Maintaining the Health of your HOA

If your HOA is currently not in the best of health, what are your options? You can always seek professional care by going to a professional management company. The advantage of this is the professionals have experience with many timeshare HOA's and the knowledge to aid you in just about any situation. They help you look at the big picture and can identify areas of revenue generation or cost savings that you may have missed. You can also do it yourself, as many companies do. It requires more effort on your part, but if you have a strong, determined HOA, here are some ways to start you on your way to a healthy new year.

Your Most Valuable Asset

Your most valuable asset is your inventory. Every strategy we talk about in this blog will ultimately help you to safeguard your inventory. As a quick refresher, inventory is every room night in every unit and ideally you want it consistently booked. What you don't want is non-performing inventory, those rooms that are empty and not generating any income. So what can an HOA do?
To move that non-performing inventory you could try appealing to owners with special promotions. Many owners are looking for ways to add an additional day or two to their stay, or a week different from their usual time period. Some HOA's use in-house rental programs, but if you don’t have the staff and resources to do it right, there are outsourced rental programs such as RedWeek, and ResorTime.  Or, you could use a professional management company which provides a turnkey rental program. Both programs are good ways to reach and initiate travelers to the value of timeshare.

Make it all About Your Owners

Your connection with your owners is critical to building the owner engagement you need to keep your operation healthy. Develop a strong connection with owners and strategies to keep it strong. That connection should extend to the owners family members and guests who, if their experience is memorable, could be your next new owners. 

Connect with your owners

Knowing what your customers expect and need is key to engagement. Your staff should be fully trained in a culture of service, where owners come first. This means engaging owners in conversation, treating them like family members, making them feel welcome and responding to their needs. Find out when their birthdays and anniversaries are, or other special events they might have planned so you can acknowledge them and perhaps provide a place for the event. Survey your owners and guests, ask for input on what works and what doesn’t. Keep them up to date on what’s going on at the resort such as improvements, new activities, and special events. Information can be easily transmitted through social media, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and emailed newsletters. Strong consistent communication with owners can also be used as an aid in preventing delinquency.

Communication is key to collections

Use your owner engagement strategies to prevent the collection process. A happy, and well-informed owner should never fall into the collection process. Make every effort to connect with owners who may be falling behind on payments. Make sure you have current phone numbers, addresses and emails of owners, and contact them right away if you have any concerns. Have a process in place for owners who need to deed back their ownership. 
Don’t neglect owners once they have caught up on payments. Keep the engagement. Follow up to make sure they’ve booked their use week or confirmed an exchange. If there vacation is sometime in the future, offer bonus time as a way for them to use their timeshare now. Keep the benefits of timeshare firmly in their grasp.

Keep your resort fresh and current


Last, but also one of the most important strategies for HOA health is making sure your resort stays fresh and beautiful, and is also a reflection of current travel trends. Be sure you are appealing not only to your current owners, but to the new generation of owners as well. Renovate rooms with the latest design trends, update common areas, keep landscaping looking fresh and make repairs on a timely basis. Offer activities for all generations to enjoy. Consider a waterpark, putting green, miniature golf course, or plan special activities both on and off site, such as wine tastings, guided hikes, surfing lessons. All the communication you’ve being doing with owners will help you to know what’s most important to them. A strategy only works if you follow it with consistency and are willing to adapt it when needed.

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