Owner journey
At Cornish Traditional Cottages we like to keep things simple, clear and fair. We’re here to help you navigate your way through the process of building a strong loyal customer base for your property, and to make this a straightforward, rewarding and enjoyable journey. There are just 6 key steps to building a partnership with Cornish Traditional Cottages…
Step 1 – Advice
Since 1964 Cornish Traditional Cottages has worked with hundreds of owners all with different types of properties and different goals. From your first contact with us, our service is bespoke to you, your property and situation.
We have gained a great deal of knowledge in this time and are here to share this with you so our partnership makes the most from your holiday home. To build trust friendships are important, and we make every effort to ensure the first person you see from Cornish Traditional Cottages will be by your side for the duration of our partnership.
You will be advised on every aspect of holiday letting from the dry but important statutory responsibilities through to design, décor and even the duties of your housekeeper. There is not a lot we don’t know about the market, however, if we can’t answer your question we will either find out or put you in touch with a person who can.
“The service has been excellent and I would recommend CTC to any new owner, they have been doing it for a long time and know what they are doing.”
Verity Roberts - Owner of Cockle, Curlew
If you are looking to invest in a property then our journey starts with helping you find the right property for your needs, we will put you in touch with reputable agents we know and trust in the County, let you know the pros & cons of a property you may be interested in, and most importantly, give you advice on the likely return.
If you are considering letting, or have years of experience as a holiday home owner, then our journey starts with a visit to your property by one of our experienced Property Managers. This will allow them to get an understanding of you, your needs and your holiday home.
Our “Building the business” report will take you through the steps to creating a successful and long lasting holiday letting business and provide you with an income forecast over the first three years of letting, which are the most crucial years, whilst you are establishing a reputation and a loyal customer base.
Your property is individual and we will treat it that way, your Property Manager will put together a report that is specific to your property and needs. The pricing is bespoke and not taken from a pre-set template allowing you the greatest flexibility to alter during the letting of your property.
No matter what stage of the journey you have reached in letting your holiday home we are here to ensure you make the right decisions.
Step 2 – Preparation
Having made the decision that we are the right agency to help you achieve your goals, we then need to make sure that your property is in the best shape to create the biggest impact on launch. Your Property Manager will talk you through the contract and paperwork, they will arrange to visit your property in order to draft up an accurate, honest yet captivating description to ensure the guest has the facts to hand before they book and travel directions that are accurate and easy to follow.
Having visited the property to take down the details, they will also prepare a full set of photographs for use on the website. Any recommendations for pre-launch will be noted down and discussed with you and a plan agreed. In short, your Property Manager is there to make sure that all your ducks are in a row before we set off on our journey together.
Step 3 – Marketing
We’ve been online since 1998 building a strong web presence and innovating to make the best use of changing technology and the habits of our customers, ensuring your property is seen by a targeted yet expansive pool of customers looking for their Cornish holiday experience.
Unlike many other agencies, we actively look for a good spread of properties across the county so we have enough supply but not too much to be detrimental to our portfolio. This strategy ensures that your property is put in front of customers who won’t be tempted over the border or have too much choice in your area, all of this ensuring that you have the best opportunity to convert the lookers into bookers.
We use our social media platforms to keep in regular touch with our active following of customers and have built up a loyal database since 1964 who have been booking their Cornish holiday year after year with us.
We work exclusively with Dreams of Cornwall to engage with holidaymakers through Facebook and this partnership ensures the Cornish Traditional Cottages brand and portfolio are put in front of thousands of holidaymakers and potential customers. Over 90% of our customers are from within the United Kingdom, however, Cornwall holds a special cultural interest with the Germans and Dutch, in no small part to their ongoing love with Rosamunde Pilcher. We work closely with a number of specific agencies in Germany and Holland making sure we can make the most of this market for you.
Communication is fundamental to the success of Cornish Traditional Cottages and our in-house marketing team work closely with a PR agency with over twelve years working within the hospitality and self-catering market. This collaboration allows us to get the Cornish Traditional Cottages brand and message out to engage with new customers.
Our partnership does not just extend to our social media, PR and website; we collaborate with other businesses in Cornwall to ensure opportunities for all and list on external sites we believe will ensure the best coverage for your property.
“The intimate and long term knowledge that CTC have enables them to make effective recommendations every step of the way. Today, an agency needs to be more than a place where your property is advertised. It needs to maximise the potential for your property investment by regularly reviewing and re-adjusting it to appeal to an increasingly demanding customer”
John & Denise Holman - Owners of Sleepy Fox
Step 4 – Booking administration
An important part of our partnership is the trust we will build and a large part of this trust will be down to the efficiency and reliability of our administration. It is important that your money is collected by us and paid to you at the right times, the relevant confirmations sent and all the contractual details are covered.
We understand the importance of clear and honest communication and ensuring we stick to the deadlines we have set. We regard prompt and accurate communication as fundamental to the success of our relationship and your Property Manager together with the rest of the team are there to ensure that this area of the partnership runs smoothly and on time.
Step 5 – Guest care
With innovation happening every day and e-commerce the mainstay of most businesses there is a temptation to become a virtual business, however, we know that our customers (your guests) are looking for a personal service and want to speak to a friendly, cheerful and knowledgeable person before booking their hard earned Cornish holiday.
The team are respectful, courteous, cheerful, fun, trained, hardworking and tenacious and this ensures they will always go that little bit extra to ensure our customers’ questions, wishes and whims can be accommodated.
Building trust with our customers is as important to us as building our trust with you, by doing so we ensure their continued loyalty to us and your property and will benefit from their good feedback to their family and friends.
We understand the importance of honesty and transparency in the pre-booking process and this also flows through to their post-booking experience with us and your property. We ask for independent feedback on our service from our customers through Feefo to ensure we are doing the right things at the right time for them. All of our customers will also receive a post- holiday questionnaire to gather feedback on their experience at your property.
To demonstrate that we are operating in a safe, legal, efficient and customer-focused manner we are independently accredited each year through Visit England’s Quality Accredited Agency Scheme and awarded the QAA accreditation. We believe this provides our customers with the confidence they are booking through a reputable company who have their best interests at heart.
Step 6 – Support
As a partnership, we are here not only to provide you with an efficient marketing and booking administration service we are also here to support you. Your Property Manager is always contactable during the working week and if you have an issue out of hours there is always a Property Manager on call to be there should you need the support.
At the start of our partnership and for the duration your Property Manager is on hand to keep a close eye on your property’s performance, provide helpful advice and updates and apply any changes you require or request. However, it’s not just the Property Manager you will get to know it is the rest of the team as well who will also be on hand to help.
We want you to feel you can speak to somebody you trust and the team work very hard day in day out making sure you have the advice, support and assistance you deserve.