Manually managing vacation rental properties and hotel rooms can be downright chaotic. Schedules change on a daily basis, as new bookings and unexpected issues constantly arise, and property managers are constantly juggling their cleaning staff, the needs of guests, and the demands of owners.
Built specifically to resolve all the complex issues surrounding the fluid scheduling of cleaning staff, Operto Teams helps property managers, hoteliers, and cleaning companies organize their teams, keep track of billing, and adapt to the ever-changing demands of the vacation industry.
Serial entrepreneur Jill Mason created her vacation rental and hotel management solution after experiencing the scheduling problems that property managers face firsthand. The VP of Operto Teams spoke with us about how the software fills a hole in the industry and gives property managers hours of their lives back.
Firstly, what’s the story behind Operto Teams? How did your idea for the software solution come into being?
Believe it or not, the idea for the software grew out of my own experience. I’m a serial entrepreneur, and there was a moment in time when I was between startups and running my own vacation rental. With everything else I had going on, I kept forgetting to tell the cleaners to clean the hot tub at my Airbnb. I figured I couldn’t be the only person in the vacation rental industry dealing with an issue like this, which got me thinking about if there was a solution to this problem.
I live in a vacation town, so I started to observe different vacation rental managers and cleaning companies, and I came to realize that no, a solution did not yet exist. Through watching these people work and getting to understand the flaws in their processes, I began to think up an answer to this problem that would improve accuracy and decrease stress for vacation rental managers and cleaning companies.
After building the software, I found a product-market fit (the market in this case being vacation rental property managers, cleaning companies, and hot tub companies) and started introducing potential customers to my product. Once these companies saw that it was really solving their problems, helping them track issues, and taking care of things like payroll and billing, I took it to market and brought in a team to further develop the software. This solution evolved into Operto Teams.
Could you dive deeper into the kinds of problems property managers typically face?
In my experience, I have noticed that property managers are incredibly organized, detail-oriented people. However, they’re also stretched very thin. They deal with owners, they deal with guests, and they deal with staff. So they’re constantly being pulled in various directions, and this chaotic stream of communication never ends. As long as there are new bookings, new issues arise.
Plus, there are always unplanned events that can put even the most put-together property managers into a bind: A toilet floods, a storm causes the electricity to go out, a street gets closed, a cleaner can’t make it, you name it. Property managers need to be able to manage their normal, already busy workflow while also juggling the unexpected. And I saw they were constantly dealing with multiple deadlines, and still relying on spreadsheets and wall calendars to do all this.
So while one property needs to be cleaned at 3:00, another one needs maintenance at 3:15, and so on. Time is always moving, and these deadlines are constantly encroaching. They were living in a manual, chaotic world of pain.
OK, so that’s property managers—what about hotels?
When it comes to hotels, their workflow has really shifted, especially since the pandemic. Hotels that used to clean every day on the same schedule now find themselves shifting into more of a vacation rental workflow than a hotel workflow. This means their staffing demands have also shifted, so the software that they’re currently using may not support their current needs.
Another big thing that’s shaking up the industry is the widespread use of smartphones. The number of field service people, cleaners, inspectors, and laundry people who have a smartphone on them at all times has skyrocketed in the last few years. I would have to estimate that at least 9/10 people have constant access to their smartphone.
What this means is that these people no longer have to go into an office to get their schedule for the day, but rather they can get real-time updates on what their workflow should be to best accommodate guests.
So how exactly does Operto Teams solve all these cleaning and maintenance issues?
What Operto Teams does is essentially automate as much of the standard workflow as possible. The great part about it is that it provides a set of very flexible rules that a user can customize to automate the scheduling of standard, repetitive tasks while filling in those unexpected tasks that arise as needed.
So a user can set standard check-out cleanings and routine maintenance while seamlessly scheduling in new tasks that unexpectedly arise without disrupting the workflow. It creates a very visual way of managing the ever-changing workflow in one single place.
Operto Teams is connected to the property manager’s PMS, so when a guest makes a booking online, as soon as that booking comes through to the schedule, Operto Teams then automates all of the subsequent actions, or rules, that follow. Staff get notified, and the manager sees it all in the Master Calendar.
There are all these other solutions, too, for more specific cleaning and maintenance issues. For example, if you have a central laundry room, the software offers linen bag packing reports so you can have your linens ready for your cleaners to pick up and take to their next property. This is a huge advantage for property managers that work with thousands of properties.
Are there any other ways that Operto Teams supports management outside of cleaning and maintenance operations?
Customers can also integrate payroll for cleaning and maintenance staff and connect it with their accounting software through Operto Teams. That way, they know exactly who they are paying and for what, which can be hard to keep track of when you’re a property manager who runs anything from 5 to 5,000 properties.
Plus, Operto Teams allows property managers to track billable items to make sure an owner gets the bill for something they’re responsible for covering. This is a great way for property managers to make sure they aren’t leaving any money on the table. Also, the software integrates with Quickbooks, both online and desktop versions, so managers can sync their billable items. For users not using QuickBooks, CSV exports and Zapier means it integrates with most other accounting systems. So billing is super accurate and fast.
And you mentioned that Operto Teams is also a good solution for cleaning companies as well?
Operto Teams works with a lot of cleaning companies that are integrated with more than one PMS, because they might be cleaning for various property management companies and individual Airbnb owners, plus residential and commercial clients. So it’s an all-in-one scheduling solution for cleaning companies that have requests coming in from various outlets.
Because Operto Teams can integrate with multiple sources of bookings, no matter where a booking or cleaning request comes from, it’s automatically added into the overall workflow.
Are there any knock-on benefits for businesses using your software, aside from being more organized?
It comes down to the basics of running a good business: The more procedures you have in place, the less stressed your workers are. People want to know what’s expected of them and how they can do their job well, so the organization that Operto Teams facilitates keeps staff much happier and more relaxed.
There are also benefits when it comes to guests and owners. The likelihood of a scheduled cleaning falling through the cracks is incredibly low, so guests are having an enjoyable, more memorable experience from the moment they walk through the door.
Staff can report maintenance issues at a property as soon as they find them, and it automates alerts before new check-ins—so issues get addressed before the next guest shows up. It creates a really defined and process-oriented way of taking care of anything that’s going to negatively affect guests—proactively rather than reactively.
Finally, many owners want to know what’s going on at their property: It’s their asset after all. So with Operto Teams, property managers can offer owners access to an Owner Portal for people who want to track activity at their property. Plus, given that Operto Teams keeps guests happier and makes everything run smoother, this translates to more bookings and more profits for owners, which is obviously a crucial upside.
What makes Operto Teams different from the other property management solutions out there?
Actually, as I developed the software, I purposely didn’t look at other solutions, because I didn’t want to be influenced by what everyone else was doing. Rather, I wanted my solution to be fully based on what my customers wanted.
The feedback I’ve gotten from customers is that Operto Teams really streamlines the billing process. But on top of that, it allows owners to have total visibility, which was lacking in the market offering. Some owners want to know about everything that happens on their property, and others don’t want to know about anything. We’ve been able to create a solution that accommodates the whole range of owners.
Plus, I think the big upside to our software is that it can grow with our customers. Many of our customers come to us when they’ve outgrown the solution that’s baked into their PMS. Once they bolt on Operto Teams, they have an extended, more scalable solution.
Could you give an example of a customer whose operations were significantly improved by Operto Teams?
I think one of the best examples of this would be with a long-time customer who adopted the software back in 2017. Before starting with Operto Teams, they maintained and cleaned around 50-60 properties. They were wary about coming onboard 100% at first (I think there’s a lot of fear behind letting go of a manual spreadsheet and calendar), so their plan was to run the software side-by-side with their current system for three months.
After just two weeks, they saw how Operto Teams could catch issues and improve tracking, and after adopting the software they decreased mistakes by something like 90%. All of a sudden they were able to do all of their scheduling at least four weeks out, and if there was a last-minute booking change, they could just make small adjustments to their workflow to keep everything running smoothly.
One of the biggest benefits this customer noted was having a core operations system that allowed them to identify and target issues, which ultimately served them come time to scale their business. The software also allowed them to track overall cleaning time, adjust cleaning rates, and even turn cleaning into a center of profit for them.
Plus, once they realized how they were now able to increase revenue through tracking data and getting a 30,000-foot view of their operations, they decided to enter into full management. So since 2017, they’ve grown from 0 properties of their own to almost 80, and they’re currently the biggest operator in their area. They said they went from “spreadsheet insanity to crisp, professional operations.”
Drawing on your experience developing Operto Teams, is there a universal truth that other entrepreneurs could apply when looking to address a problem through a software solution?
I’d say you should always try to address a problem that you personally are experiencing. So the best place to start is by identifying something you struggle with, because chances are a lot of other people also have that pain point. Then, talk to as many people as you can about your solution, and adapt your product-market fit accordingly.
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