The Techsplained Series presents - StaySecure

[00:00:02] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Techsplained series. As property managers, with every guest arrival we've learnt to just have trust. Trust that there won't be damage, trust they won't leave the front door open, trust they won't smoke inside, and of course all the rest.

[00:00:36] That's a lot of trust. But there are ways to be sure that your trust isn't broken. Technology has developed in leaps and bounds and now we not only have smart locks and monitors to make sure we're comfortable about the goings on at the property but perhaps

[00:00:51] for guests too. And today we'll learn about one company that is making sure your property is safe and secure. Today I'm chatting with Paul from StaySecure who will explain all that StaySecure has to offer. Hello Paul. Hello, how are you? Yes good, you? Very well thank you.

[00:01:09] Thank you very much for joining me today. Paul, we're going to learn all about StaySecure today and can you please tell us in one sentence what does StaySecure do? Great, okay. So I'm a property manager and I want to protect my property.

[00:01:37] Can we go through all the things that you offer a property manager to protect their property? Yes of course. I mean we have a range of digital door handles for all types of doors but we also

[00:01:51] access control unit for those properties that want to have even greater security, smarter front door solutions where they want a better panel something that's not on the door. We offer that solution but also what we're doing is we are hosting this and supporting

[00:02:09] it from the UK cloud using AWS so we're also protecting data. We're also providing an extra layer of data security over and above what other providers do and the apps that they use. So we see this as a vital commodity for property owners, property managers in ensuring

[00:02:31] that their clients' data is protected all the way through the process. Okay, sorry. Yes and alongside that obviously there's security within the property such as windows left open, you know all these are back door left open, all the other sensors and everything that you integrate into the property.

[00:02:48] Yeah so starting at the front door you're saying that the smart lock can go on any front door? Yep. Okay. So we have a range to cover from composite doors with a five lock system through to

[00:03:02] large wooden doors to properties where they don't want a handle on the door they want it to be a smart open solution where you push the door once you get the click notification using strike lock. Right, okay and what about for example the front door of a building?

[00:03:20] Can you sort that one out as well? Yes so where we have the ability to have multiple door units within a property we're able to provide a front door solution whether it's a key panel solution, whether it's

[00:03:34] a video door entry solution but it allows the apartments within the property to have their own individual access for the front door to have the main access and be able to provide multiple keys to be able to manage that solution.

[00:03:49] Yep so speaking of keys what is the system to get the guest information? Are you integrated with PMS? You get all the guest information for the bookings and then the key information gets sent?

[00:04:03] Yes so we offer a full API solution so whether or not it's a bespoke PMS solution, whether or not you want our keys to be integrated into a management app, whether you want

[00:04:17] to not deliver smart keys but you want to be able to deliver code we can do all of this and one of the things we like to do is work with our clients on a bespoke basis when it comes to PMS integration.

[00:04:30] Okay so you have a dashboard so once we've got connected in in in once we're connected with the PMS or however we do it with you what does it look like from then on for a property manager?

[00:04:42] So what I'll do is I'll share and show you the process so what I'm doing is um I'm going to share the screen and you should see that now. Yep. Oh okay excellent so the property manager has this platform and the API solutions in

[00:05:02] place all the functions and features and everything else you see here can be driven into your PMS or your PMS doing the work or driving the information from the PMS and us sending that information out.

[00:05:14] Now from a management perspective the first thing we can do is obviously white label the solution so where it's a stay secure which is our brand this can be your logo this can be your information so again it's allowed to put your stamp

[00:05:29] your own side of things onto your onto the product so it means that the guest who's dealing with your company or dealing with you as an individual will only see your brand and your logo so again it gives you that information.

[00:05:45] So I'll give us for example test properties okay so then what you have is your properties within your PMS would auto create the properties within our platform so we're able to match them up.

[00:05:58] Okay so what we're able to do then in here is you're able to tailor your own terms and conditions if you wish to do so you're able to activate and deactivate the property if there is an issue with the property you want to

[00:06:12] lock it down for a period so even with the integration it can't issue keys you can do all of that if you've got sub doors you've got say three doors on a property that so you have two individual rentals within a main

[00:06:26] building and you would have them managed all on one property so for example if I was to look at this one I could see the information of the property the picture all the information the contact and what terms

[00:06:39] and conditions any guest would receive from you based on on that information. Sorry I just wanted to ask so those terms and conditions that's something that they have to tick like tick the box before they get the keys so this would be health rules?

[00:06:54] Yes it allows you to tailor your terms and conditions as you see fit you actually tailor them within these portal and then in here you would basically activate and deactivate the terms and conditions okay and then

[00:07:08] you would assign them to the property what that means is basically when they first open the app they've got the link to to download their key app to get into the property they have to accept your terms and conditions then the key

[00:07:21] will then activate on the app itself it just means that you can you can tailor so if you don't have that facility within your PMS then we have the facility within our platform. The next thing you're able to do within the PMS solution within our

[00:07:36] solution which may necessarily not be something within the PMS is you have an AI smart guide what the AI smart guide is we integrate our app and our key with the local area information what that means again when the client

[00:07:51] what the client gets the the key from yourselves they will have a tour guide function where they can hit the tour guide function and go and it will basically give you all the AI information for your restaurants for your

[00:08:05] you know things to do with the children taxis emergency services all the things that you might want from the local area without having to google it without having to go and find it individually but what we've also

[00:08:16] integrated into that is the guest book solution where the client can actually put recommendations in communicate with you and then you can then actually auto-approve those things into your AI smart guide so the next guest will then get other guest recommendations

[00:08:35] just what AI is telling you it's what real human people human beings are telling you so we've taken it to that level but then what it does then is with the guest book is you're able to communicate quickly

[00:08:51] and efficiently with the with the with the guest and if there's something wrong with the property or something wrong in the property they can instantly report it on there and then you can manage that as you see fit

[00:09:02] without having to make phone calls or anything else you can literally just pass the information through our app and be able to can i just clarify that then so when the guest has booked and they're going to access their key

[00:09:15] they have to download an app and the app is then the digital key to get into the property that's it that app they have all the local recommendations and through the app they can talk to the property owner if they have any issues yes they can

[00:09:29] yeah perfect yeah yeah so they could do all they could do all of that uh information um and an example AI smart guide is a a property in Maraira in Alicante in Spain that has a solution okay it can give you all of this information here

[00:09:49] and it just gives you some very basic stuff within within the area and some click links for you to go to so again it's just the ability for you to provide that little extra level of service to your clients so they know

[00:10:03] they they've got all that information to that and then it's not having to provide it in a separate solution in a separate subscription it's all included so everything on that so the guest terms conditions the AI smart guide and everything else is is all part of the solution

[00:10:19] and everyone who has everyone in the booking has to download the app so they all have their own key and then yes so the way we the way we've done that and to impact

[00:10:29] to minimize the impact on the owner is you may only issue a key to the lead booker okay so the lead booker but what you can do is give that lead booker the permission to issue sub keys so what that means is if you've got say

[00:10:47] three families sharing the property but they've booked it all through one person like a set of keys in a key box you're going to issue that person the keys so we issue them as a digital key they can either request additional keys

[00:11:01] digital keys or you've literally added a feature into their booking where you can issue sub keys what that means is the the lead booker on the terms conditions can just issue a mirrored key to to the other families to the

[00:11:19] uh you know the teenage children to be able to get into the property but you will have tracked all of that information so what it means is if they issue some keys you have that relevant data

[00:11:31] to say who the keys have gone to but what it means is they can't extend the time they can't do anything outside of what you allow them to do it just means that actually it's one less thing for you to do it's one less thing for the property

[00:11:44] manager to go oh i've got to issue another set of keys i've got a uh nine o'clock at night this other family want a key they can take care of themselves based on you giving them that permission

[00:11:54] and how how do they do that they just have to give an email address or how do they allocate another key so the way it is is if you when you're um active when the customer is activating activated within your

[00:12:08] portal and you they've you've put their bookings gone through it will prompt whether or not additional key function is required if you put yes okay what actually happens is the keys issued to the client in their app in the guest app will appear a new

[00:12:24] feature which allow them to issue sub keys so if they have that feature activated it then means they can click on that within their app issue it as an email address to the person they want to send it to and it will issue out the key to

[00:12:37] them without you having to do anything so again it allows you to do that just to because obviously holiday lets have multiple families you have teenage children things like that you want to be able to issue

[00:12:49] multiple keys but what you don't want to be doing is getting those requests coming to you all the time because what you're going to do is sit there issue digital keys and stuff or asking at the time if you just give them that feature they can do it

[00:12:59] themselves yeah and they can give as many or as few as they want to yes that's correct and it just means that you will track who it's gone to but it also means that soon as their

[00:13:09] booking is up those keys are all disabled so it just means that it's not as if you're going to issue a key out and then suddenly like a key box where you can give a copy of a key to somebody you may never see that key

[00:13:21] again yeah yep yep yep so it allows you to get that much greater control yes absolutely so on this dashboard we manage the keys there's the smart guide yep about the sensors are the sensors

[00:13:38] in here as well yes so basically we we have the smart hub which is our access control unit but also acts as a standalone and will allow your vape so your your smart hub alerts will appear in here so whether you've got leak detection

[00:13:54] whether you've got smoke and vape detection whether you've got window left open the fridge left open it'll tell you what property when it was activated and all this sort of stuff so if you've got somebody who keeps vaping in in your living room of a property and

[00:14:10] you tell them they don't the units themselves can put out an audible announcement but obviously you can even have it as an announcement to say that your deposit will not be refunded i love that yeah on your website and i thought this is

[00:14:25] the first time i've ever heard of a monitor a device giving an audio message to say you know stop smoking or you will lose your security deposit oh wow yeah yeah so you you can have that

[00:14:39] and obviously if you have it if you can have the multiple sensors run out throughout your property so if you see if you have a property where you've got two bedrooms a living room um you would have them those sensors in each of the property each

[00:14:53] of the rooms to ensure that you're capturing that information and ensuring that not going and other parts of the property to smoke and vape so they're not being picked up by the sensors so it's all about deployment as well and again it all comes back to one

[00:15:06] central portal freezing management and if the pms supports it we're able to push that information into your pms as well so you know if you get repeat a repeat customer you may be able to even have the reports built that

[00:15:22] you can see what sort of history you have with them in the event if they've uh constantly breaking the rules by smoking and all that sort of stuff so over time you can really build a route really build a function in there yeah

[00:15:36] so so with these sensors and devices so you've got um uh the vaping and smoking the door window and fridge monitors and smart plug as well and what's the smart plug yeah smart plug is is a plug in the wall that you've

[00:15:54] got a a device plugged into which allows you to control that device so if you if you've got a period of time where the property is not in use you might have something like a lamp or something like that that's in in there where you can have it

[00:16:08] switched on for security times you can have a switch off again so you can control the timings based on that lovely okay um you have tamper alerts yes all of our all of our access control and door handles all have tamper alerts so

[00:16:25] one of the security features is if somebody tries to tamper with the unit from the outside you will have tamper alerts and the same with our smoke and vape detectors if you try and tamper with the actual unit to try and disable it

[00:16:39] we will know about it by the alerts that will come through yep okay um internet fail yes so internet failure comes on our smart hub so with the smart hub you you can have it as an access control unit where it controls the front door

[00:16:55] or you can have it standalone with a door handle but what it does it connects to the wi-fi within the property the wi-fi fails it switches over to its 4g gsm solution which then means that our products continually monitor and will continue

[00:17:09] on the internet but it also has power fail so in the event the mains fails at the property and there's no electricity the unit will operate for 24 hours ensuring the property remains secure and monitored

[00:17:22] and everything is is in place from that it then has a secondary fail over but if the property is still without power after 24 hours then there's obviously a bigger problem than that so and obviously our access control units will be normally closed

[00:17:39] so in the event of a failure after the power fail and the failure of the battery then we would keep the property secure for you know leaving the locks locked yeah okay that's great now there was one thing i'm sorry but it did it

[00:17:53] didn't make me it took me back there's one thing on your website it's called pir and i think i watched too many scary movies when i was young but it said presence in other rooms yeah so

[00:18:11] so pir is uh is actually quite a big thing and if you start to see the new technology in air conditioning for example the very high end stuff has pir built in but what is that exactly

[00:18:23] it's movement sensor so what that means is if you have your property and they checked out at 11 they've they've confirmed they've checked out there should be no one in the property not even a cleaner for example but you're still seeing their movement

[00:18:37] you're able to sense that movement and act on it so you all know there's movements still going on in the property of which they shouldn't be so then you're able to investigate and figure out what's what's happening great for great for periods of time

[00:18:50] where the property isn't in use because it gives you movement sensors within the property as well great okay um i think that's all that i had down on my list of things that i wanted to confirm that's great okay monitors and devices anything else on the

[00:19:09] dashboard that we should know about so monitor monitors on and devices so what we have on the on here we talked about guestbook messaging for example so this will be where all your communication to and from your clients would take place in a chat format

[00:19:23] and you'll know what properties it is you've got monitors on the equipment so we can see what equipment's connected what's not equipped and what equipment's detected disconnected which allows you to act on it straight away and manage those disconnections

[00:19:39] and the other thing we have is hospitality so this is a brand new thing so hospitality is all about your bigger your bigger product so you've got a holiday boutique hotel for example so you are a nice seven bedroom property which is acting as a boutique

[00:19:54] hotel you want a much greater central management solution so with the hospital the hospital sorry the hospitality um what we have and we've completely built this from the ground up with all of our technology we are able to provide that managed hotel suite technology

[00:20:14] into a very small service online what this means is if you don't have a pms you do your properties have all been keys you you didn't have any integration didn't want any integration but you wanted to manage it from the cloud and do all of it yourself

[00:20:29] then you can do all of this so for example if i show you all these these are all not in use so what i'm going to do is i'm going to show you

[00:20:39] let's just do today okay so in here we've got all the all the rooms not in use i have somebody that's coming in and i wanted to do that i can create them a key i can i can put the information in too shall go from today to

[00:20:55] tomorrow we're able to put down what what date they you have what time they want to leave so we can go paul paul hallam.com so obviously it's myself yeah yeah 2686 i don't know if you just go update status

[00:21:10] are you wanting a key okay so what it does and that will then okay can you see what says selected they can issue issue sub keys yeah yeah so now i know that my room 100 within my property

[00:21:24] is now in it booked out for this period from this time to this time yeah then what what it is is if the if they've gone to check out and they'll be able to check out from in the room on the app

[00:21:35] and they'll also have a button function to be able to check out if they then go check out and go and they've checked out from the room for example instantly come up that they've checked out and it's gone to needs cleaning yeah then you've got somebody that

[00:21:49] goes in and cleans the room turns it around and says okay so it's uh it's now available because it's been cleaned yeah okay i can click update all the rooms now ready for the next person

[00:22:00] and if they if you've already got bookings in there based on the time range it will then show you that someone else has booked in and it will show that or with based on this key one of the other things is the fact that if you need to

[00:22:13] put the room into maintenance to say the cleaners found an issue we need someone to go into maintenance you can update status and then you've put the room to maintenance until it gets fixed yeah yeah great so it becomes a full hotel suite

[00:22:27] based on the holiday let market so it gives you that real core function and the good thing about this you integrate it with pms all of these functions can be controlled that way so we're able to send and receive those alerts

[00:22:40] those updates via any pms so if they're passing the information we're able to do that and we're able to push information back to the pms if they want to have that information yeah yeah i can see a lot of uses for this yes yeah so this

[00:22:55] this is a very very powerful tool for for those holiday lets that are acting like boutique hotels are acting like all of this function you effectively have within this platform the ability to run your property like you would a hotel yeah it means

[00:23:12] if you have multiple suites of you know within one property which obviously met clients at the staa that had that this is ideal because then they can manage all the cleaning all the maintenance the key creations they could do all

[00:23:28] from a front of house they could do it from a beach if someone's got internet anywhere in the world controlling your property yeah my only feedback to you because i can't see where this could be done there so my feedback would be to actually

[00:23:42] at a glance see the whole building yes can you do that yes so all floors floor one and floor two okay so oh okay so but i'm thinking more of visual way that here's floor one here's floor two

[00:23:57] it's more like grid system yes so this is this is what it'd be so if you're if this example might not be the most ideal but if you looked at this and you have 15 rooms

[00:24:08] you would have them all here in a grid space plus the front door and everything else so you'd have everything in this grid space and then what you'd do is if you wanted to then

[00:24:17] separate it by floor you click on the floor and then it will just reduce to whatever's on that floor yeah yeah yeah great good good good okay yeah and then there's more filters i mean like you said if you

[00:24:25] came up and said actually what would be really good is x filter we'll put that in because the benefit of it being our solution is we've got total control over development yeah and that's why feedback is priceless yeah yeah great

[00:24:39] 100% yeah okay that's nice that was unexpected so that's that's a really nice extra touch for our for our product and what we want to do is it's a broad solution which basically covers you from your one one house holiday let all the way up to

[00:24:57] somebody who's got a boutique hotel for a holiday let yeah great okay door locks monitors and guidebooks and cleaning hospitality things like that great yeah lovely okay then we'll finish with the screen sharing and we'll get on with the uh with the interview yes now next

[00:25:22] question is usually why would i use your product um the using our product is all about development all about investment and development where we see our product is the continued timeline of of ensuring that it stays modern it stays up to date the

[00:25:40] upgrades coming the software uh upgrades and monitoring that comes in always means that you'll be up to date always means that the client will be up to date and ensuring that if the client wants any bespoke work we can do that bespoke work and the

[00:25:53] way we operate that is we're not operating it as a it's a charge to do the bespoke work what we want to do is add these features and functions because we know it benefits the masses

[00:26:04] so the way we look at it is if there's something that we might not have thought of but you as an owner have gone to know i've interacted with a guest and this feature would be amazing and if we can develop that feature we'll develop that feature and

[00:26:16] add it in a roll up which then just means that information once it's gone live will then be available across the board across the platform yeah yeah great and do you have a unique selling point a unique selling point is about

[00:26:30] subscription service so what we found in this market is a lot of companies selling the product they want uh they want money up front they want to it's a cost to do this cost to do that cost to do this

[00:26:42] what we do and the reason why we've got this in our own platform our own functionality is the subscription service alleviates cash flow so if you have a you know seven doors that you need to do it becomes a very expensive solution with us it doesn't because

[00:26:58] because it's a small subscription every month it just allows the client to manage their cash flow to have the digital products but also to have a relationship and support with certech because it just means that having that subscription service

[00:27:12] means that we support you all the way through not just the year which your handle normally is covered by warranty but we continue that service on as you continue your relationship with us so it just means that the longevity is about the long-term relationship

[00:27:27] and it's all about enhancing the product together getting the best of the product and knowing that if the if the client down the road decides to get rid of a building so there's a door handle needs to come

[00:27:37] down it's very easy and quick for them to drop that subscription knowing that they're managing their costs as well yeah but in terms of the device people have to buy the device and then the subscription starts yeah it really comes down to how you you

[00:27:51] prefer how the client wants to do this so we have a subscription service for the cloud and we have a subscription service for the hardware so the hardware and install can be paid for over a period of time

[00:28:03] but what it does do it allows them to to manage that so say they only wanted over 20 12 months they would pay uh for for the handle and install spread over those 24 you know 12 months and then they'll just be on their subscription service

[00:28:16] which means they take full ownership of the hardware they've paid over that term but again it's a cash flow driver they can buy the equipment up front and the install however we see 90% of people taking the subscription with the rental

[00:28:30] because it allows them to spread that cost without the need of having to go and take external finance and take of others of the means it's just part of our package and our solution that we see the longevity so they're going to pay for the hardware over so

[00:28:44] they might choose 24 months they might choose 36 months it really comes down to how many handles they're having and how much their monthly budget is to be able to go towards the digital access because one of the big things about this it's saving time and money being

[00:28:57] able to deliver this function but the biggest part of security is not having a key box not having anything of a key box not having sets of keys under pot plants sets it see it sets the keys you know it doesn't take much for

[00:29:11] somebody to copy a key from a key box and suddenly they have a copy of the key to the property with this there is nothing once that the key the digital keys can't be cloned it's not like qr codes

[00:29:24] they they aren't they aren't they require two-form factor built into our software so there's a lot of extra security layers nothing that can be copied and once the key is deactivated either manually or on timer that key is then defunct and will never be used

[00:29:40] again the same with key codes as well for those those who don't want to use a mobile can be issued key codes to the doors as well so they can have to go in and put a pin code in

[00:29:51] and that's easy that way you provide that the pin the key yes and then you just give them the code the pin code the pin pad comes with every door and also our access control unit yep great okay and and do you have an ideal

[00:30:06] audience i mean is it just can a person with one property use your product in terms of exactly yeah exactly it's it's all the way from one property to hundreds and hundreds of properties hundreds of rooms you know and that's why we built the hospitality module because

[00:30:24] building with many rooms becomes easier to manage in one platform yeah but it does having individual functions so we put it into that so if somebody came with a with a large property with 15 rooms within it we would just basically tag them as a hospitality

[00:30:42] site and then they'll get all those extra key you know features and functions from the hospitality yeah great okay and where is your audience can you service a global audience yes we can yeah so the the hardware is can be self installable can be installed by maintenance people

[00:31:00] can be installed by us i was our current market is uk and the cost that we're testing it in the costa blanca so what we see the opportunities is the holiday lets abroad so they can be they can be

[00:31:16] because it's aws uk there is no restrictions on that and that's where the data comes in so the data protection comes in because you're not using apps from certain countries which may have data issues and things like that it's very driven to be able to provide

[00:31:31] all of this and as per the as per what i showed you earlier with the ai integration you saw marira in alacanté in spain has the solution in place so they've got the ai smart guide there

[00:31:48] yeah yeah lovely and with the okay if you if someone's going to pay off their devices over 12 months or 24 obviously there has to be a contract and also if this is a subscription model i don't know if someone buys the

[00:32:02] device outright do they just a month to month with the cloud subscription yes it's just a month it's a monthly subscription so for example with all the features you've seen uh with with a door handle with all the features that you've seen

[00:32:17] it's typically eight pound 95 a month and then it'll give you ai your guestbook uh your multi-key management but that is based on the door we don't look at individual keys we don't look at how many keys you're issuing or anything like that

[00:32:31] it comes down to yourselves but also the ability to issue keys to family members to cleaners to maintenance and be able to manage that as well and again if you have a cleaner who after three months you let go uh you're able to revoke their key

[00:32:46] straight away without the issue of having to change key codes and key boxes one thing i forgot to ask though if you let's say you do allocate two keys for a property one for the guests oh that's going to turn over all the

[00:32:56] time but one has one is for the cleaner yeah that dashboard is there a place you can see okay this is the key and this is the log book yes yeah okay so what you'll do is you'll have full you'll have full reporting on the

[00:33:09] dashboard of all of your keys so basically all the access information and everything else um and obviously once the once property has been accessed by the guest and they use it for their period of time they've accepted the terms and conditions

[00:33:24] so really it comes down to it's more manageable it's more monitoring based on the cleaners and the maintenance that is guessed due to due to their own privacy obviously and making sure but you can go back and grab whatever information you want

[00:33:39] in the event you have a dispute or anything that you have to deal with yeah okay lovely well we'll come to the end of the usual questions is there anything that we need to know about stay secure that we haven't

[00:33:49] touched on yet um stay stay secure is a it's a very strong brand based on certek group one of the things that we're driving as as part of the group is is the well-being is the safeguarding element

[00:34:05] and and we have our own smoke and vape detectors going live this month but we also have a large global partner as well in vacada who will be launching this month as well for those who want to monitor air quality and all the different aspects

[00:34:22] that they might want to put into there so the enhancements are coming we've seen the the great functions uh and you know certek is built on the back of a very successful telecommunications company and um but where we're seeing this element is all about

[00:34:41] integration client and guest integration and ensuring that all of the areas where things are not normally considered in this market space is being able to roll this technology out as you know much more cash cash flow friendly ensuring that we're able to support those clients all the way

[00:35:01] through the process and that the communication all the way from guest to owner to certek to pms to whichever route that needs to integrate is smooth and smart effectively great okay well if you have any questions for paul pop them in the description in the

[00:35:21] comments below paul i will leave a link for uh stay secure in the description it's been a pleasure to learn about stay secure thank you very very much for your time thanks for your time thank you debra thank you bye

[00:35:36] well i hope you enjoyed this episode if you'd like to catch up on ones you've missed just head to the techsplained series dot com or if you're short for time you can head to the tech minis dot com where you'll find extra short interviews see you next time