From Chaos to Control: How AvantStay Took Request Handling from Weeks to Days

Meet AvantStay

AvantStay is a short-term rental platform specializing in upscale homes for groups. The company manages nearly 2,000 properties across the United States, distributing listings through 50 different channels. At its core, AvantStay is about bringing people together. Its business model involves working with homeowners and managing properties across various online travel agencies (OTAs) to provide unique guest experiences. AvantStay's rapid growth has presented challenges in maintaining operational efficiency and high-quality service. That’s why Wrangle is a core part of their workflow management strategy.

Wrangle is critical to AvantStay’s success. Without it, we couldn’t function – with it, we continue to thrive.

How Avantstay uses Wrangle

Streamlining the Auditing Process

Before Wrangle, AvantStay's auditors spent their entire workweek updating guest manuals. With Wrangle's efficient task management system, auditors now complete this task in half the time. This improvement has allowed the auditing team to take on additional responsibilities, including optimizing listings and assisting with customer experience tasks.

Efficient Handling of Complex Requests

Before Wrangle, AvantStay struggled with managing complex requests that required cross-department collaboration. These tasks often got lost in email threads or Slack messages, resurfacing weeks or months later. With Wrangle, the team can now handle these intricate tasks efficiently. For example, when a homeowner adds a new amenity like a pool, updating this information across all platforms used to be a time-consuming process involving multiple departments.

Using Wrangle's centralized system in Slack, AvantStay can manage these updates promptly, ensuring accurate listings and maintaining homeowner satisfaction.

Optimizing Listings Across Multiple Platforms

AvantStay manages over 2,000 homes across the United States with fifty different Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). This scale presents significant challenges in keeping listings up-to-date, as properties frequently need adjustments to details that could impact their performance. Wrangle helps manage these updates efficiently.

The listings team uses Wrangle to handle tasks like editing photos, changing photo orders, and developing performance reviews of listings for owners. This improved process allows the team to make data-driven decisions based on information from all their distribution channels. They can now more easily implement changes such as updating cancellation policies or optimizing listings on less-utilized OTAs.

This level of detail management is crucial in the short-term rental market, where even small differences in amenities, such as whether a pool is heated, can significantly impact booking decisions.

Given how quickly we’ve grown, Wrangle is key to our operational efficiency. The sheer amount of requests that come in each day and each week would be completely impossible to manage otherwise.

In Their Own Words: Why AvantStay Chose Wrangle

We asked Thomas Newman, AvantStay’s Listings and Distribution Manager, for 5 reasons why he loves Wrangle. Here’s what he said:

1. We handle requests within two to three days on average, compared to the weeks or even months it might have taken before.

Our homeowners and guests love our speed and efficiency in completing tasks and requests - and that honestly wouldn't be possible without Wrangle. This quick turnaround is crucial in our industry; up-to-date home details might be the difference in someone booking a home or not. And if we're missing this information, then we're potentially letting this homeowner down and they could leave us for another property manager.

2. We manage all our tasks and requests in one place, ensuring nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

Before Wrangle, our communication was a mess. We were drowning in emails, Slack messages, and various task management systems. Now, we have a centralized system that brings order to the chaos. Instead of a constant, nagging feeling that we might be missing something, Wrangle gives us the ability to focus on key tasks and then confidently move on to other things.

3. We can manage requests efficiently even as we grow quickly.

Given how quickly we've grown, Wrangle is key to our operational efficiency. The sheer amount of requests that come in each day and each week would be completely impossible to manage otherwise. Wrangle has scaled right along with our rapid growth, helping us maintain our efficiency and quality of service.

We live in Slack, and so does Wrangle. The integration is so smooth that it feels like a natural extension of how we already work. It’s been crucial in transforming our workflow.

4. We have a sense of calm and competence.

The Wrangle team worked closely with us from the beginning, walking us through the process and spending hours building workflows together. They were willing to take our feedback and create solutions that worked for our specific needs.

5. We have a sense of calm and competence.

Wrangle helps us manage our growth, maintain our efficiency, and support the high standards of service our customers expect. With Wrangle's dashboard, we always know where every task stands. There's no more guessing about what's been done or what's still pending. We're confident there's nothing lurking deep in an email thread or in some private message.

Overall, Wrangle is critical to AvantStay’s success. Without it, we couldn't function – with it, we continue to thrive.