Evolve Vacation Rentals
Blackthorn Team
February 28, 2022
February 28, 2022
With more tech-savvy, travel-bug-bitten tenants flooding online vacation rental sites like Vrbo and Airbnb, it’s no surprise the rental industry market is growing. It’s never been easier to own, rent, and see profits by investing in vacation rental properties. But a long time problem still persists – homeowners struggle with finding the time to properly market and maintain properties, and after hiring full-service property managers to help – some of which charge almost 50% per booking – profits aren’t quite what they expected. Enter Brian Egan and Adam Sherry, who in 2011 founded Evolve Vacation Rental to solve this very problem.
Brian and Adam knew the solution was to revamp the traditional property management model. They created a business focused on helping property owners with marketing and booking tasks and communication with preferred on-the-ground service partners (housekeeping and maintenance, for example). If needed, customer service teams work with tenants to ensure a seamless guest experience. It’s worked, and to boot, their solution is available to owners at an industry-low 10% booking fee.
But what Evolve attributes its success to is the team behind their business.
“The thing we hear most is that our people make the biggest difference,” said Brian Becker, Chief Marketing Officer in an interview with BEN Colorado. “We have a very customer-centric team that is dedicated to building loyalty and creating positive service experiences. Both owners and guests find this approach to be a breath of fresh air.”
Payment processing is a big part of Evolve’s services and success, and team members often help the homeowner set up how they’re going to send and receive money during the onboarding process. Lots of monetary transactions occur between all parties involved, and the data and fund transfers associated with them are complex. Prior to Blackthorn, teams were getting feedback from homeowners about:
These and other things were taking time from everyone’s plate. Evolve knew that in order to scale, they needed a partner who could provide solutions to the problems unique to their business.
Aside from being able to solve the sign-up, funding, and invoicing issues, Evolve liked that Blackthorn Payments provides a flexible, customizable app that’s 100% Native to Salesforce, complete with all the perks of using the popular payment gateway, Stripe.
Blackthorn helped Evolve automate their business rules. Through a series of custom automation rules, Evolve can scale their operations through automated homeowner transfers. Additionally, they can now manage customer onboarding, including document uploads, disputes and dispute evidence, payouts, and reconciliation natively to Salesforce.
A few key features that stood out were:
The proof of Evolve’s success is in the numbers. Today, their portfolio includes more than 10,000 properties, over $500 million in rental income for homeowners, and an average guest review rating of 4.62 stars. Blackthorn is proud to support their rockstar team in their goals of having a customer-first mentality.
“Because of Blackthorn’s full integration with Salesforce, we’ve been able to streamline numerous payment processes resulting in efficiencies and improved customer experience,” Peter Hodel, Evolve’s Product Manager said. “Our payment processes now scale with our growing business.”
A couple of key ways Blackthorn Payments helps Evolve save time and grow:
Evolve is changing the vacation rental landscape by making it easier for everyone involved, at an affordable cost.
Blackthorn Payments – A payment management application that is native to Salesforce.
App enables Evolve team to
App enables property owners to
Find out more about Evolve at https://evolvevacationrental.com
Reach out to us at sales+payments@blackthorn.io to watch a demo, ask questions, and help you get going on a free trial.