Sample inquiry emails for property owners

Subject: You received an inquiry on Riobeachrentals.com

Howdy!

You received an inquiry about your property: #200A – 2 Bedroom Duplex Penthouse with Pool

Message Details

Name: Chad Hutchins
Email: cjutchins@gmail.com
Phone: 888 888 8888

Arrival: 11/17/2011
Departure: 11/24/2011

Number of Guests: 1

Click here to log in to view your Admin Panel.

Cheers,
The WebChalet Team

Visit us at http://www.webchalet.com/
Follow us at http://twitter.com/webchalet
Email us at support@webchalet.com
Check out our online help desk

—————————-
Key elements:
Subject: include the website the inquiry is coming from as owners list their properties on a variety of websites.
Content:
-Name and link to the property that has been inquired on
-Users name, email, phone number to contact them back.
-Dates interested
-Number of guest are good to show too.

Other important things:
Owners like to be able to hi “reply” to inquiry emails, so the system should be set up to make the “from” email the entered email in the inquire box.

Few cool sites of note

Sony introduced me to: app.net last week, this should have some legs. Smart way for app’s to have their own web presence outside of app stores. I’m intrigued because this is similar to our single vacation home theme websites.
-I’m partial as I have a stake in surfbreakrentals.com, but it’s a niche vacation rental directory built for surfers. All the surfbreaks are indexed around the world, then beach vacation rentals get associated to them.
–Tourwrist.com – really cool solution for vacation owners that want to provide 3d tours. It’s an iphone app, they host the video, they offer awesome embed script for you sites.

more to come…

Vrconnection directory payment page

Each week every company seems to be changing their payment pages. I’m going to start keeping track of the different options out there to determine best model…
Here’s vrconnection.com directory payment page: view page

Usability testing – usertesting.com

This is really smart, will be keeping this one in my notes for future use. http://www.usertesting.com/

Google+ promoting Black Eyed Peas on Homepage

Special shout out and congrats to Robinhood.org who have worked in partnership with Black Eyed Peas and Google+… they are promoting their benefit concert in NYC central park on the HOMEPAGE of Google worldwide. Concert is tonight (Sept. 30th, 7pm) in central park, here’s the google+ page.

How to work remotely in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

I’ve actually been working really long hours and haven’t had time to write up much. So here’s some quick notes:
-Skype: everyday I’m amazed by skype and the same goes for everyone that is still discovery this service. For team meetings/conference calls it’s works fantastically. I love how within one click I can also go to video which offers a friendly face and reduces home sickness.
-415 phone numbers: once again skype has offered a fantastic soluiton, I signed up for the “online phone number“which cost $18 for 3 months. I give that number out to friends, family and clients and when they ring 1 415 670 9444 it calls my computer/skype. There’s voicemail too.
-FREE calls to the U.S.: unbelievable, google voice has come through big time. You see that “Call Phone” link in your live chat section:

If you set up a google voice account for free you can call the U.S. for FREE! It’s crazy and it totally works. Call quality is actually better than my Att Iphone in San Francisco.
-Internet connection: great connection in the apartment here.
-Productivity: I’ve really enjoyed being 4 hours ahead and getting work done before anyone is up. It’s made for long days as I usually work in the morning here, then do San Francisco hours, then most people work their side projects when get home…so, 14 hour days have been common. BUT, it’s partially why I am here in Rio. To focus on work and physical therapy…with surfing in between.
-Cafe’s to work from: I have yet to find and cafe’s that offer internet. Actually, I haven’t even seen someone working on a laptop yet in public (I’ve been all over the city too).
-Mobile phones: this is amazing…Rio is way behind the times when it comes to technology. You see very few people on cell phones in public and don’t even bother selling your mobile business models here. Smart phones are even more scarce.
-Shared office space: I haven’t found any shared work spaces in Rio De Janeiro yet. Please send along any that you may know of.

More to come…Erik

Product Dev. tool: Balsamiq for wireframes

I was introduce to balsamiq recently, great tool for wireframing.

Rio De Janeiro – My Initial Impressions

Botafogo Apartment View

Brazil has been all over the news lately ny times the economist, so I packed up my life in San Francisco, lined up a 3 month apartment swap with one of my many Brazilian start up friends at Rocket Space, San Francisco and booked a flight to Rio De Janeiro.

I’ll be keeping notes from what I see here. So far, my snap judgement is that there’s a lot more hype than what is really happening here. I think the news media is once again pushing hard for a story.
Observations:
General infrastructure: with the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics coming to town I was expecting to see construction everywhere.
-Airport, they haven’t touched anything yet
-One bridge: only visible construction going on is a bridge (small) offering a more direct route to airport.
-Metro/Subway: nothing being done.
-Language: there isn’t a lick of english or any other language displayed through out city. Subway, buses, signs etc.
-No construction cranes on the horizon

City:
Having traveled to 30+ countries, I can say that Rio is odd to me…I know that Brazil is a developing nation, but I was expecting more out of Rio in terms of infrastructure and modernization. It reminds me of Cuba in a way that it feels as though nothing has been done to upgrade the city since it was originally built. Like I said, there are NO cranes to be seen on the horizon, the largest construction project from what I’vee seen so far is the renovation of the 1922 Hotel Gloria by Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista. I’ve only been here for 4 days so I cannot really comment, all I can say is that my initial impressions of Rio so far is not what I was expecting. In regards to a technology boom, I don’t see a country on the verge of competing with the likes of Silicon Valley and San Francisco. I can see why so many Brazilians have flocked to the bay area to pursue their start up dreams.

Further observations: I took the subway to downtown on my second day and only one person on was using a phone on the train. Most people were reading newspapers if anything. It made me laugh as I felt like I had gone back in time to BART circa 1998.  I’m living in a very nice, non tourist area of Botafogo and so far not a lick of english has been heard on my end.  “Fala ingles” get’s a resounding “No”, surprises me that very little english is spoken here.   Luckily my spanish carries over pretty well and I’ve signed up for private portuguese lessons.

When I searched “rio de janeiro shared office space” to possibly find a place to work from, I came across the Incubator/Digital Accelerator 21212.com. It will be interesting to see what type of community there is for start ups here.

I’m not an economist, I’ve just been hearing a lot about Brazils momentum so here I am to experience first hand what exactly is going on…It’s only day 4 and I look forward to learning more about the local start up world and what the future has in store for Brazil. For now I’m getting settled into an awesome apartment in Botafogo which lies on the water between downtown and the tourist beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema.

If anyone has any suggestions, please send them my way.
Obrigado!
erik@socialerik.com

Botafogo Home Office Hammock

Botafogo Home Office

Support software options for your site

For Webchalet we are working to figure out the best way to handle customer support and what service model we are going to set up for our company. Are we 100% self service like weebly, are we a mix or totally service oriented where we help at every step of setting up a vacation rental website or directory.
To scale out we have decided the most important thing is to have everything documented on the site so a client or potential client has access to the information at any time, saving a phone call and also helping to answer our clients questions…it’s a no brainer, it just takes resources to document this stuff, but it’s defiantly our new priority. So, whats the best way to go about this?
Step 1: just start writing out all our content.
Step 2: we are currently using zendesk for our vacation rental support forum.
3) We are researching who’s doing it right: (right= ability to scale out and still provide service/support to clients without adding a bunch of customer service agents)
–Pagelines.com
Software we are looking at:
–Jive
-vbulletin is a no go
-zendesk
-wordpress mu
-in house, just put up support pages…

More to come. (right now: layover in miami headed to rio)

Hoteltonight.com – enjoying a cocktail at my south beach, miami hotel.

Thanks to hoteltonight.com I’m having a cocktail on the bar terrace at my hotel on south beach strip vs staying at the airport hotel. This was the easiest thing ever, I literally booked my room while going to the bathroom at the airport about to board my flight.
Hotel was $69 discounted. Plus an additonal $25 hotel tonight sign up bonus. Promo code: new25. Scored a decent boutique hotel on the strip for $51 after fees..

I was going to do an airbnb room, but I just didn’t feel like dealing with anyone else or have an unknown experience tonight. Just wanted something easy. There weren’t any airport hotels under $100, so after cab fares it all evens out, except for the experiences…