Some days, it seems the hardest part of running a rental business is keeping track of what’s available and what’s not. If only there was a tool that made tracking inventory the easiest part? That’s what rental booking software does, digitizing your manual inventory system, and making it as easy to reserve equipment as clicking a button on your website.
Depending on the solution, rental booking software can function just as well as tour reservation software, event management software, or activity booking software. These tools are designed to help a wide range of date-based businesses provide their services to their customers.
The kind of system a rental business needs depends largely on what they’re renting to customers.
Similar in many ways to car rental systems, software of this type also has to facilitate companion rentals (like life jackets), and some offer functionality to match businesses that need to sell fuel as well.
This is the broadest category, as “equipment” can mean everything from skis and roller skates to bulldozers and backhoes. Most of these businesses offer a much narrower range of rentals, focused on a single activity or industry, and the systems are built to facilitate that. These systems can also usually offer retail Point of Sale functionality for add-on purchases.
With vacation rental systems, there’s some overlap with hospitality reservation systems, as these rentals function very similarly to hotels or bed and breakfasts. That said, vacation rental systems often have to accommodate payments from multiple party members, or taking deposits, making them unique from most hospitality systems.
Renting out cars requires a fair amount of paperwork. Because the use of motor vehicles is so heavily regulated, these rental systems need to account for things like car insurance, driver’s license verification, and often, liability waivers.
There are far fewer of them these days, but some businesses still need systems to allow them to rent out media like books, audio CDs, or DVDs/Blu-rays. The most common places we still see this are in libraries, and in university media centers. These systems often have to accommodate multiple pieces of media with the same title or creator name.
Without a rental management system, whenever a customer wants to reserve a rental, they need to talk to someone at the rental company, who then has to record the reservation manually. In an age where we do almost all of our business online, rental companies need a way to make this process a self-service one.
More important even than offering online reservations to customers, rental businesses need a way to track inventory and avoid overbooking (or underbooking). Without a digital system to manage available inventory, all that tracking has to be done by hand, leaving room for errors and miscounts.
Even for rental companies that don’t require liability waivers, most with more expensive rentals will require a document like a terms and conditions to be signed by the renter. Without a digital system to administer these documents, all of that has to, you know, be done by hand.
With the exception of some small value rentals (like sports equipment used onsite), most rentals don’t charge in full until after the rental is returned. This means they need a system that can accept partial payments, or that doesn’t require any payment upfront.
RESMARK is very sensitive to the needs of rental companies, and we built our rental booking software to answer a host of concerns (including the ones listed above).
RESMARK enables you to take online bookings and make online bookings from anywhere that has an internet connection. Keep your inventory up-to-date, offer automated discounts, track customer information, get analytics data, and more, all packaged in an easy-to-use interface. It’s rental reservations done right.
The RESMARK suite also includes TrueConnect, a tool built to help you manage your resellers and distribution channels. Not only does TrueConnect enable your resellers to book directly from your live inventory, but it allows you to set separate net rates for each reseller, and even gives you access to a whole marketplace full of potential resellers. It all translates into better collaboration and more sales.
We know how important waivers are, which is why we built digital document functionality directly into the system. With WaiverSign, you can have an unlimited number of document templates, store an unlimited number of signed waivers, and keep everything in the system for as long as you like. It’s paperless, contactless, and hassle-less.
Lastly, the RESMARK suite also includes CruiseControl, our marketing automation tool. Create custom lead forms for your website where you can collect contact information, turning anonymous website visitors into leads. Then, set up automated email campaigns to nurture those leads and encourage them to book. You can even set up email campaigns for after the customer has booked, as well as after they’ve returned the rental, encouraging them to leave reviews.
"As the world’s leader in Caribbean attractions, we needed a partner that would increase sales, while still growing booking efficiencies. Resmark is that partner!”
"The Resmark staff has been lifesavers. They understand the business because they came from it, and they spent a lot of time educating me."
“The ROI using RESMARK is significant. RESMARK is one of the few companies I have worked with that can deliver ROI because they have such strong marketing expertise and functionality.”
We know there’s a lot of tools out there, and we’ll be the first to admit that RESMARK isn’t right for every rental business. So what makes us so special? Why would we recommend our solution?
We’ve been in the software solution business for over a dozen years. That’s longer than nearly every other reservation tool that’s still around, and about half a dozen years longer than most of the big names in the industry. All that time, we’ve been refining our reservation system to better suit the needs of our clients.
RESMARK came into being because we were having the same issues as other businesses, and we couldn’t find a tool that was giving us all the functionality we needed. Frustrated, we decided to build our own software, software that cut down on the need to subscribe to more than one SaaS solution.
Here at RESMARK, we believe in putting our clients into the driver’s seat. That’s why we teach you how to use the system, getting you up and running quickly, so you can control your account from the very beginning. That’s also why we give everyone a chance to test drive the software before committing to it.
So go ahead and get in touch with us. It’s never been easier to make your job easier.
