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Hotel Petaluma is a beautifully restored example of Petaluma, California history. This historic hotel was originally built in 1923 and has undergone a complete renovation. Elegant guestrooms deliver comfort and modern style, while grand common areas, courtyards and event spaces offer an exquisite one-of-a-kind experience to guests with visually stunning architectural combinations that honor the splendor of the past. In the quest to offer guests an outstanding experience, Hotel Petaluma is home to the Shuckery, an oyster bar and restaurant that offers signature seafood dishes, California, imported, and organic wines, as well as an impressive and rotating selection of brew on tap. Barber Cellars Tasting room, which holds the distinction of being the first tasting room in downtown Petaluma, is another treat available to guests to enjoy unique, high-quality wines and cheese tastings from local producers. Truck & Barter is a family owned boutique shop located on-site that offers apothecary, expertly crafted home goods and lifestyle products. Hotel Petaluma offers its guests easy access to California wine country, art galleries, San Francisco, shopping and local attractions making it the perfect location for a quiet getaway.
I was in the market for a new provider, and the primary reason I chose INNsight was because they were highly recommended by colleagues and other people that I know in the industry that use them. I was told about the quality of INNsight’s web production, the production of revenue, and the affordable cost of their services. The second reason I chose INNsight is their growth. There is a reason why there is a big push, and people are staying with INNsight I feel because the value they are giving, the customer service, the price, and the end product that actually produces income. Their subscription process was very easy; I just went online and simply entered my information to start the process.
INNsight’s web design process is very customizable. I have worked with multiple other companies that charge thousands per month for design. INNsight is very unique where they do not charge us for building a whole new website. INNsight customizes the design to give you what you want. They can have a mock-up ready in less than a week and a custom designed website complete in a month, and that’s with all the challenges and elements I give to them for the build. I have worked with other companies that have charged thousands of dollars to build a new website based on a design that I finalized and the finished product took ninety days, and turned out to be a stagnant cookie-cutter standard template which didn’t differentiate my hotel from the guy across the street or another client down the road, their designs were all the same.
Sometimes it is hard to relay the vision you see for your website. INNsight knew my property was unique. I shared ideas that I wanted to see in my new web design, and INNsight delivered a few mock-ups. Their turnaround time for mock-ups is less than two weeks which is very fast. INNsight builds out page by page and gets a website live in about one month. With INNsight everything is customizable. Whatever you want as long as you give them a clear vision they will give you a fantastic product. You can’t go to any other website company and get what INNsight delivers. If I spend a little bit of time to describe the exact detail I want, I’m going to get that from INNsight. For turnaround time for any special requests, I would rate INNsight 12 out of 10. They are quick. I am a very impatient person when it comes to assigned tasks and making sure they are completed because every day a hotel room sits empty, is a loss in revenue that I can’t get back. When I approach INNsight wanting something done, they give me a due date, they follow up, and it is always delivered on that date. I had been working with a website company for many years and left them because I felt I was paying for a service that wasn’t valuable. I wasn’t getting what I should get with a reputable website company. It was tough, but I had to do what was best for my businesses. I decided to move forward with INNsight, and I never looked back. I am very happy with INNsight.
“I do believe the founders of INNsight are truly good people and I like working with good people because I know that I'm not going to get the run-around.”
If I were to rate INNsight’s customer service on a scale of ten, I’d give them an eleven. One of the biggest things I like is their customer service in regards to response time. Their response time is super fast. I email and within a couple of hours, or sooner I get a response. The hotel business is 24-7, with multiple things constantly going on with operations that we are dealing with. To send an email knowing that you’re going to get a response back at least within a couple of hours is very good for us. We don’t have to remember to email them again because of how quickly they respond. I have emailed them at 11 o’clock at night, and I get a response back within twenty minutes. It seems like these guys are working 24-hours--it’s like they don’t sleep.
With other companies you email and they respond within a couple of days, I've had that experience with many companies, and it is a mess because it just delays the process of getting your website up and running and starting to produce income for the hotel.
“The value that INNsight brings in regards to service costs and web production is the best I’ve ever seen in the market.”
One of the other things I like about INNsight is the value they bring. After a year, I wanted to make changes to my design. I wanted to incorporate some very unique ideas and a lot of moving parts, not your standard website, and they made it work. They built it out for me at no additional charge. In the past other companies that I have worked with charged monthly fees of thousands of dollars per a month or a per-change fee for the ability to make web edits, and then they would only handle text or photos, they wouldn't edit the website in any way, just text or photos. But with INNsight there is no charge for any of the edits I want.
The value that INNsight brings in regards to service costs and web production is the best I’ve ever seen in the market. For the price they offer, no one can beat them. Social media management, SEO the website and $50 each month towards AdWords to help bring business to the website are all included in the monthly premium. Their websites produce a very good chunk of my business. They are producing over double of any other company I’ve used, and they are charging half of the cheapest company I’ve ever used. With my package I get my social media covered, and the posts focus on local events that actually matter to my property and bring business to my hotel. They build quality followers that will come visit or hang out at the bar for a while. I get a very healthy income for my hotel websites which are my cheapest acquisition cost rather than going through an OTA where I am paying 15-20% in commissions.
“INNsight goes above and beyond a simple website company. I feel they are a website/tech company because of all the tools they have on their back end and all the service they give.”
The back end that they built out actually gives me the opportunity to go and change things that I want like text and photos, whatever I want to do. INNsight is the first company that I have worked with in the hotel industry that allows access to the back end so I can make changes if I don’t want to ask them to make edits. I like that because I don't have to send an email just to change a couple of sentences; I just log-in and change it myself quickly and I'm done with it in 5 minutes. Sometimes I feel bad because I bother them a lot; whatever I ask, they do. That's why I love them. There is no push back on anything; they listen to my ideas, give recommendations based on what they know works in the industry, and work with me. INNsight is building out a platform where my front desk, housekeeping, and maintenance can access and actually keep track of projects and track their progress to completion. The internal communications and the fantastic tools in the platform help my staff be more efficient. Another cool fact with INNsight is that they are building out a back-end mail campaign interface that will make using a third party service unnecessary. I will be able to load all of my email addresses and send customized email campaigns from the back end at no additional fee. I also like that every morning I get an email with my comp set and their rates. They just keep expanding, and they never raise my rates. They give more value all the time. Every six months, Boom! A new tool!
With INNsight, I feel that I have a personal relationship with them. It feels different, it feels more comfortable, and I can speak my mind and ask for things knowing they are working with me. I feel I've built more of a friendship over the past number of years that I've used them vs. other larger companies with a professional, but cold corporate approach. And, being an owner, knowing I have a direct line to the founders of INNsight, and we have built a personal relationship now. This makes a big difference for owners.
At the end of the day, whatever relationship or personal history that we’ve had with INNsight and all of our hotels, if they’re not producing above industry standards, then we have to look at other options, but INNsight is constantly producing. INNsight responds to my requests, understands the market, they don’t make excuses, and they don’t get defensive. I never had a complaint about INNsight, and I am very particular about how I want certain things done, I want them done in a timely manner, I'm very happy, I've never had an issue with them. INNsight is attentive to my business needs, and that is one of the things I have appreciation for INNsight. They go above and beyond, outside their scope of work and try to help us be more efficient and better hotel owners as well. My experience working with INNsight has been great. I have no complaints. I have given them all of my hotels now, and I don’t question it. I don’t even take calls from other companies... I am just very happy with them.
