Case Study | 360 Blue
360 Blue saves 192 hours a month with sojo
Trailblazing property management company 360 Blue manages over 900 high-end homes across Florida’s Emerald Coast. Its customers have high expectations of a luxury experience from booking to check-out. To deliver this level of service, the company relies on its team to run a seamless operation that prioritizes guests while also looking after revenue.
With many complex tasks involved in running a business of this size, the senior leadership team monitors industry innovation, identifying new tools they can absorb into their tech stack to perform better and lighten the team’s workload.
When they identified sojo, they realized they wouldn’t even need to think about amenities because the entire process is automated from beginning to end. The result? 360 Blue now saves an hour per day talking to suppliers, 48 hours a week making amenity kits for properties, while their cleaners save around 10 minutes at every rental they visit. It’s also removed the requirement for part-time staff during peak season, when amenity logistics was most intensive.
On top of that they noticed a dramatic improvement in turn day efficiencies with inspection times, failed inspections and late check-ins all reduced by between 3% and 5%.
We spoke to Mike Perkins, SVP of Operations at 360 Blue to find out more.
All of our properties are different, so the quantity of these products changes depending on the number of bathrooms, bedrooms and guests staying in the house, making this process surprisingly time consuming.
During the check in and check out process, every property needs to be thoroughly inspected to make sure it meets the expected high-standard and all amenities need to be replenished. This process has to be completed in a timely manner to avoid delayed check-in for guests.
This used to be a long and expensive process. Our in-house teams had to keep track of guest check-in, check-outs and occupancy numbers in all of the properties in real time, communicate with four to five suppliers, order products from each of them and manage the stock. Warehouse teams then had to pick the amenities that corresponded with each property and finally dispatch them with the cleaner before the property was inspected.
Due to the various combinations of products required in the rentals and the potential for mistakes, property checks used to take longer. There would also be a small number that would fail first inspections, resulting in occasional late guest check-ins. We are always striving to get that number down to zero, so any tool that can help us reduce that is always worth considering.
sojo’s Solution
We became aware of sojo’s automated platform and its ability to manage the entire amenities process, and it sounded like the perfect way to streamline our operations. The prospect of taking the time consuming job of ordering, storing and managing amenities, while speeding up turn days by using sojo, was very appealing.
As soon as we started working with the sojo team, it became clear that they would be excellent partners. Their team of specialists began providing our business with insight and perspective, and highlighted processes that could be changed or automated to make our amenities operation simpler.
“Once we realized a significant amount of time and labor could be saved through automation, the aspect of sojo’s solution that was really ground-breaking for us was the company’s integration with our software. ”
Working closely with our tech team, sojo created an API that plugs into our PMS, allowing sojo to access 360 Blue’s booking information for every property. This includes check-in and check-out dates, the number of guests arriving and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The sojo team can then package up the correct amount of product per property and dispatch it to our warehouse automatically.
The pre-packed amenities, which are boxed and allocated to each property, are then delivered to our warehouse before guest check-in, without our staff needing to do anything. This means that properties are turned a lot quicker, resulting in a better experience for our guests.
The whole amenities process is now much simpler and is totally automated. Our ops team only has one point of contact to communicate with and sojo’s software works perfectly alongside our own. We no longer have to think about amenities. The sourcing and organization of the correct product ‘just happens’ and the scope for human error is totally removed.
sojo’s Results
sojo has sped up turn days while saving 360 Blue a huge amount of energy and labor. Hours that used to be spent on what was a relatively easy but time-consuming task can now be dedicated to other more important audit areas such as spot checking linen and having better inventory control.
In addition, we have recently moved to sojo’s add-on service for branded products. Working closely with our marketing and design team, sojo created unique 360 Blue products that look great and match the look, feel and ‘other senses’ that we portray to guests in our properties.
Our team no longer has to communicate with different suppliers, re-order products or order and organize stock. We simply wait for sojo deliveries to arrive and pass the box of products on to the cleaner to take to the property — it couldn’t be easier.
Automating amenities has other added advantages too. Our warehouse isn’t storing products in bulk, so we’ve been able to repurpose some of the space to make our other processes more efficient. We now have more room to pack and prepare linens for our cleaners.
Using one provider, receiving only one delivery, on one van, also benefits the environment by cutting down on emissions, as well as only ordering what is actually required, reducing waste.
Results in numbers
Revolutionized operations with sojo
sojo has transformed our operations. Not only has it spared us a time- consuming and expensive task, our staff are also much happier as they can focus on more meaningful activities. Automation has eradicated human error resulting in almost faultless delivery for guests.
During early talks with sojo, I was optimistic of the results but the reality totally exceeded my expectations. I knew that there was an opportunity to improve our service and save a lot of time and energy but that went a lot further than I thought.
Interested in finding out how much time and money you can save by automating your amenities with sojo?
sojo is an Amenity Automation Platform for Vacation Rentals. With more than 12k units on our integrated platform, we’re able to support property managers and their staff to keep turn days automated and the products a welcome surprise to their guests.
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