The Bookster Podcast: Customer Success

Transcript

Hello, I'm Simon and welcome back to the Bookster podcast from inside the SAS Holiday Rental Software Company, Bookster, based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Follow along as Bookster discuss their inner workings and their journey to where they are today.

Thank you for joining us and we hope you find these conversations insightful, but ultimately helpful.

Minute 1

Now, welcome back.

It's been a little while since our last podcast, but I am joined today, as always, by Managing Director and Co-Founder of Bookster, Mr.

Robin Morris.

Happy New Year, Robin, I guess.

Happy New Year.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Let's introduce everyone else before we start a little chat.

We are joined again on this podcast by Adam Aron, a Support Lead for Bookster.

Welcome back, Adam.

Hello.

Hello.

And we're very grateful today that we've got Laëtitia Demma, our customer success agent.

Did I get any of that right? Yes, perfect.

Thank you for having me on the podcast, Simon.

No, thank you for joining us.

You bring an air of professionalism to this podcast, which we've been sorely missing.

So well done.

So...

We are, this is the first podcast of 2025.

So today we thought we would kick off with the topic of customer success as we all want to be successful in 2025.

So let's kick off with first question and anyone can answer this or if you want to be specific, that's fine as well.

But for Bookster, what is customer success? What does it mean?

Minute 2

Right, I'll give it a go, see if I can answer some of this and then maybe hand over to the other guys.

So customer success fundamentally is trying to ensure that our clients get the most out of Bookster.

So the holiday rental agencies and owners, so property managers that are our clients, the ones using Bookster, they get the most out of it.

They can use the functionality that we've written to use as much of it as they need, basically.

That's because...

Now, why we need to help is although we try to make things as easy as possible in terms of usability and making Bookster easy to understand and use, inevitably, there will be areas where

Minute 3

people need a little helping hand to get going and then, you know, periodically to remind them of things that they need done or new features that we've added.

So it's trying to make sure that people who are using Bookstire get the most out of it.

And so that's for them.

And what we get out of it and why we do it, apart from just trying to be nice to them is it's, you know, if they're actually getting something out of it, then they're much more likely to continue to be a client and not go and look for something else in some other system to use.

So I think, yeah, that broadly speaking covers it.

And I suppose fundamentally the difference between support and customer success is support is reactive support.

Minute 4

you know, you're answering people's questions, whereas customer success is proactive.

We are trying to reach out a hand and help people.

So that's really the fundamental difference between the two.

Okay.

So, I mean, you sort of answered the next question about reactive and proactive.

The next question was going to be what the difference was, but do you have any situations where customers kind of, you know, clients, I guess, do they feel like you're, they want to just be left alone to get on with things do they do they know that they need the support and the help from you guys or you know anything like that Laëtitia i think you should answer this one Yes, so I think it's about 50-50.

So some clients are really happy that I just proactively contact them and they are actually looking forward to my call and just make sure that they're making the most out of Bookstar.

So some people are also very happy to have my call.

Minute 5

So the other 50% they are not so happy for me to contact them every so often and so often some people just don't reply on the phone or emails even though I try my best to contact them but yeah ultimately we just want to be there for them to help them make the most out of Bookster and just make sure they're using all of the features, as Robin might say, because some features they might not be aware of, so we want to make make Bookstart easy for them and ultimately if they improve their listings, if you help them improve their listings, it also helps attracting bookings and sometimes they just don't see that so that's why we try to do but obviously some people, also for some people it's a side business, it's not their main business

Minute 6

so it's hard for them to just focus on that and Bookster is kind of like a side job for them.

I guess it's a strange question to ask but I mean if this makes it harder for you guys does it? I mean if you just left them alone it'd be much easier for Bookster just to sit there and do nothing but you're actually making it difficult for yourselves by doing this consistent support and Yes and no.

I mean, we started the the reason we started the onboarding stuff as we like saw as an overall trend, the people weren't doing certain things, and then they would leave because they weren't doing these certain things.

I was mainly about about setting up

Minute 7

things wouldn't work as I expected because they hadn't gone through an onboarding and gone through the things that we identified as these unnecessary to check off before you can really start getting the most out of Bookster.

So a lot of customer success is making sure that they're in the best place to use the product as far as what they've got filled in and what they are what they can do with it is, if you haven't got a payment gateway, you can't take payments.

And that's necessary to use Bookster.

So there's just basic things like that.

I think customer success as an ethos was sort of born out of that, identifying that.

And we started with the onboardings and then we brought Laëtitia on as well to sort of actively reach out to customers.

Almost...

Minute 8

Robin touched upon it earlier about being proactive versus reactive.

I think that does sum up quite well.

I would say I also think customer success and support and just product as sort of a Venn diagram and this crossover.

And because we're also a small team, there's crossover in what we do.

So there are elements of customer success that are kind of supporty.

There are elements of support that are kind of customer success.

And then there's feeding back from both of those into the product team as well.

So there's lots of crossover in it.

I think also some people don't realize that customer success is quite important because by being proactive we just make sure that the book store is up to date so they might not be realized but for example the user access some people have access to book store but

Minute 9

but they haven't logged in for years so do you still want this person to be able to access your property or do you want us to remove them? So it's quite important to stay up to date just for a security point of view but also for example the terms and conditions if you wrote the terms and conditions 10 years ago are they still up to date? Do they still mention things like COVID-19 or some things that might not be relevant anymore? And it's the same as well for a channel connection so Some channels connections are online, offline, so we make sure is that set up the way that you want.

So I think it's really important to once in a while make sure that they're all happy with their Bookster setup and sometimes they just don't realise like you know this person has access to your property, for example cleaning team and the cleaning team haven't logged in for three years and they're like oh yes they stop working for us so you can remove the access.

So it's quite important and we just make sure that basically their Bookster account is up to date and we just have them just maintain their Bookster account all set up the way that they want.

So Laëtitia, because you're new to the podcast and we haven't spoken to you before, maybe could you just sort of outline what your role would involve with the client? I mean, is it

Minute 10

Lots of conversations, one long conversation every six months or weekly.

How does it work? Yeah, so we try and stay in touch regularly with our clients.

So for Max clients, which is the higher package that we have, we try to stay in touch about every three months.

And then for Pro packages, we try to stay in touch every six months.

And then our Lite clients, we try and reach them every year, so yearly.

So mostly what I'll do is I'll...

Check their account.

So I'll just take a client, check their account and see if I can spot anything.

So things like I've mentioned already are the user access all up to date.

Just have a look at their channel connections.

If they're not on any channels, maybe I can start the conversation with do you want to advertise your property on other channels to attract more bookings.

So usually I will try to phone them first.

Minute 11

If they don't answer, I try communication via email.

I do try to reach them out three times, so three phone calls, three emails, and if they're unresponsive, they'll just get pushed to their next review date.

So if they reply, it's all good.

So it can be a phone conversation.

Also try to arrange what we call account review.

So account reviews are usually a video call.

So we can schedule that for the following days, following weeks.

And we can have a video call, which we call an account review.

So I will share my screen and go through a few things that I've noticed.

Minute 12

So there's a bit of prep time, just I have my notes and I just make sure that I go through everything that I've spotted with them.

I obviously am also here if they have any questions, because sometimes I reach out to clients and they're like, oh, yes, I'm in to contact you.

I have actually questions and it's actually good that we are proactive in that way as well.

But I also help Adam with support questions as well.

but I guess customer success is my area.

So I just try and contact people and just make sure they're all happy with Bookster and that they want to stay with us and that they're making the most of our platform.

And the customer success is a Bookster success, I guess, at the end of the day.

So it all helps each other.

Yeah, I think from a kind of, you know, business, bigger picture kind of thing.

If you're listening to this and you've got a SaaS business, the broader value in terms of both bringing in revenue but just making sure that clients are happy is that obviously it's a lot easier and cheaper to keep a client on than it is to try and find a new one.

So

Minute 13

really we want our clients to be happy.

It's massively in our interest that they're happy.

And so, yeah, before Laëtitia was working with us, we might get clients that would leave and then we would ask them a question, oh, why are you going or why are you moving to this competitor? And they might say, oh, your competitor has this feature or does that.

And it turns out we do that, but By the time they've actually decided to move, it's too late.

They've signed a contract or they've just psychologically made the decision to move or whatever.

Whereas, you know, if we'd got there earlier, we could have said, oh, actually, we do this.

It's just, you know, maybe it's slightly more hidden away or it's a feature that we don't promote that well or whatever.

Or maybe we could

Minute 14

maybe we genuinely think it's a feature that actually won't give them much value or whatever but at least we're there proactively having that conversation first um and and also like um adam was saying as well being able to get get feedback from clients um where they say oh it'd be great if books for the desk or creating it did that or we really love this or that um is is also massively valuable as well understanding what is there how they're using it what you know who logs in how you know how is how's their team working that allows us to state the direction that we take the product as well but But yeah, you know, part of the reason for doing it to start with was to try and help retain more clients.

But I think it just broadly is better for our clients generally.

I think also there's maybe different types of people on, you know, as far as clients on the receiving end of customer success.

There's some that are really appreciative of customers

Minute 15

you know of you reaching out and then there's others that they're like you're just trying to get me to spend more money on here and and that from our point of view is totally not what we're about i mean yes we're a business yes we're trying to make a living but it really is customer success not it as a as a as a benefit you know if you're using the product you will be paying for it but it's certainly not about about selling as such like we have a sales team to sell that's a totally different uh you know process and and i think we genuinely are trying to put the customers interests at the center of that process it is ultimately about them not us

Minute 16

I think customer success is one of the strengths of Bookster because I think before we had that department, some clients we had no idea who they were and now I know every single client so no one is going through the net.

We know all of our clients and I know as well as the personal touch because "oh yes, hi, how are you since last time?" We know the businesses of our clients and we know their story and we know what they want.

So I think that's one of the strengths.

I don't know if any other PMs do that, but I think that's one of Bookster's strengths that we know all of our clients and we proactively reach out to them.

Well, I'm sure that makes a huge difference.

I mean, do you...

Is there anything else that you do as a company for your clients in terms of reaching out to them? I mean, is it just the phone calls and the emails? Do you have...

Minute 17

Do you get your clients in for meetings face-to-face? Do you go and see them yourselves? Anything else that you can add to the process? No, that's all we do.

Yeah, no, we do have our clients.

They do come into the office.

Obviously, the ones that are physically near Edinburgh can come in.

We had just a couple of weeks ago, we had three of our larger clients into Edinburgh.

discuss various things, mainly around owner statements and how that works and what they wanted to see there.

So yes, we have those kinds of conversations.

We also, we've got a weekly drop-in call where it's a kind of standing call where one of us will sit on an open video call basically every week and our clients can just hop into that and just say,

Minute 18

you know, hi and have a chat and see what's going on.

We obviously send out emails about updates to the system and things like that too.

And we go to the odd event as well.

But in terms of reaching out to clients, mainly it's around the kind of the reviews process.

Yeah, that's what you described.

Yeah, I mean, for all of our Edinburgh-based clients, I do offer them the possibility to have a face-to-face meeting in our office.

But most people, they just have such busy lives, so they just prefer a video call or a phone call and they don't have physically the time to come to the office.

But it does happen that we have clients who want to meet face-to-face.

And how does it work? We've touched upon this way back at the start, I think, about different customers overseas, right?

Minute 19

How does that work in terms of your job, Laëtitia, and then having to contact these clients? I mean, some of them, I guess, will be funny times for you to be in touch with them.

Is that a pain for you? Could you just repeat the question, Simon? I'm sorry.

Yeah, I was just wondering how your job is impacted by the time zones of different companies that you work with.

So, I mean, most of our clients are based in Europe.

We do have some clients in the US.

So I can offer times when it suits.

So most clients prefer later.

So I guess because the US they have...

Minute 20

They're an earlier time zone.

Three times.

Yeah.

So I can offer times that work for them.

So usually I think when it's some clients, when it's 9 a.m., for them it's 6pm here.

So that works.

We're available, we can cater to what people want if they want early in the morning or even lunchtime or after work.

We try and adapt and offer our clients times that they prefer.

To be fair, it has I think been a problem.

We have had clients in Australia and I think as a result of not really being able to have conversations with them because of the time zone differences.

I think ultimately that's why we haven't got any clients in Australia anymore or New Zealand.

And our platform is only in English at the moment.

So although we do have clients throughout Europe, usually sort of expat English speaking clients,

Minute 21

And we do have some North American clients as well.

Yeah.

What I was going to say, Robin, to add to that, like a lot of, I mean, we're not all based in Edinburgh.

I've moved recently, but we do have a lot of Edinburgh based clients coming on saying, oh, I want to support a local business.

So we do have a lot of that as a result.

You know, it's not kind of the opposite of what we're talking about in some ways.

But as far as further afield, yeah, I'd say it is a challenge.

It's sort of a challenge that we failed in the past, actually, I think.

I think we've gotten better at it.

Minute 22

But I think it's something we could do even better at.

So we don't really have...

Although I'm not sure what the answer to do better is.

So like West Coast states as well, we don't have...

many of those clients.

The time zone issue starts to become problematic, I'd say, once you get to the West Coast.

It does make it quite difficult.

We've got a few East Coast clients and that seems to be fine.

It works quite well, yeah.

They even manage to be on the chat during the day, so I think when it's 10am for them, it's about 3-4 for us, so it works quite well, even for the chat function for our US customers.

Right.

I'm sure...

Sorry, go on.

I was just going to say, I think we have naturally got that coverage and actually our client base reflects that, that we don't actually have any really in Australia and New Zealand, not many on West Coast states.

I don't think we've got any Hawaiian customers, for example.

But you're open to open a Hawaiian based Bookster office, I'm sure.

Well, Simon, yeah, we need really, we need a podcast host based there.

Minute 23

Well, happy to oblige.

I am off to China soon, so if I can help you out in any way, let me know.

So the other question we haven't talked about yet is how do you keep this momentum going? You've got your customers.

I mean, how do you just keep that relationship? I know you've spoken about it briefly, I guess, earlier, but is there anything you proactively do to keep your customers happy and coming back and telling their friends about you? Would you just rely on? A referral scheme? Yeah.

Right.

So, yeah.

So, we offer a referral scheme if there's nothing, you know, we can shout about our product as much as, you know, as we can, but there's nothing is as valuable as an existing client recommending it.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that,

Minute 24

I mean, obviously, Latisha Wilcott will be contacting people just ongoing all the time, as long as they're a client, we'll be reaching out to them, basically.

So, I mean, we didn't really cover, we haven't really covered the onboarding process, really, which is fine in this, but too much.

But, you know, essentially, we've got quite an intense onboarding when people start, and then it sort of kicks into the reviews process after that.

And that's kind of how we ongoing try to keep the momentum going of them being in touch with us and continuing to.

Yeah, I think we get nervous when people are haven't been in touch for a long time or especially if they haven't logged in, actually, for a long time.

We do have clients.

I mean, I'm thinking of one in particular that says,

Minute 25

you know, we do their website for, they've been a client for probably more than 10 years, even further than that.

And we cannot talk to them.

They will, they just never want to speak to us.

And yet they seem perfectly happy and they get lots of bookings and they log in all the time.

And they're, you know, as far as we can tell, they're doing great, but they just do not want to talk to us.

Which is, I don't know, that's fine.

Yeah.

I think Laëtitia knows who I'm talking about.

Yeah, it is a minority, but so I've been at Bookster for two years and a half, and there are some clients in these two years and a half that have never managed to get on the phone or got a reply by email.

So there are some clients who just don't want to speak to us, which is a shame because there's a lot more that they can do with our platform, but they just don't want to invest the time or...

Minute 26

yeah well I guess in one way it means you're doing a good job I guess and that take that as a positive I suppose yeah the notes are ready when they are so I can go through that with you anytime so just call me Cool.

Great.

Well, look, we're looking at 25 minutes for this podcast, so probably we should maybe think about wrapping it up unless anyone has anything else they'd like to add to this particular conversation today.

We seem to have covered quite a lot of the customer success journey.

One thing I was going to ask, this is a silly thing, but do you actually have a chat icon on sort of your website that people can click on and speak to you live as it happens? Yeah.

Yes, we do.

None of us are on it right now because we're doing a podcast.

Yes.

Yes, we do.

We've got chat, email, phone, drop-in calls.

Yeah, you could send us a letter.

That would be quite nice to receive a letter.

That would be nice.

I encourage that.

It's nothing quite...

Minute 27

I quite like receiving an actual letter.

I know.

Bizarrely, I got a postcard the other month there from someone who's on holiday, and I've not had a postcard from anyone for literally years.

And it was actually really quite nice to get one.

There you go.

Actually, that's a good point, actually.

We should maybe the clients you can't reach, maybe we should send them a wee letter.

Yeah.

Just a handwritten letter.

That's a good idea.

That's actually quite a good idea.

There we go.

We'll come back next podcast.

We'll let you know how successful that was.

Exactly.

Well, that's nice.

We're going back to the basics.

I like it.

Right.

Well, look, we've kept you long enough.

So thank you all for your time this morning.

Appreciate the conversation and the honesty points as well.

Thank you.

Minute 28

We will do this all again soon and speak about another topic.

But this is the first podcast for 2025.

Hope you've enjoyed it.

Thank you for joining us and we look forward to speaking with you all again very soon.

Until then, goodbye.

Bye.