you're buying into their service. And if somebody steals it or it gets lost, guess what they replace it for free to your welcome is the one who takes care of all this stuff. You can go to our website. BNB dash boss, and you can hit our tools and tech tab.

And that will take you over to the page. I think right now it's still taking you over to the short-term rental revenue.com page, but it's going to take you to a page with all our favorite gadgets on there. Right? You're welcome is right on there. And it'll take you right to their website. I'm clicking it right now and you're welcome.

Dot com is literally the website. We don't get anything for promoting these companies. It's just companies in tech that we really like, hopefully your welcome is going to be one of the tech companies we get on our summit because we're going to have a complete tech day on the cookie cutter summit in may.

And your welcome is one of the companies we reached out to, however they haven't gotten back to us yet. But if you can hear me, you're welcome. Come back to us. We really wouldn't know. To get you to really show us around your tag. We want to see it. We want to see all the things that you know, it can do that.

Maybe we don't know it can do, but it's a cool, cool piece of technology for your short-term rental. Now there is another service quite similar. Okay. They took the same ideas. I don't think they were first. I actually think they were second, but it's called. Hello. So you can go to hello here. I think it's new dot hello here.

Dot com. H E L L O H E R E. And they did the same thing, but what they did was they took and created an app for it on a phone. So all your information, instead of being on this tablet that is there to welcome your guests, they're going to get all that same information. And a lot of those services. I don't know if they've got quite all the services, but they're going to do all of that from an app on the phone.

Now you and I both know what is the difference. I mean, it's just, what if somebody doesn't have a smartphone? What if it's an older couple, especially at our properties in Florida, we get a lot of older couples and some older couples don't have, I mean, they might have an iPhone, but they don't know how to use it, or they don't know how to download the.

That's the problem that we had with Eli locks that were the ones where people had to download the app and then they would just use their phone to open the doors. The challenge that we had with that was some people just don't know how to do that. It's like just give them a four digit code and it's going to be a lot easier because a lot of people aren't tech savvy.

It's really hard for them. And again, Just like I said on previous shows, what if their phone dies when you're traveling? A lot of people forget to bring an extra charger with them. They've been traveling for a long time, their phone dies and then what happens? So I like having a tablet right there waiting for them because as soon as they come in, they can see it.

It welcomes them and it's sitting in its little charging station. Anyway, they don't have to worry about their phone doing all of it. And what if they don't sign in? A lot of people are like, eh, I'll do that later. I'll do that later. But what's really cool is when it's there to meet them, they're going to pick it up and start playing with it.

They just do. It's like. Little things on a table when you go to olive garden or something, you know, the kids start playing with that little digital device, like right away and going, can we go, please spend the $2 so that we can play a game or something. Everybody wants to do it. So. I think there's a big difference between having NAB.

I know. Hello. There probably likes the app, obviously because that's their company and that's what their company did, but I liked the tablet. I think the tablet is a lot more user-friendly it's right there in front of them. You don't have to worry about them signing into it. You don't have to worry about their phone dying.

You don't have to worry about any technology that they can't do. It's right there. Super easy to use and ready to go. And if you guys keep hearing like little things, turning and spinning, I'm going to give you, I'll give you a treat. I'll post some pictures on my Facebook page. BNB dash boss, Facebook page of my puppy.

I had this beautiful, my Dakota girl. She passed away a year ago and she was the last of my golden retrievers. I used to raise golden retrievers. Gosh, it's so hard to talk about your dog when you love your dogs. Right. Um, but she got cancer. She passed away. And before she did my husband and my son had picked up this little.

Uh, Australian shepherd named Oreo and Oreo has just turned into the sweetest dog. She's now four. And when my Dakota passed away last year, but when she did, I decided instead of going with my cause I've always had golden retrievers and we've raised them even raised pups and had puppies, you know, when we had our acreage and everything back against the mountain.

I went with an Australian shepherd. So I had a friend who knew a breeder and they had gotten their dog through her. So. No, I'm waiting for this dog, this particular dog, and this is what I'm envisioning. And so waited a year and he's here. His name is Jackson, and he's the most adorable thing. And he's playing with my Oreo right now under my feet.

Just makes your heart swell up. I remember when I was pregnant with my second child, Nicole was my. She was about two or three years old when we got pregnant with Steven and I was scared to death of being a mom of two, because I loved my daughter so much that I literally was afraid of not loving my next child as much as I loved my first.

I know that sounds stupid or it sounds crazy, but it has a mom. I remember being really worried. That I would never be able to love this second child as much as I loved Nicole. I just loved her so much. And it was really funny because when Steven was born, we had a lot of challenges in the delivery room and, and the rest of my children I had at home because of all the challenges.

I know that sounds weird, but you can score me later when Steven was born and they finally laid him on my chest. His face was black and blue, uh, because they had induced labor and the contraction just pushed him right into a bone and he bruised his little face and stuff. So when he was born, they sent him on my chest and here's this bruise little face.

And I remember just crying, looking at him, thinking, what did they do to you? You poor thing. And then I looked in his little eyes and I said, oh, I do love you. And it was, you know, like the Grinch, my husband always says, oh, it's like the Grinch's heart grew 10 sizes bigger that day. It was like, there was so much more room for love in your heart.

So your heart does grow so that you love your children just as much. There's plenty of love to go around. So that was a good news. Same thing with this pop. I never thought I could love another dog. Like I love Dakota. And she was just so loyal and so good. And then Oreo came and I just was afraid that Oreo was going to be so lonely.

We had never had just one dog for a long time. I think since my very first dog and I love how dogs play together and laid together and just, you know, they've got somebody there does another dog with them, you know, so if you go out, they're not alone. So I want an Oreo to have somebody. And so we. Little Jack's here, guys.

He looks like a little baby white tiger with blue eyes. I'm not kidding. He's so adorable. He's what they call a blue Merrill and he's got jeez by color. So he's just black and white. And just adorable as all get out. So, so I'll post some pictures for you and if you hear him down below my legs, please forgive me.

He's just chewing the heck out of my feet and my arms. I look like I've been attacked. It's like terrible because I keep wearing sweaters and stuff and he just bites. Right. But anyways, he's adorable. Love him already. My heart grew again. So I'm the Grinch again, where my heart just grew. All these sites.

But let's move on to the next item. So the next company is very similar. It's called touch stay. So again, it's using an app, it's going to use their phone. It can do all the same things. Schedule emails, you know, it has multiple language translations and stuff. It's going to do pretty much what the others do.

The one thing I do like about it. Is that even though it's an app and it doesn't have the tablet, like I said, I really love having the tablet, but even though this one doesn't, this one has, um, some kind of progressive web technology, progressive web app technology that they talk about, meaning it works offline.

That's a challenge in a lot of places before your guests get there. Or if something is up with the internet in the area and nobody can get the internet, this is going to plug into certain areas at one time, and then it's going to hold that information so that it can work offline. So no reception, no problem.

Look at all of these. These are three similar products. They have three similar things, but two of them use apps and the cell phones of your gas, and one of them uses a tablet. I know you think that that's crazy, but the tablet is a better deal for me. It just really is. And especially because even if it gets lost or stolen, they replace it for you.

They've got insurance that covers that stuff and you're still paying the same. You're not going to have to pay anything extra. So it's really no skin off your back. And it's right there. People will play with it just like they do. Like I said, when you're sitting at the, at the tables, when you go to one of those restaurants with your kids and your grandkids.

So these are three similar products what's really cool is they will help you make extra money too. That's what I want you to think about because you're offering all these extra services for a slight. And most guests will opt into things when they're playing with it. I mean, they will like that. They will go, you know what?

This is really kind of cool. I don't know if you've ever been on a cruise. I was at one time when I was very young, I was the cruise specialist of a travel agency in Chicago, and we used to travel and do cruises all the time. And we were a princess plus agency. So I would do these princess cruises. The cool thing about cruises.

I still love cruising guys. I got to admit it's my guilty pleasure, love, love cruising. And one of my favorite cruise lines to cruise on is Disney. I'm a huge Disney fan. Obviously having all the properties down in Orlando, close to Disney and universal. I love universal. I love Disney and Disney cruises are to me.

Probably the most fun cruises that you can go on. They have so many things to do for the entire family and really cool technology as a matter of. In a couple of days, I'm leaving and going to Hawaii and we're staying at the Alani again, which is a Disney property because they have so many fun things to do.

I mean, if you're going to have to be stuck on Oahu, not my favorite idea. But if you're going to have to be stuck in Hawaii on Oahu might as well be stuck at a Disney property. That's what I say. Plus the monkey pod is right across the street from them and they have the most amazing garlic, truffle fries.

So love going to Disney and their cruise ships have this same technology. They use this before you arrive to the cruise and while you're on the cruise and I'll tell you. They bumped their sales so dramatically because before you arrive on your crews, they have you plug into this portal and we're going to show you all the different things there are to do in the area.

You can go on this excursion or this excursion, you can add bottles of wine packages. You can add, you know, snorkeling gear. When you go to their out island, you can rent bicycles there, or you can rent their little cabana. There's so many little ad-ons that you can do and you end up spending a ton of time and money on these things.

I know it's amazing, but there have been times where we've gone on that cruise. We were checking out one time. The guy was like, you know, you pay for a cruise before you get there, all your food and all your entertainment and blah, blah, blah. I mean, very few things are going to be on there and I'm not a drinker.

So I don't have to worry about my bar tab, getting really big, you know, I might have one or two drinks the whole entire time I'm on a ship. Same thing with my husband, not a big drinker. We got on this ship one time. And when we were getting off, we went to pay our tab and they were like, oh, it's, you know, $2,800.

We were like, what, what do you mean thousand $800? Is that what you're telling me? It turned out, you know, We had taken our kids with us and they hadn't gone on the little thing and added this on and added that on. And they all had fun. I was like, I hope you all had fun because you added about $3,000 to this trip that we did not think was going to be on there.

So it can be a dangerous thing for them. But imagine if you're. And that's what these would be like. You would be the Disney part of this going coaching, coaching. The kids are ordering all this stuff and you are responsible for it. So I go, yes, you can make a lot of money. And especially with these excursions, I had said on another podcast and you know what, I'm going to probably put that on.

Here for a short term rental revenue. We had talked about adding on all these little extras that you could go around to different tour companies, especially if you're in an area like Florida, where you've got a lot of different attractions doing things like say you're up in Wisconsin, Dells or someplace like that, where there's a lot of different excursions going on.

You can get a little kickback, just like a travel agency. You can even form a travel agency company. Have that company be under the umbrella of your BNB LLC. And that little company can work with all these little guide companies and make money. So if your BNB company can't your travel company, can, I mean, there's a lot of money to be made in this.

I mean, just think of it's 10%. Commission on a lot of these activities, some of these activities, especially when you have big families, that can be quite a lot of money. We made quite a living back in the day as travel agents, making 10% commission on travel. And we did pretty darn good. I got to tell you before everybody started getting their own home computers.

So this is great technology. Let's look at something else. Now, this company is technology goes along with that. Exactly. Okay. This company has called once they're O N C E T H E R E once they're, once they get there kind of thing, once they're dot com and once they're handles all these different destination activities for your guests and they give you commissions.

It's a great way to earn income and guests who have a lot of activities. What, when they go someplace, they tend to leave you a higher review. They're like, oh my gosh, I was able to book these activities. Here's what we got to do. We had so much fun when we were there. We never would have known that this activity even existed while we were there.

I mean, it's so cool. So let's say you're in Hilo and they've got the swimming with the stingrays at night. A lot of people don't even realize that people do that, that they go swimming with finger raise at night and they take you in these scuba gear and they drop you down in the dark, down, down, down into the depths of the ocean, and then they light these glow sticks and you look up and there's these giant manta rays swimming above you.

It's the most surreal thing you can explain. I never did it. I, I, I would let a motto in those guys. The brave people, I think can do those things because I'm like, if it's bigger than me and in the ocean, I don't want to be there. Everybody else was going on and on about it. But most people don't even realize that these experiences exist.

When you stay on an island or you go to the beach or you go to a city like Orlando or any place, right. When you go there. Most people know about the thing that it's known for. Right. So let's say you were going to Scottsdale. Oh, they've got that air balloon thing. They've got the golf thing. They've got the car show, you know?

I mean, those are the activities that they're known for and what time of year let's say you're going down to Tucson. It's going to be the gem show. Let's say, you're going to, if you're going to Texas, you go to south by Southwest. Every little place is known for those things, but what else is there? You would have no idea.

These guys help you find the activities that are in those locations. Now another great service. And this has been around for a while. Almost everybody who has a short-term rental knows about pad lifter, pad lifter. Does everything. Pad lifter has a ton of different types of services. They have services for you as a short-term rental owner, helping you find anything from bookkeeping to cleaners, you know, just how to create your calendars or your guest books, your guide books, everything like that.

And they also have a lot of information about how to provide services that will help you make more money with your guests and make their experience better. They got everything. And when you go on pad lifter and you're a member. You can find a bunch of different services, different service companies that will help you in all those different areas.

So like I said, it's not going to be just one bookkeeper. Let's say you go on there and you want to find a bookkeeper. You'll click on there. And they're going to give you a page of bookkeepers in your area. And while you have to make sure they're in your area, because they actually do different countries as well.

They'll also give you like, not a rating thing, but like a trust factor kind of thing that they have. It's a rating system about how much people trust them. It's really, really good. There's a lot of different services that are on there that you can find that you didn't think of in pad lifter and pad lifter is a great, great resource.

I like pat lifter a lot. So the next service that I'm going to tell you about is something called baby. This is really great for places like Florida or places where people are bringing their entire families. So one big thing that people do in Florida, there's a ton of stroller, rental shops, everywhere, stroller rentals, wheelchair rentals, the electronic chair rentals.

You'll find them. But this service literally provides everything. So if you're just getting started and you don't have the money to buy the cribs and the play sets and the high chairs and all the equipment that people are going to need, I do recommend that you do have those. In a place like Florida, because you're going to get a lot of families and it's just really good to have them, but they are expensive.

You have to keep them up and they are recalled constantly. You never want to buy baby equipment at like a secondhand shop or something. Baby equipment is recalled all the time. It's like the drugs you see on TV. It's like, you know, 10 years down the line, they're going to be recalling something because if they found out it was dangerous, same thing.

Car seats are recalled all the time. Strollers. Baby playpens all the time. So you don't want to have anything in your rental that has been recalled, then you're putting your guests in danger. So you have to buy the new stuff. You have to make sure it's safe. And before you have the money to do that, this is a great alternative for you, baby Quip.

You can put this on your site and anyone can go on there and do it themselves. Or you can do it for your. They'll probably message you and say, do you have a crib or do you have a stroller? And you say, Hey, look, just tell me what you need. I'll make sure it's there. Then you can pass along that charge. You can upcharge it a little bit, or you can just send them the service if you don't want to deal with it.

Obviously it's one of those things that you can do for your guests and make a little bit of money. I recommend that you do. And that you charge for that service. They have no idea where you got it. So this is a great way to make a little extra income just like providing groceries or something else.

You're going to make a little bit of extra income and provide a really great service for your guests, with babies. Okay. So those are a few of the really cool techie items that we have techie websites that will help you serve as your guest. In a much better way and bring you in a little bit of extra income.

I think you'll really enjoy them. And I'm not just naming pad lifter because we were one of their top short-term rentals and vacation rental blogs. I'm not just naming them because of that. They are really a great service and they really do provide you with a lot of different options in there. Okay. I don't want to overwhelm you with a bunch of different techie stuff.

So I'm going to give you a few every day. So these were the ones that will provide services for your guests and make your guests feel special. Just let them know that you provided that extra touch, that extra service. Why I liked them tomorrow. I want to go over some more of these because there's some really good.

Techie stuff. And we're going to have a whole tech day, like I said, on the cookie cutter summit. So we can get some of these guys in to show you what their services do and give you the price points. So you don't have to go shopping all around. You've got one place to go and I'll do my best to put that together for you.

Thanks for listening. And if you do have the opportunity, I would really appreciate you heading over and leaving us a five-star review. And then I can put your name into a drawing for the t-shirt or the Alexa dot. I think they're called dots. I always forget what they're called, but the one with the little clock on it, as long as you take a picture of it and send it over to [email protected].

And I want to thank you again for. Have a great day. God bless you. Stay safe. Go and grow.