Intro
[00:00:00] Liam: So welcome along to another live broadcast of the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence on how you can go out there and get more direct bookings. My name's Liam Carolan, and today we are shining this spotlight on another awesome product.
[00:00:19] Um, this. In particular features in the Book Direct Blueprint. So if you're watching on Facebook Live or on YouTube, you'll be able to see the book. Um, if you don't know what the book Direct Blueprint is, you can go and check it out by going to the book direct blueprint uh.com, and it. Basically, Mark Simpson's latest book where he's brought together some of the titans of the industry that you as a hospitality host need to know about.
[00:00:45] Um, today we are really lucky and excited to feature, uh, one of the. Heads of products, or the head of product, I should say, Thomas Schaper, uh, from Dack Inc. So Dack is a marvellous kind of guest experience app. Uh, so welcome along Thomas.
[00:01:03] Thomas: Hey there. Thanks for having me, Liam. And, thanks for, uh, yeah, and having us in the book and, and having us in the podcast for sure.
[00:01:10] It's good to be here.
[00:01:11] Liam: I'm excited to have you on Thomas. So first of all, can you introduce yourself, your role, um, and, uh, any interesting fact that you want to share? Sure. Yeah.
Thomas’s Introduction
[00:01:20] Thomas: So I'm, uh, Thomas. I'm, I'm head of product at Dack and one of the co-founders. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's a guest experience platform.
[00:01:30] Um, we've been around for a few years now and I think, uh, probably one of the more interesting things for, uh, us is, uh, Damon and I, the, the other co-founder, our main founder, both of us, uh, did not come from the short term rental industry, so, We were outsiders. Uh, we saw a need for change and we came in. Um, from the outside and, and came up with a new product that we think the industry needed.
What is Dack?
[00:01:54] Liam: Can you introduce the, what, what really Dack is? What problem does it solve and uh, what regions as well does it cover? Cause that's the other thing. We've got an international audience. People will be listening in from, of course, the UK from us but also all over the world.
[00:02:08] Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, Dack today is a guest experience platform, um, that is available.
[00:02:15] In North America, uh, United States, Mexico, Canada. We have some operators in the UK and some operators in Australia as well. Um, we're just starting to roll out multi-language features, which would include, you know, the rest of Europe a, on a web version. And, um, we're working on more of, the currency.
[00:02:35] So we're, we're a little, little, little, uh, little limited on currencies right now. Um, but so primarily the North American market and, and the UK market. We've got, the pounds figured out as well. So, um, that's where we're at today. That's cool. There was also a huge, obviously, uh, regulatory leap that we had to take there too.
[00:02:53] To be in, uh, the UK and the EU that we've, we've finally, uh, gotten past on all the legal due diligence and all that.
[00:03:00] Liam: If, um, for the hosts out there, there'll be people out there who have just never heard of Dack. Um, yeah. What, what, what is it that it solves? How can it help the host? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:03:11] Thomas: So I think kind of, kind of the way to explain that cuz like, uh, take a step back and think about why Damon and I came up with the product.
[00:03:18] Um, you know, we were, again, we were outsiders. We were not from the short-term rental space. Or the lodging space in general. But you know, what we saw was a really disjointed, uh, lodging experience in tech, right? So everything in tech, uh, everything in travel was, was technology-driven, right? Uh, in 20 17, 20 18, uh, even at that point, I could Uber to the airport, I could use Clear to get through, you know, um, cut, you know, security.
[00:03:46] I could use my Delta Airlines app to use as a boarding pass. I literally didn't have to talk to a person. And then I would go to a hotel or a short-term rental, and I would be looking for a pin code or a key under a doormat at a hotel. I'd be standing in line a, in a lobby, waiting to get checked in.
[00:04:03] And it just made no sense to us that everything else had made it, you know, to the 21st century. And lodging was so far behind. So what we really built was a comprehensive end-to-end, you know, guest experience from checking to checkout. Everything can be done through a single portal. Um, in an app, in a native app or a web app.
[00:04:22] And, um, that really became a much larger undertaking, I think, than we even thought then on incorporating digital access and guest verification and, uh, upsells, local recommendations, all this stuff. And one app, uh, turned out to be a pretty big feat. But we're happy to say that we have a live product now.
[00:04:41] It works really well and it encompasses everything you could possibly need in the guest experience space. That's cool.
How does this work
[00:04:47] Liam: So really this, it is a one-stop shop for hosts who really want to give guests, the best experience. How does that work though? I mean, in terms of, um, say I'm the host, what do I need to do as a host to, uh, to take part in, in the service and to really get it up and running?
[00:05:04] How much work, I guess, is there involved?
[00:05:06] Thomas: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, so we primarily work with hosts, uh, that would say, Um, I, I'd be hesitant to use the word, you know, professional. Uh, I don't wanna like, you know, uh, you know, speak badly about half the crowd or, or, or smaller operators.
[00:05:21] Right. Um, I think they're all very professional, right? But generally, it's professional hosts that. List on more than one channel and utilize PMs. Those are the types of hosts that work with Dak, right? Because uh, if you're just using Airbnb right, you can probably facilitate most of the guest experience, the Airbnb.
[00:05:39] But if you're on multi, multi-channels and you're trying to get guests to book direct, right? Which is obviously a big thing, uh, that you guys would, would Lee and Mark do, um, you're gonna need a central spot to manage guest experience, right? So it's very easy to set up. We link with any, we link with. 18 PMSs, uh, and we'll probably be at 20, um, by the end of, uh, March, uh, on the PMs front.
[00:06:01] So we link with your PMs, you ingest all the data from the PMs, um, and then you can use a variety of different tools in the platform to quickly and easily add and build out content. So you can clone content, and you can bulk import content from Excel sheets. There's a variety of tools in there that make it really easy to get a robust guest experience app up and running very quickly.
[00:06:24] Um, so do you don't, and I think it's really what you make out of the product is how good it is. It's just like, a Facebook profile, right? So the more you put into it or your LinkedIn profile, right, like the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Um, and the more you build up the content over time, I think the better it looks.
[00:06:40] But I wouldn't think about it as one giant, daunting task. I would think about it as. Start to use Doc, get familiar with the product, start to customize it and build it out, you know, over time, you know,
[00:06:50] Liam: let's talk more about how it works from a guest's point of view. Say, I've just booked into Sally's place.
[00:06:56] I've literally just paid for it. I've direct booked because I found her on Airbnb. I saw all that hints in a listing. I found her Boostly website and then I booked. How would it then work? What's my, then, what's my journey, I guess, how do I get, uh, evolved with Dack?
[00:07:11] Thomas: Yeah. No, it's great. It's a great question and, it's, it is a good point too.
[00:07:14] I think, you know, 20, 20 18, 20 17, this was a relatively new concept in, in, in travel, right? So you didn't have the biggest guys, they didn't even have an app right now, Marriott, Hilton, uh, you know, all have a digital app, and I think it's becoming commonplace. So, I guess they're getting more familiar with that.
[00:07:34] Um, but yeah, if you're, if you're booking at Sally's place, You would receive an email from Dack or from their PMs that would say, Hey, uh, to check in early to, um, view local recommendations to learn more about the property, um, potentially to do guest verification, uh, just click on this link and, uh, you can download the app or, or, or do, uh, click on the web version as well.
[00:07:58] And, uh, from there you'll control your guest experience. And I think what we see operators generally do is. Kind of hit that a few times in a few different ways, right? So they'll say maybe the first welcome email says, you know, thanks for booking with us. You know, do all this on this app. And then they'll send a follow-up email, uh, maybe a few weeks ahead of this day, like, you know, Hey, um, you know, we noticed you haven't, you know, checked in yet, or, or viewed the app yet.
[00:08:21] You know, just make sure you get all the property details and access information and, and local recommendations. Make sure you download the app. Um, and with that communication, that's kinda where that journey kicks off for that guest.
[00:08:32] Liam: Thank you, um, so much to everybody who's tuned in on the Boostly podcast and thank you for putting it with Boostly.
[00:08:37] We hope this has helped. Go and check out Dack and we'll see you on the next one. Guys, having a blast. Can I get it On the Boostly podcast,
[00:08:44] Thomas: Bruce Lee led Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard on the tea is loose loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it just to it loosely..
