ResMania - The Advanced Reservation System Framework

About Huis in Istrie

I am a private owner of real estate in the peninsula Istria of Croatia and Montenegro. We rent out our own property in Croatia, which contains two apartments.

Website: http://www.huisinistrie.com

Scenario

The most important requirements for the project are:

• Easy to use reservation system of holiday houses by customers
• Easy configuration and manage reservation system by the site-administrator;
• Reservation system must be integrated in Joomla;
• Pictures must be presented well;
• Flexibility in price settings properties of the objects;
• Properties in the reservation system must be well searchable by search engines;
• Price/quality must be good.

Motivation

I was looking for a new reservation system to renew my website which includes the previous version of “ResMania”. That reservation system was very restricted in presenting pictures, prices, and so on but now with the latest version of ResMania 1.2.3 all these issues have been fixed.

Challenges

The most important challenges were:

• Find a reservation system that smoothly integrates with Joomla with also a professional “look and feel”;
• Find a reservation system with a lot of functionality and configuration to present all important topics of a holiday house and/or the possibility to present it by myself (temporarily);
• A reservation system that is supported well and which is updated regularly with new functionality;
• Easy to configure by myself without having in depth knowledge of the development software, end user interface simple and clear with documentation, demos and FAQ’s for advice.
  

Actions

I have select ResMania around 1 year ago to use on my new website, after a review of some other reservation systems for Joomla. It did fit most with my requirements and overall It was relatively easy to configure and use, the support I received was excellent.

Results

I did renew my website with good results and bring it online. The visitors/customers for renting my holiday houses and apartments are very positive about the clear overview and the way they can make an online reservation using ResMania.

Recommendations

I will for sure recommend ResMania and/or help other agencies to make it work in their case. My personal success using this reservation software is a testimonial.

 

About Perfect Landing Rentals

Primarily Vacation Rentals and Monthly Rentals, Property managers. We are licensed Realtors in the state of Michigan and the agents of Perfect Landing have combined Real Estate experience of over 30 years. We Also members of the North eastern Michigan Board of Realtors and the Better Business Bureau. Our professional staff is ready at all times to assist you from planning an amazing vacation, looking for a monthly rental using ResMania or finding your dream home through customized searches.

Website: http://www.perfectlandingrentals.com

The Customer

We have the inventory that they want to use, we rent mostly to families using ResMania reservation software because of its easy to use and functionality.

Scenario

Usability speed of loading pages and the range of ResMania calendars used for different functions. (I only use this as a display not needing to rely on the accounting side of things, it really is just for booking system requests using different ResMania modules and for the layout of the property).

Motivation

I went and searched out ResMania then found out after having instant software/the expense it was ridiculously expensive, the amount I was being charged so created my own website which easily worked with ResMania (from 84 Dollars) so right now I have my desktop version for daily work and ResMania reservation software for the display configuration and reservation bookings.

 

About Quasar Hosting

Our company is Quasar Hosting, created six years ago as a Web Hosting and Web Design/Development business. Over that time we have focused on building and maintaining websites around a number of web applications, including vBulletin, phpBB2 and 3, Drupal, Joomla and recently XenForo. We install and configure those installations, as well as incorporating any addons and modifications the clients want in to the system, as well as providing training in managing and running them. Recently this has brought us to ResMania reservation software.

Website: http://www.quasar-host.net and http://www.ardwellmillhouse.co.uk/

About your customer

Our customer has started running her own bed and breakfast accommodation during the past year near Sandhead on The Rhins peninsula of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. We knew her prior to her starting her business, and the proposals we presented to her fitted the feel and style she wanted for her accommodation. We knew and understood the local area, which allowed us to focus in on what the website required, and we were able to provide her one on one training to help her become familiar with the system. She also felt that the ideas we had were fresh and new, which was just what she was looking for.

Requirements

We needed to provide a Content Management System to our client, to allow her to adjust things so as to keep pace with local news and events. The system also had to include an online booking system, as she wanted to be able to accept and process online bookings and payments. At the same time, the system we used needed to have longevity and security, as well as a professional finish.

Motivation

Since the business was new, there was no pre-existing system to migrate from, but our client was certain that she wanted the online convenience of allowing her prospective customers to book simply and quickly, as well as to be able accept payment by bank transfer or PayPal. ResMania offered such a facility and also provided relevant extensions and modules suitable for our client.

Your Clients Challenge

Our client had no experience with websites including managing and adding content. This meant there was a learning curve not just with ResMania, but also with Joomla itself. However the support offered was a real help and the interface user friendly. Additionally, we began using ResMania as it reached the Release Candidate stage, which meant a number of times during the setting up process we had to reinstall and re-enter the content for the rooms. Also there were difficulties in adjusting the system to meet her requirements for Bed and Breakfast accommodation, especially the second person element to the booking process. With the pricing structure set as it was then for extensions to ResMania, namely paying a repeated fee for access to the extensions library, we felt that the cost to accessing them to resolve the problem outweighed the practicality, especially as the business was new and establishing a client base of its own sufficient to offset that cost was several months away.

Your Challenges

We took time ourselves to become familiar with ResMania, and then in turn passed that knowledge to our client, as well as providing her a maintenance support program which meant she could contact us when she had questions or problems. Reinstallation took some time, but we kept numerous backups of the data, and worked out a way of successfully restoring the backups after initial problems in the file permissions. Together with the client we overhauled the pricing structure of the business to allow a percentage addition at the checkout stage.  This meant providing additional information on the page to guide customers through the ResMania booking process.

Actions

With the training and support system in place, as well as overhauling the pricing structure, we were able to make things clear enough for our client to feel confident in the system and launch the website live. We also became familiar enough with the core server requirements of ResMania to be able to pre-empt any problems in the update system, and with the constant development of ResMania have had no further issues during the updating process.

Recommendations

Absolutely. Both our client and ourselves have found the system robust and well supported. The ResMania support team in particular have been extremely helpful and professional which has gone beyond what they needed to do to help us with queries and problems. The ResMania developers too were quick to help resolve problems, even actively investigating and resolving the problems on the site directly.

 

About K.H.SERVICES

Car hire company operating in Lanzarote

Website: http://www.kh-rentacar.com

Scenario

Good service and competitive prices is our priority and therefore some of the reasons why we have a majority of regular customers, which return or recommend us. Although we are a small family business we have over 20 years’ experience in this area.

Requirements

We wanted to be able to offer our services through our web site and using ResMania allowed us to do this effectively, allowing our visiting users to make specific reservations. It was important for us to keep a base of customers so that we could get in touch with them later and for our customers to be able to view and confirm their reservations, ResMania completed this task efficiently.

Motivation

Increased competition and other companies moving to online commerce whilst ResMania proved to be the best product in this category.

Your Challenges

Mostly having to adapt to using an online solution. Learning about how to use ResMania and Joomla, however ResMania provided great help and 24/7 support.

Actions

Using the ResMania backend to modify prices and units and being proactive using the software. The back end for ResMania is very simple and clear to understand. We had no problem understanding the reservation method along with their extensions and modules. That was very helpful and a selling point on our part when deciding to purchase ResMania reservation system.

Recommendations

Most definitely yes. Specially post-sale ResMania service/support has been very reliable and extremely helpful.