We’re proud of our integration with leading property management systems. Our partners use the PointCentral offering to provide a fully integrated solution powering an integrated smart home experience.
We spoke with Claiborne Yarbrough, Director of Sales and Marketing at Barefoot, to find out more about Barefoot’s technology solution, how the integration with PointCentral is helping her clients, and her thoughts on the future of the vacation rental industry.
Please introduce yourself and your role at Barefoot.
My name is Claiborne Yarbrough and I’m the Director of Sales and Marketing at Barefoot. I’ve worked in the vacation rental industry as a housekeeper, inspector, reservationist, marketing professional and now I enjoy consulting with prospects and our clients with the Barefoot solution.
Tell us a bit more about what Barefoot does for your property managers.
Barefoot provides vacation rental managers with a technology partner that provides an affordable, stable, and evolving solution. Our solution includes all the accounting, booking and operational functionality you need to help understand the state of your business. With greater employee efficiency, you can focus on building relationships with your guests, owners, and vendors. Barefoot has a 95% client retention rate for over 20 years in the industry because we focus on consultative relationships with our clients.
We’re extremely proud of our partnership with you. What excites you most about our integration?
I know that our clients that use the PointCentral integration enjoy the benefit of simplified day to day operations. And that is more important than ever with trending high occupancy. Being able to send their guests directly to their rentals as part of a contactless check-in process and being able to expedite the turns means peace of mind for both guests and my clients.
The benefits of smart technology across the vacation rental industry are now widely recognized. Why should property managers be adopting smart tech more now than ever?
Vacation rentals continue to be the best option for folks that want to travel safely. The high volume of bookings mean that property managers must rely on technology to maintain their operations.
By leveraging access control, energy management and other smart home tools through an integration with your property management solution, you’re providing benefits to all audiences – employees, guests, owners and vendors. This is an important investment.
How are your customers using PointCentral products and services in order to be more operationally efficient?
The PointCentral integration means operational efficiencies for our clients in terms of contactless access – whether this be guest check in, vendor access for property management or more efficient turns with housekeeper access.
The past year has brought many challenges to the industry. What has been your biggest challenge, and how have you tackled it?
More than ever, our clients want to work with a partner that is going to be responsive to their changing needs. When COVID hit the industry, we moved quickly to build in functionality that directly addressed the needs of our clients, with easy to set up departure blocks and contactless check-in functionality that included key codes being sent through the PointCentral integration.
We have the flexibility to be agile in our development as we are independently owned and laser focused on client needs.
What advice would you give to property managers and the wider vacation rental community as they navigate the year ahead?
Hang on tight because you are going to be busy! Before COVID, travelers didn’t think of vacation rentals as their first accommodation option. I believe that has changed forever. Also, with consolidation happening in the industry, property managers are going to have to make decisions about whether to work with an all-in-one solution that is being driven by what technology has been acquired, or if it makes more sense to work with independents who can offer best-in-class tailored solutions for their technology stack.
Claiborne Yarbrough is Director of Sales and Marketing at Barefoot.
To find out more about PointCentral’s integration with Barefoot, please visit www.pointcentral.com/vrm/.
