Sometimes the perfect opportunity comes around at the perfect time in your life. This was true for Mike and Martha Flynn, who decided to purchase a rental business in Holmes Beach, Florida, in 2019. Since then, they have grown it from a small volume business to a much larger company and enlisted Booqable to help manage bookings.
Just4Fun
In 2019, Mike and Martha moved from New Hampshire to Florida and began searching for a business to own. They were looking for something enjoyable that they could run until they retire. By November of that year, they had purchased a rental company called Just4Fun, which is based in Holmes Beach, Florida, and began their journey to improve it.
Over the past couple of years, while navigating the pandemic, they have grown the business immensely. Built on the ethos of being friendly, personal, and providing exceptional customer service, they now offer bicycles, boats, beach gear, kayaks, paddle boards, and beach games. They aim to provide many opportunities for residents and visitors to enjoy.
Mike and Martha are proud to run the business alongside their team and take great joy in being able to help customers and share the best ways to experience Anna Maria Island. In addition, they offer bicycle repairs to local residents alongside their rental business. Finally, they offer all customers the choice between pickup or free delivery throughout the island.
Growing pains
When they bought Just4Fun, it was a small volume business with a very limited inventory. This made it easy to schedule customers’ orders manually as there was not much equipment to track and maintain. However, once they started growing their business, it became harder and difficult to maintain this system. It became almost impossible to keep track.
Occasionally, this would lead to double bookings and shortages, which meant customers were disappointed or faced long waiting times. It was obvious at this point that it was no longer possible to manage customer orders, inventory, deliveries, and pickups through manual systems, and they decided to look for a rental software solution.
Welcome, Ginger!
Martha decided to try Booqable and immediately knew she had found the answer. She was able to enter all of their orders and quickly branched out to using more features as she saw it as easy and very intuitive to set up. Before the trial was over, she had their whole order, delivery, and pickup schedules running within Booqable, and it proved to be successful.
She affectionately refers to Booqable as “Ginger” and treats her as their new employee. The system has given them more time to focus on their customers as everything is handled by Ginger. They have been able to maximize their bookings because she tells them exactly how much inventory is available to be rented, and they can schedule more effectively.
With the additional time Booqable has given them, they have provided a more personal experience for customers. In addition, they can now prepare inventory well before customers arrive to pick it up and schedule delivery times. Finally, they have implemented waitlists for customers in case anyone returns their desired items early, which was complicated before.
Increased rental time
Thanks to Booqable, Mike and Martha have streamlined their rental operation and made room for growth. Not only do customers enjoy the booking experience and receiving confirmation emails, but the team has seen an increase in rental time since using Booqable. They credit this to more personal experiences the time savings have afforded them.
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