RueBaRue

Glad to Have You Hospitality App Review

Property managers need great guest communication to stay on top of their business and support guests throughout their stay.

Fast, personalized messaging is essential—but so is reliability. And without a fully up-to-date guest communication app, you’ll struggle to get your job done—resulting in missed opportunities to boost your revenue.

If you use the Glad to Have You hospitality app, you may have run into some of these issues, so we take a look at the problems you may be experiencing, and your best option for guest communication.

Need a game-changing alternative to Glad to Have You that you can switch to without downtime? RueBaRue has everything you need to manage your guest relationships, boost your income and save time on operations—and you can get started in a matter of minutes. Book a demo now.

What is the Glad to Have You hospitality app?

The Glad to Have You hospitality app is a property management and guest communication app by Escapia.

Glad to Have You offers some essential features for guest communication, including access to reservation details, instructions on arrival, and insights into the local area.

The app also allows guests to receive updates on maintenance requests and check-out reminders, and gives them the chance to create online reviews of their stay with star ratings and photos.

As well as these features for guest communication, Glad to Have You offers a portal for owners to view bookings, and a lead management system to help you organize booking inquiries.

However, Escapia doesn't seem to be making regular updates to the app anymore. This may indicate the Glad to Have You app will be phased out—especially since this is what you see when you try to visit the product page:

glad-to-have-you-developer-site-screenshot

Before looking at alternatives, let’s look at some of the issues you may be experiencing with Glad to Have You.

What are the disadvantages of Hospitality by Glad to Have You?

Here are some reasons why it could be time to look for an alternative property management solution:

The first barrier to frictionless communication between you and your guests is the need for guests to download an app.

Not all of your guests are tech-savvy, while others are simply on the move and find it inconvenient to download anything while traveling to their destination.

If your guests don’t have the tool you’re using, they won’t be able to:

  • Benefit from any arrival details (like door codes, Wi-Fi passwords, and house rules ).
  • Access updates on booking details, maintenance, or local information.
  • See your latest notes and instructions for their stay.

Glad to Have You no longer appears to be receiving updates, so if you encounter any issues with its interface or functionality, they might not be addressed by the app’s technical team.

Legacy apps (functioning apps whose software is out-of-date) are apps that were designed for older operating systems and hardware. As a result, they may develop the following issues:

  • Compromised security
  • Problems integrating with other software
  • Stability problems
  • Unresolved bugs

These are some of the downsides to using the Glad to Have You hospitality app. Now let’s look at the best solution for communicating with your guests so you can maximize vacation rental income.

What’s the best alternative to Glad To Have You?

Great communication means great relationships, which makes for happy, returning guests. But as well as a great way to communicate, you need a great way to efficiently manage.

The RueBaRue guest communication tool makes vacation rental management simple and effective, with automated messaging that helps your guests plan ahead and enjoy their stay.

With RueBaRue, you can set up your account in just a few minutes, then start sharing your latest information with guests—all via SMS text messaging and email—and you can send a link to the digital guestbook, making it quick and simple for visitors to extend guest stays.

We also listen to our customers and constantly update your guest relationship management app with improvements and new features, which means you can always take advantage of the latest in hospitality software.

How RueBaRue helps your vacation rental management business

RueBaRue offers a range of features to help you communicate with guests and provide all the information they need for a great vacation.

Also, its integrations and automated messaging make it quick and easy to use—helping you stay on top of your sales pipeline and bookings for better vacation rental occupancy.

Guest-Communication-Vacation-Rentals (1)

Let’s look at some of RueBaRue’s features below:

Build meaningful relationships with guests

Vacation rental guest communication tools Automated text and email messaging ensures all your updates are easily accessible to guests—also, customizable message templates and macros save you lots of time. You can send automated alerts for unexpected situations like weather warnings and beach closures, you can schedule messages with message tagging, and with RueBaRue you can see analytics of all your messages, as well.

Digital welcome book A digital welcome book gives you the chance to promote your brand while offering guests exactly the kind of information they need to feel at home. Your welcome book might include information on check-out, details on how to operate tools in the kitchen, or any codes or passwords. And since RueBaRue integrates with the most popular property management systems, you can import data instead of having to manually fill in the details, making your digital welcome book easy to create in just a few simple steps.

Local area guides Custom local guides are also easy to create with RueBaRue, giving you the chance to add that personal touch. Guests will know all your favorite recommendations on where to dine, which attractions not to miss out on, and how best to navigate the local area with tips and directions.

Boost your occupancy and revenue

Extend guest stays
Extended guest stays are a massive win for property managers. They show owners that guests are having a fantastic time, they maximize occupancy and revenue, and they help to reduce the maintenance costs of cleaning rounds or additional check-ins. Also, they’re a strong indicator that you’re doing an amazing job!

RueBaRue’s Extend Guest Stays feature makes it easy for guests to fill up your empty calendar slots:

  • See what dates you have available in the app calendar
  • Offer guests the chance to check in a day early or check out a day late for a discounted price
  • Do all this with an automated message for guests to confirm the extra dates in a matter of seconds

Email marketing
RueBaRue makes emailing campaigns simple, fast, and effective. Once you have the email addresses of your guests, you can use RueBaRue’s email templates to help you formulate friendly, personalized communications. Automate a schedule for those emails to be sent out, then guests can easily complete a direct booking with you as soon as they’re ready to do so.

Save time on managing your operations

The team SMS inbox is a shared inbox for your team
This is an iPhone/Android app that your team can access to see guests’ SMS messages—great for quick, coordinated guest service and responses from your team.

Automated messaging to cleaning staff (coming soon)
Soon property managers will be able to create automated messages for cleaning staff, which can be accessed within the team SMS inbox for key communications across all your properties.

Integrations with property management software (PMS)
Integrations with other rental software solutions make customizing digital guestbooks, local guides, and house manuals quick and simple with guest and property detail imports. Some of RueBaRue’s vacation rental partners include:

  • Escapia
  • LiveRez
  • Streamline
  • Barefoot
  • OwnerRez
  • Hostaway
  • Guesty

Improve your relationship with owners

Guest ratings
Guest ratings give you the chance to manage who you wish to have back in a property and flag problematic guests. For example, if a guest repeatedly breaks house rules, you simply give them a lower star rating. That way, you’ll know not to contact them with future offers, and you can have the option of not accepting a reservation should they make an inquiry.

Automated owner communication (coming soon)
Have automated messages scheduled for owners to keep them in the loop.

Broaden your services
RueBaRue helps you do more for your guests—with no extra effort required. Examples include:

  • Contactless check-in and check-out
    Guests value contactless interactions in light of the pandemic— learn more here.
  • Welcome letters
    Use a template to quickly create welcome letters with personalized details that can make all the difference.
  • Personalized gifts
    Who doesn’t appreciate flowers, chocolates, or their favorite hot drink? With RueBaRue’s automated messaging, it’s easy to ask some additional questions about your guests’ preferences and get ideas for welcome baskets to make their arrival extra special.

Changing guest communication for the better

The Glad to Have You hospitality app has been a valuable tool for property managers looking for a solution to better guest relationship management and improved efficiency. But when you’re managing dozens of vacation rentals, a good solution isn’t enough.

You need a guest communication tool you know you can rely on, that facilitates fast messaging and personalization. So you need an app that’s easy to use and moves with the times.

RueBaRue’s text messaging solution doesn’t just help you give guests an up-to-date password for the Wi-Fi: it’s a way to let them know about their local area and get the most out of their stay, while empowering you to better serve their needs and increase rental vacation occupancy.

FAQs about Glad to Have You hospitality app

How can a guest communication app benefit a vacation rental business?

Guest communication apps help vacation rental businesses by facilitating frictionless communications between property managers and their guests, providing up-to-the-minute local information, helping with management operations, and driving occupancy and revenue.

Why should you switch to RueBaRue from Glad to Have You?

Glad to Have You is a legacy vacation rental app that is no longer receiving updates, while RueBaRue won the Best Guest Communication Tool award at the 2021 VRMB Keystone Awards.

Are there any other vacation rental tools reviews I can read?

Now you can try RueBaRue free with our 14-day zero-risk trial. Want to improve your guest relationships, boost your income, and save time on operations? Book a 30-minute demo now.

Ready to Provide World-Class Hospitality?

Subscribe To Our Blog

Follow our blog for inspiration and helpful tips for your vacation rental business.

* indicates required