1. Who are you?
"Pebbles of Salcombe is a holiday home management and services company tailored to providing to holiday homes, which it does for more than 400 clients within 20 miles of Salcombe, South Devon.
In May 2004, James and Deborah established Pebbles of Salcombe with two objectives:
- to make life better for the property owner by providing a single point of call for the complete range of Property Services and Management, focusing on reliable service quality, good value-judgments and leading customer service.
- to keep business local by channeling the demand for Property Services in to the local skilled community – from Housekeeping to Project Management, rather than seeing it met by businesses from other parts of the country.
2. What does a keyholding agency do?
"A keyholding agency provides peace of mind for you, your tenants and a letting agent (where applicable). Key benefits include:
- Out of hours telephone support for you and your visitors 7am - 10pm, 365 days a year.
- A notice of Property Manager is placed in your property, inc. our telephone number.
- Emergency on-site support (arriving within 20 minutes in Pebbles case).
- Scheduled property checks to uphold insurance requirements.
- Check for visitor damage.
- Changeover cleans to include bedding.
- Basic caretaking services and more.
3. Who uses a key-holding service?
"Key-holding services are beneficial to owners of a holiday home or a second home who are not local to the area or do not have the time to manage the property themselves."
4. How do you monitor your client’s holiday properties?
"Our management packages include weekly visits May – Oct and fortnightly/weekly checks Nov – Apr. Each visit provides a report incorporating a damage check (between lets), facilities check and security check."
5. How do you deal with problems during a guest’s holiday stay?
“If a Property Manager discovers a problem during a check, or receives a call in or out of hours from the guest, we provide a Partner Specialist within two hours to fix the problem and protect our client’s rent.
"Partner Specialists e.g. plumbers are carefully selected by Pebbles on the grounds of an efficient and effective service and, to look after the pocket of the home owner, Pebbles even negotiates special rates."
6. What are some of the more unusual situations or requests you have had?
"It’s all about lateral thinking in this business because no day is the same as the last. We’ve had runaway squirrels causing havoc in a seaside cottage; even a snake that decided it was that week’s guest and drove away the Housekeeper!
"On a more serious side, it’s often about mediating between guests, owners and agents when things don’t go to plan. We had the mother of one young family recently who required an ambulance on the day of departure, the arriving guests were due to come early and the agent had nowhere to move the new guests to so needed the property vacated: We negotiated a delayed departure for the tenants and supported the young children while the paramedics treated their patient. We re-distributed housekeeping teams in order to get the 9 hour clean done in an hour, and even managed to put the Tesco delivery away such that the arriving guests were settled in no more than an hour late."
7. What is the worst part of running a key-holding service?
"The worst part is when tenants misinterpret the purpose of an out-of-hours service and call late at night for what might be considered insignificant reasons... such as requiring a tea strainer at 9:30pm on a Sunday night."
8. What is the best part of running a key-holding service?
"Exceeding our guests’ expectations. We aim to provide a service to a 5 star standard and our guests and owners rarely expect such a high level of care in a holiday or second home. When we or our Partner Specialists arrive within 20 minutes of the call and can fix the problem there and then and leave them to enjoy their holiday, the appreciation makes it worthwhile… even at 9:30pm on a Sunday!"
Pebbles of Salcombe provide a full range of key-holding services fro holiday home owners within a 20 mile radius of Salcombe in Sourth Devon, including cleaning and changeover services for holiday lets, and management services for second homes.
