Rentals.com recently received this e-mail from a customer who had both their main and backup servers crash, resulting in the loss of all their data. Because Rentals.com never deletes your property listing information, including pictures, the customer was able to retreive their property data including over 8,000 pictures. Here is the story in the customers own words”
“I did, want to take this long overdue opportunity to thank your organization for the life-saving feature you offer of keeping all of our past rental ads in your archives for future access. I realize the obvious benefit it offers us in saving time on re-creating an ad once the property becomes vacant again, but I can’t express enough how grateful I am for this feature for a more specific and important reason.
In January, our company suffered a terrible blow when both our main AND backup server crashed and took over 8,000 property pictures with it. We not only use our advertising pictures for rental ads, but they are used to show the property’s condition before and after a tenant moves in and this becomes CRUCIAL when disputing security deposit returns, collecting on bum tenants who sadly destroy our properties after they take occupancy, or providing proof of inventory. We use these pictures in court and they become priceless pieces of evidence instead of just appealing pictures for interested renters to browse through when searching for their next rental home. The pictures also save us many man-hours in time when we need to refer to them for simple and every day management tasks.
After my nervous breakdown from losing these thousands of pictures, I stumbled upon the “Search My Ads” button on your website when I was adding a new property about a month ago and made the career changing discovery that you saved all of our previous rental ads and not only that, the PICTURES as well. I LITERALLY shouted at the top of my lungs in excitement and did everything short of having a heart attack from the excitement and happiness I felt when I realized you had been our 2nd backup server this entire time and we didn’t even know it! You truly can not imagine how thrilled our office was, you really can’t. You had to be there to see us frantically showing everyone in the office and working at the speed of light to save the pictures to our files again for our reference. It’s simply amazing! I really don’t think clients realize the importance and value of this feature and how it can save them in so many different scenarios. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for providing this feature!!! PLEASE DON’T EVER DISCONTINUE IT! We are LIFELONG clients because of it and will be your walking billboard to everyone we come in contact with in gratitude for being THE BEST rental website on the net!!! I’ll debate anyone who thinks otherwise and will continue to use your services for as long as you are in business.
Best Regards,
Rachel Vaenuku
Residential Property Manager, Realtor
Property Management Sytems, Inc.
Salt Lake City, UT
Rentals.com would like to thank Rachel for her very kind words. We certainly appreciate them. When we asked Rachel if we could publish her testimonial on this blog she responded with even more praise!
“You are more than welcome to use my testimonial on your website to help current and future clients realize how valuable your services are. I did, however, want to share a few more thoughts with you.
I worked at Nordstrom for years and years before I got into the rental industry and one of the most important business tactics I took away from there, aside from the life-long lessons I learned from their undying commitment to 1st class customer service, is that very commitment is the reason why customers would pay $150 for a t-shirt they could purchase at Old Navy for $10. It’s the driving factor in why their customers stay loyal and their business continues to remain a staple for other companies to model themselves after. This archiving feature, in my mind, is what specifically sets you apart from the hundreds of other rental websites who claim to offer the best services for lower prices (some even for free) but fall short of truly understanding their client’s needs, their business and how their services can become invaluable to their clients by providing features such as this one.
In a world where the newspaper is a dying breed as a profitable source of traffic, I thank you for setting the standard in your industry and leading the way in providing top rate service.”
Best Regards,
Rachel Vaenuku
Residential Property Manager, Realtor
Property Management Sytems, Inc.
Salt Lake City, UT
Again, Rentals.com would like to thank Rachel and the folks at Property Management Systems, Inc. for their letter. We appreciate them as a customer and we’re glad that our policy of keeping the information until the customer deletes it was of help to them.