KEES Vacations manages more than 300 properties across North Carolina's Outer Banks. With a mission to provide flexible and personalized vacations, the company's portfolio ranges from small studio-style condos to large 24-bedroom homes, and serves a wide range of guest types and stay lengths.
Guest reviews were racking up within each of the distinct booking platforms that KEES listed inventory on, but managing feedback took time and made it hard to spot operational patterns and fix quality issues.
6+
hours
Hours saved monthly by eliminating manual posting of reviews to website.
15+
hours
Hours saved monthly by eliminating manual responding to reviews across OTAs.
2
X
Year-over-year increase in Google review volume after implementing Reva.
9
%
Increase in five-star Airbnb reviews after implementing Reva.
With a large portfolio, guest review volume wasn't a huge problem for KEES. In fact, the company had seen a steady stream of reviews coming from reservations booked from Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, all of which made up a large share of their bookings.
For guests who booked directly from their ICND-powered website, KEES used post-stay surveys to drive reviews and track operational metrics like cleaning scores and NPS.
"We didn't have an organized way to centralize, consolidate, and make sense of our reviews," says Nate Nuzzo, Marketing Director at KEES. "Our approach was incredibly reactive. We'd see a review come in from an OTA email notification, handle it in the moment, forward it if needed, and move on."
There wasn't a clean way to bring everything together, and the process was time-intensive. As a result, some issues were addressed quickly, while others were harder to identify or follow-up on, especially during busy periods.
Shawna Maize, KEES' Housekeeping Manager, faced a different challenge stemming from the company's outdated guest review strategy. It wasn't so much responding to reviews, but rather, understanding how her team was performing over time.
"My focus is on employee support," Shawna says. "I want to recognize staff that are performing high-quality property care, while also re-training those who aren't quite meeting our service standards."
Guest feedback lived in too many places, and there wasn't a way for the organization to connect feedback on property care back to specific departments or recurring issues. Without clear insight into staff performance, Shawna had to rely on anecdotal feedback and tenure to manage her team.
"We were rushing around trying to make sense of reviews," Shawna explains. "The feedback loop between guest review, property service performance, and staff training was long and bumpy, which made it difficult to improve our service quality."
Shortly after KEES implemented Reva's data-driven platform, Nate began to see significant improvement in its guest review strategy. Every review from every source was flowing directly into Reva's dashboard in real-time, making it easy for the KEES team to pay closer attention and act on its guest feedback.
And the results were material. Responding to reviews right from within Reva saved the team 15 hours each month, and automatically pushing 5-star reviews from Reva to KEES's website (via the Reva <> ICND integration) saved another 6 hours each month. Review quality improved as well, with double the number of Google reviews and 9% more 5-star ratings on Airbnb.
Beyond the numbers, Reva changed how KEES works day-to-day. Guest feedback is easier to share across the organization, issues are identified sooner, and decisions are made with more clarity.
"We just collaborate better, and more easily," Nate explains. "Our reviews have become a key part in how we diagnose and resolve issues, and it's consequently leveled-up our management product and guest services."
In addition to time savings and higher reviews, Reva drove operational improvements across KEES' management business through its integration with Breezeway.
Previously, a review that mentioned a maintenance or cleanliness issue required someone to notice it, interpret it, and then create a task within Breezeway. That added steps and increased the chance of delays. Now, reviews can be turned into tasks and sent directly to Breezeway in a few clicks. This helps KEES respond to issues more quickly, and reduce the chance that guest concerns get overlooked.
Furthermore, Reva's 'Staff Performance Report' gave Shawna the insight she needed into the caliber of each housekeeper. By mapping each guest review that mentioned cleanliness to the specific housekeeper who performed work for that stay, Shawna could more easily identify those employees that needed extra attention, and those who deserved praise.
"Reva's connection with Breezeway has been incredibly useful," says Shawna. "If a guest mentions a maintenance issue, we can easily turn that review into a Breezeway task and assign it to the right person in our organization. And as a bonus, we can even grade each housekeeper, which helps me better manage my team and improve of overall property service."
After years of trying to manage tens of thousands of reviews, we built Reva to help others aggregate, report and share their reviews. If you’re interested in transforming your guest review strategy, giving our tools a test drive, or you just want to chat.
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