Client Profile

Massanutten Vacation, LLC is the exclusive rental home management firm serving property owners in the Massanutten Resort area. Massanutten Vacation finds interested vacationers, organizes their accommodations on the mountain, and cleans up after they've gone. Their entire advertising outlay is centered around driving people, homeowners and vacationers alike, to their website. Visit Massanutten Vacation online at massanuttenvacation.com.

Massanutten Vacation presented an interesting needs package that we viewed as a challenge to expand the scope of our firm. Below is a short list of the features and functionality Massanutten Vacation required above and beyond an elegant website:

• Search engine optimization / marketing campaign management
• Integrated reservation management (IRM) software
• Visitor visible property calendars populated by the IRM software
• Vendor management software dovetailed with reservations from the IRM
• Gross revenue and tax reports for their bookkeeper

Given the scale of the project, we didn't start with just a website drawing or a basic concept. We looked at all the build requirements, assessed the infrastructure options, and discovered every component that would be needed to provide superior value for Massanutten Vacation. After pouring over the build requirements, we separated the "who and what" each function was managing. With that insight, we designed the data structure to optimize the people management, the property management, and the service management. The common thread being the timing of the interrelated parties. Every component meshes with all the other components to provide the most up-to-date information throughout the system. Once the entire concept was designed, we set to work building each component to detailed specifications.

The integrated reservation manage (IRM) software was the most complex and interdependent of the components, so we began there. The objective of the IRM software was to allow seamless reservation booking while automatically accounting for specified restraints and conditions. Our seamless solution for Massanutten Vacation requires only that the property manager inputs the most pertinent information and data is pulled from the property database, lead management database, and add-on database to fill-out the reservation info -- not a key stroke is wasted. And when the reservation is confirmed, the IRM software populates a vendor database to schedule vendors who are either preparing a house before, or cleaning-up after a renter. Then we went a step further. The IRM software enables additional product up selling with two clicks. Customizable reservation add-ons, including the "VIP" concierges service and ski/snowboard rental packages, from another G6web.com client -- function4sports.com, can be added at the request of a vacationer quickly and easily.

The next challenge was implement a visitor facing calendar for each property listed on the website. The solution was to harness the prospect and reservation data to let people know when a property is either available, pending a reservation, booked, or not available for rent. The calendars work seamlessly with the IRM software. During brainstorming, someone commented on the time delay between a potential renter discovering a property on the website, coordinating the schedules of their loved-ones to pick a vacation date, and finally, confirming the reservation. The solution allows visitors to see which dates have a reservation in process and which dates are completely clear. This has helped cut-down on the back and forth when selecting dates and the disappointment for a potential renter discovering they have to totally rethink their plans.

Once the reservations could be completed, managing the various vendors was next on our list. Our vendor management component takes the reservation data and populates the vendor database. This database is designed to enable each vendor to know exactly when and where they need to make things happen. While being relatively straight-forward, automating task management from an ever changing reservation database presented some small challenges. Each challenge was met with a suitable solution and the results have been extremely positive. And in the same manner we coordinated vendor tasks, we automated reports to expedite the bookkeeping process. Reports detailing the gross rent collected from each reservation, the tax collected from renters, and the amounts paid to each vendor, are available at any point with only a few clicks in the web-based control panel. We worked with the accounting firm that manages the books for Massanutten Vacation to get them exactly what they need in the most efficient way possible. Our seamless coordination of vendors and business services has enable everyone at Massanutten Vacation to focus on vacations!

The final key to this project was to build a website to deploy the IRM software and the components feeding the IRM while allowing visitors to learn about their homes, policies, and services. While major parts of the website were built during the component development, we were still yet to design an elegant face on the website. We accomplished the design while working closely with the owners and manager at Massanutten Vacation. Our vision was to produce an elegant aesthetic scheme with simple, easy-to-use navigation. After the third iteration, we sketched a design that exceeded the expectations of our client and they gave us the green light to launch.