Case Study
Client: ResortQuest

Description

ResortQuest is the nation's leading vacation property management company, and the largest marketer and management company of vacation condos and home rentals in the U.S. and Canada. Collectively, their local offices provide first-class property management services to the owners of nearly 17,000 vacation rental properties every year.

Situation

In May of 2006, ResortQuest of Hilton Head was in search of solutions. With the acquisition of two local vacation rental companies, their client base nearly doubled overnight. Property owners were confused, not knowing who their point of contact was or where to turn with questions or problems.

Retention of these 800 homeowners was a primary concern. To address the concern, ResortQuest assembled of team of eight seasoned Homeowner Representatives. Each representative would be responsible for addressing the needs of a group of property owners, but one question still remained - how to best communicate with 800 homeowners in a consistent and uniform manner.

After meeting with Anderson Interactive, it became clear that the online medium would best serve ResortQuest's need.

Strategy

Scheduled communication from ResortQuest to the property owners was the objective. Knowing that over 90% of these property owners were interested in receiving information electronically, Anderson Interactive developed a system by which property owners could be contacted by their Homeowner Representative via e-mail on a regular basis.

Each Homeowner eNewsletter would be customized with information about the particular property, yet distributed in mass to reduce the time and expense of customizing 800 newsletters.

Humanize the service
Putting a face to ResortQuest's property management service was critical. With this in mind, the e-mail communication system would be developed in such a way that every property owner would receive a monthly e-mail from his or her Homeowner Representative, with a photo of the rep, direct contact information and even a customized greeting. Property owners could simply reply to the e-mail and get in touch with their rep in short-order.

Customize the content
The information contained within the Homeowner eNewsletter would be informative and valuable to the individual property owner. A "Property Report" would be provided to each owner, showing the previous month's property revenue vs. its prior year, and other facts about their property. All information would be dynamically generated from a ResortQuest database, eliminating the need for manual look-up.

Empower the property owner
Not only would property owners receive customized revenue updates, they would also be given easy ways to provide information back to their Homeowner Representative. Within each Homeowner eNewsletter, an "ActionGram" would serve as a call-to-action for the owner, enabling them to sign up for a cleaning service, reminding them of rental agreement contracts that were due, etc. The e-newsletters also gave ResortQuest a medium to promote their own marketing efforts, helping to win the confidence of their new customer base.

Results

Launching in June of 2006, the Homeowner eNewsletter program would prove to be wildly successful. Operating costs were dramatically lowered, as the need to produce a printed newsletter was nearly eliminated. Property owners had a positive reaction to this form of proactive communication, as open and click-through rates skyrocketed. The success of this program did not go unnoticed.

In early 2007, ResortQuest and Anderson Interactive expanded the Homeowner eNewsletter program to an additional nine markets across the east coast, with plans to add eight new west coast markets in the fall.

• Branded and customized e-communication program reaching thousands of property owners in 8 East Coast markets every month
• 66% e-mail open rate to property owners
• Eight new West Coast markets to implement program in 2007