In this video I interview Xavier Rouhaud to ask him all the questions without any filter about what works and what doesn't work at SWIKLY. If you want to finally resolve the subject of the deposit for your short-term rental, this is an essential interview.
The swikly website: https://www.swikly.com/
The linkedin profile of Xavier Rouhaud: https://fr.linkedin.com/in/xavierrouhaud/fr
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Hello and welcome to the J'poster Complet channel, the channel which helps seasonal rental companies, professional sub-renters, and seasonal rental concierge services to become serene and ultra-profitable entrepreneurs.
Today, I am delighted to welcome Xavier Rouhaud with me, who is at the head of the SWIKLY company. He will tell us about his career, and will tell us about the SWIKLY company too. As you know, we hear a lot of things on social networks, and even about the people we interact with on a daily basis. On SWIKLY, is it good? Isn't that good? In fact, maybe we never get our money back in the end! Maybe we need to take stock! We hear everything. So I found it very interesting, today, to invite him to my microphone, so that we could talk about it, and so that we could ask him all the questions we have about the company.
− Hello Xavier.
− Hello Élise. Thank you very much for inviting me to your channel.
− Thank you for accepting this invitation. I am really delighted that you can tell us about what is today, I think, a tool that can help many seasonal rental companies and seasonal rental professionals. But it’s true that I was asking myself questions. Moreover, this is the genesis of our exchange, because I took the liberty of writing to you saying: “I am investigating SWIKLY a little. Let's talk, I have some questions. Would you be willing to answer my questions? » And you very kindly agreed to answer it. So that’s why we’re doing this interview today. For those who don't know you, can you talk about your background?
– Yes, of course. In fact, I have a background in large groups. I have spent my entire career in large groups, in IT consulting companies, in industrial companies, even. And then at 40, with a friend, we said to ourselves: “We're fed up. » We kind of wanted to get away from all that, and start an entrepreneurial business. So, we looked for lots of ideas, and we came across this idea of dusting off the world of surety a little, because we were still, before SWIKLY, on somewhat dusty principles. We got deposit checks today. There are still a lot of people who have checks. We made transfers that had to be repaid, and so, with my partner, we are two people who are quite technical. We are in computer science, I studied computer science, my partner did too. So we like it anyway. Basically, we are two technicians who know a lot about the banking world. And quite naturally, we came up with this idea of offering an automatic and guaranteed online deposit. And we sell that, precisely, to most seasonal rental professionals, but not only that. We also offer a service to all car equipment rental systems, always on the same idea of trying to automate and digitalize this entire process.
− Do you have any figures to give us about the SWIKLY company today? I don't know what type of figures you can give us, but so that we can understand a little about your activity today. You see, the volumetry.
− SWIKLY, we’ve been around for six years. Initially, there were just two of us with my partner. So, we grew little by little. We raised funds two and a half years ago now, with fairly important partners: the savings bank, Crédit Agricole, these are two large banks that are quite well known in France. And then two funds called Crea'ty and Evolem, which are funds somewhat specialized in insurance. Today, at SWIKLY, there are 18 of us. We will grow by two more people quite quickly, developers. We have made approximately 500,000 secured deposits since our existence, and we are experiencing strong growth. We make approximately × 2 in terms of turnover every year. So we hope that this will continue.
− You also work with big names in the concierge service. Are there any names you can give? It may be names that are present on your site, I don't know anymore.
− Yes, we are in the concierge room. We are quite present, in fact. We have a historic client called Welkeys. But we have plenty of other customers in the campsite. We have large camping groups that trust us, we have large car rental groups that trust us. So, we are indeed quite present in seasonal rentals. This is our biggest sector today, and we have almost all the biggest French concierge services, in any case, who trust us. And the idea is to develop internationally fairly quickly, to address even bigger players.
− If there is ever someone who looks at us and says: “But SWIKLY, what are we talking about?” I don't know this company at all. » Can we say what the concept of SWIKLY is?
− Yes. Thank you for asking the question. Initially, SWIKLY was really invented to dust off the deposit. I don't know if everyone remembers, but we used to take deposit checks. My grandmother did this. We took bank card prints on a shoe, we did it like that, and it made a carbon copy, the bank card print. So, we wanted to dust that off, by inventing an automatic digital online deposit, which is really very easy to take out, in fact, and what's more, which is guaranteed. That’s really what we wanted to invent. It wasn't easy. At the start, we didn't have all of these elements. But that’s really the idea. What is SWIKLY today? It is an automatic system which connects to your management software: to Smoobu, to Booking, to all PMS in general, and which automatically, a few days before the start of the rental, requests a SWIKLY deposit. What is a SWIKLY deposit? We send a link to your client, to your guest, they click on this link, they come across a form where they can fill out their bank card. By putting in your bank card, you just take your number, and above all, what is important to remember is that you do not impact your bank card limit. I think that it has happened to everyone that they have already put their bank card with a car rental company, and a car rental company often blocks the ceiling. Which means that you end up with a bank card which is therefore blocked. If you want to buy something, there is a risk that someone will tell you: “You no longer have any money left in your ceiling. » At SWIKLY, we don’t do that at all. As a result, the deposit passes almost systematically. And so, that’s what we wanted to invent. The problem with not taking this pre-authorization, not blocking the funds, is that we, SWIKLY, are taking a risk. This means that perhaps, if ever there is a deterioration, we will not have the guarantee from the bank to recover the money in the event of deterioration. So, the concept of SWIKLY is to have invented specific insurance which covers, precisely, this risk of default on a bank card. And this allows us, SWIKLY, to say to our customers: “Go through us, it’s automatic, it’s digital. You are not blocking your customers' ceilings, and what's more, if there is a deterioration, don't worry, it's our job. » We first come to recover the money on the bank card, and if we are unable to do so, we have our own insurance which compensates for this lack of debit that we would have had on the card to pay the owner.
− Super clear. I think it's something where if ever there were to be a Channel used by someone to which you are not automatically connected, you correct me if I say something stupid, but there is always anyway the solution of being able to send the link directly to travelers. So, it's a system that we can use, whatever our Channel, whatever the tools we have.
− Absolutely. We are connected to a lot of Channel managers, a lot of PMS. It's true that there are still a few... There are a lot of Channel managers, that's the problem. So, we are trying to have all the partners, we don't have them all yet. But in fact, there is a very simple way to integrate SWIKLY with any Channel manager. At SWIKLY, we provide a unique link that is reusable. So we can say, for example: “I am asking for a bond of 500 euros. » And it's just a web link. We click on it, we come across a SWIKLY form. You copy this link into any email you want to send to your guest, and this allows you to guarantee a deposit for three months. As it is a unique link, we do not have the exact dates and names of the guest, but it still makes it very simple to guarantee a deposit over a period which is quite long.
− Top. Great. We hear things. In particular, what I have already heard, and this was one of the questions I wanted to ask you, is that we were unable to recover the deposit. What do you say to that? What is your feedback on that?
− This is a point that we often try to clarify. And in fact, at SWIKLY, we have two levels of service, and that is very important to understand. We have a level of service that is not guaranteed, and there is a premium level of service. On our site, you see our offer, there is really the standard service. And our goal is to put everyone on a premium service, to be able to guarantee and avoid these problems that you are talking about. Why do we have a standard service? First, because we cannot guarantee all sectors. So we need a non-guaranteed standard service when we talk about equipment rental, for example. And what we do to avoid these misunderstandings is that systematically, each time we register on our site, we warn our new client by saying: “Please make an appointment with us, please contact us to check if the offer you have chosen corresponds to your expectations and your needs. » Because we have customers who do not want to upgrade to the premium service. I admit that in seasonal rentals, almost all of our clients, as soon as we get to speak to them, switch to a premium service. Because it’s not necessarily more expensive, either. Based on the volumes that our customers have, we are even able to reduce prices for premium services, as long as there is a little bit of volume among our customers. So it's not a question of price, it's a question of: are we in the right sector? It's also a question of security. We need to know our customers to enable them to benefit from the premium service. So I invite all your followers to contact us if they are already SWIKLY customers, to ensure that they are on the premium service, or in any case, to contact our support to do so if not not the case.
− We also come back to the fact that it is important to have the tools at their full potential. Often, these are issues that arise in the community, to ask themselves: “Do I really need a Channel manager? Do I really have to have SWIKLY in premium version? » I give this example. It could be: “Do I really need AIRDNA, which is a statistics system? » In fact, all these elements corroborate that if we want to have the best performance in our activity, the best serenity, both in mental workload, but also in financial performance, we must equip ourselves with the tools pros. And you see, for me, when you explained that to me, it was a revelation to understand, in fact, this gap, and to say to myself: “In fact, it is obvious that if we wish to subscribe to the services SWIKLY, you have to take this premium part. » We don't have any affiliate links together, eh!
− No, we don't have any. Once again, I repeat, it's not a question of price. You would think it would be much more expensive with insurance. This is not the case. It's really a question of verifying the sector, and verifying the identity, let's say, of the person, to be able to benefit from this insurance. We have constraints from our insurance contracts on the area where we operate, on the loss ratio. So it's a small question that we want to check with the client to give them the benefit of this.
− Do you want, because that can also be a reassuring element, to say to yourself: “Which insurance company insures you? » Is it a big company? Or is it confidential, perhaps?
− No, it is not confidential. In fact, Aon-Benfield is our broker. With his help, we built the whole thing… Insurance is complicated. There are reinsurers, there are insurers and it's a whole chain. It's not just Aon in the story. There is Cena, too, who is part of the game. There is also a reinsurer who is behind it. Insurance is truly a world apart, and one that is very controlled. And we made the choice to go with them, because they have a base that allows us to maintain ourselves. Typically, when we have a global pandemic, Covid, for the record, we have a loss ratio which has exploded due to parties which were organized near the apartments. And so, if we did not rely on an insurer, and if sometimes, we have customers who want to self-insure, it is typically this type of case where we are very happy to have a SWIKLY which is guaranteed by a large insurer to be able to compensate a little for all these risks where all of a sudden, in one month, we have lots of claims on apartment rentals.
− Was it easy for you, in these circumstances, to collect deposits, to ensure that the money was returned to owners and short-term rental professionals?
− In the context of Covid, you mean?
− Yes, in the context of Covid and all the parties there were. Was it to raise money?
− We have an explosion in claims, that’s the problem. That is to say, if we had not had this insurance, and if we had not had insurance that had solid backing, we would indeed have had problems. That's why we made these choices. Insurance is the principle, that is to say that overall, over several years, we obviously try to live with premiums. They are higher than our losses, but it serves to cover these problems, where all of a sudden, we have a region, an area where we explode. And for us, it gives us a serious basis to say to our customers: “Don't worry, it's guaranteed. ".
− In fact, it also means that your company is innovative. Tell me again if I'm wrong, but it's innovative from a banking perspective. When it comes to fundraising, you have banking companies that have supported you. But also from an insurance point of view, in fact. Is that it?
− Yes.
− Because you also have insurers who supported you in raising funds.
− Completely. It's a bit of a trend, you know, in start-ups. We are in the middle of what we call Fintec. These are the new insurance and financial companies. We mix, in fact, a little electronic banking engineering, we are on a bank card imprint, and a little insurance engineering to create a simple and automatic service for our customers.
− Top. Another question that may arise about the services you offer. Will we have to carry out an inventory each time travelers pass through? If yes, how?
− The inventory of fixtures in seasonal rentals is not obligatory. We strongly recommend it, because it avoids a lot of discussions with guests, but it is not obligatory like in long-term rentals. We have put in place tools to make it easier. This means that when you register with SWIKLY, you have a small check box which is already checked by default, which will offer your customer an online inventory system where they can take photos at their convenience. arrival and departure. And in the event of a problem, we can use these photos to facilitate proof of damage. But by default, I don't know if you have already studied it with lawyers specialized, by default, in seasonal rental, it is not obligatory, the inventory.
− But I didn't know that.
− In fact, we must see SWIKLY as a tool. That is to say, it is a tool that allows you to take a deposit. We provide an inventory system to simplify all that, but at the end of the day, it is still important to make it understood that it is the owner, the manager, who is responsible before the law for a collection or not. We are not the arbiter of the collection of the deposit, that is to say that if someone wanted to charge a deposit when they did not have the right, they can be sued by the guest, if ever , he does anything with a tool. It's like when you see a knife. With a knife, you can cut your meat, and you can kill someone. There, it's exactly the same parallel. There is definitely a responsibility, and fortunately. Somewhere, there are laws that make it possible to control all of this. And the inventory contributes to the proof. For information, we are going to strengthen this aspect a little at SWIKLY to make it a little more formal. We will provide, for example, electronic signatures on photos, things like that.
− Okay. If we put ourselves in a situation, for example, I subscribed to SWIKLY, I have my apartment, the person came, they paid a deposit of 150 euros. The traveler's stay ends, the person in charge of cleaning who works with me goes into the apartment, and she writes to me: “Élise, there is no more TV. » We had a TV worth, let's say, 100 euros. There is no more TV. How is it going? I subscribed to SWIKLY, can you tell me what I should do, and what will be asked of me?
− So here, if you have subscribed to SWIKLY, you have a deposit of 300 euros, we will say, that you have secured with us beforehand. So, you will come to your back office, to your account. You will select the deposit of the guest in question, and you will request a collection of 100 euros. When you make this request, you are asked to attach associated supporting documents. So there, this could be a supporting document that you can do right away by simply taking a photo of the piece of furniture: the TV, and perhaps an initial purchase invoice, and a replacement invoice. You can come and attach it after you buy the new TV. And from there, we will collect the amount. If we get there right away, fine, we'll give the money that comes from the guest card. If we can't do it, after 30 days, we will activate our insurance based on the supporting documents you have given us, to say: “Look, I have a claim. I wasn't able to collect the money from the guest card, and I do have an invoice for the purchase of a new TV. Please refund us. »And we will go from there to be reimbursed.
− Top. There is also the case of a very dirty apartment, you see, or in fact, the person who takes care of the cleaning, she comes and says to me: “Élise, instead of spending an hour and a half there, , I'm going to spend four hours there. » How should we handle this situation?
− In the same way: you take a photo. If you have an external cleaning company, you can very well request extra billing. “I spent two more hours,” so you have a supporting document that will say: “I have two more hours of cleaning billed on time. » This is the basis for requesting the collection of your deposit, so there is no problem. With photos, it can work too. That is to say, you show us a dated photo, you show us an apartment that is completely upside down. That's enough with the insurance to collect an amount.
− Okay. Great. It also means that if I'm the one who takes care of the cleaning, just by giving the photos, it allows me to collect money to pay me for the time spent.
− Absolutely.
− Okay, great. Very clear. There is also a topic that can be problematic. When we talked, I told you about it, because I had also heard from a close friend about it. When we send the SWIKLY link, we may have travelers who don't understand. They can say to themselves: “I paid for a reservation on Booking for I don’t know how much, now they send me something, they ask me for 400 bucks more. What is this story? » How do we handle this situation? How do you help manage this situation? Because it can sometimes lead to cancellations of reservations, in fact.
− It’s true that at the beginning, we had a lot of cases like that. It's true that today, we have a little less, because we are a little better known. And then, when we type “SWIKLY online deposit on the internet”, we see that we have good ratings from our customers. But in fact, very quickly, we wanted to train and inform our customers, and we offer a small explanation kit, either to send to your guest automatically in the communication, or to put on their ads, on Airbnb ads, booking. com. We can describe: “Be careful, there is a deposit that will be taken. This is our partner, SWIKLY. » And so, it makes his little communication, these things, a lot easier.
− Yes. What I find interesting, tell me, if the wording, if the words are the right ones, but it is also to remind travelers that in fact, it is an imprint. I don't know how to say it, you see, but to specify that in fact, his card will not be charged. Can we say that it's going to be a print? Is that correct?
− Yes, you can say it’s a print. His bank card imprint. There is no official term in electronic banking, but in fact, there is no pre-authorization, there is no blocking of funds. And that’s a bit of our added value. We don't bother the guest when he puts down his deposit. He has a card that he can use later during his vacation.
− Yes. In the end, I think this is the way to present it to travelers as well. There is an element of education to be had, because we can have travelers who have never… even if as you say, you have a growing reputation, and then the site is well done. That is to say, when you type SWIKLY, you immediately understand what it is about. But this part of education for a traveler who doesn't have time and looks quickly, it can really help, especially on the inventory, too, you see. You specified something interesting, which is that in fact, we allow travelers to take photos when they arrive, to explain to people that we are not giving them an inventory of the situation even before they arrive. they set foot in the apartment.
− Yes, completely.
− That’s important. There are other questions too. There is in particular another question that generally arises. This is more the professional side. It's: "I don't have the g card, can I use SWIKLY?" Because I can't take the money myself from my company. » How is it going?
− We have many customers who are in this situation. In fact, we created an account hierarchy system. We can create a SWIKLY account, which is the account of the concierge manager, and we will attach owner accounts. What is a SWIKLY account? This is the way to take deposits, and especially a recipient account. A recipient bank account which will receive the deposit amounts if there is ever a deterioration. And it is this principle that is interesting in the context of a manager without a g card, that is to say that he will be able to have a hierarchy of accounts which will be recipients of deposit collections, and we provide a tool that simplifies all that. So it's a SWIKLY account, you can easily go to each of your owner's accounts, request a collection, and in this case, the money will go directly to the owner's account.
− It’s really perfect. It's a bit the same way of managing Airbnb or Booking ads, which are in the name of the owner. We embrace the thing, and that’s great. Even without a G card, you can completely use SWIKLY, it's not a problem. We're not going to have to collect money ourselves.
− It’s very structured. We have collection on behalf of third parties, this is one of the subjects that we have addressed since the creation of SWIKLY. We rely on a system of bank accounts, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel which allows us, precisely, to create all the accounts at the level of the owners' names, and to respect the law in this sense.
− Top. You see, I didn't suspect that it was a very legally regulated element, you see.
− It’s very supervised. As soon as we talk about money, generally speaking, there is a tracking system. I don't know if you know, but there is a European system called tracfin, which requires you, as soon as you open an account or a similar bank account in the name of a client, which requires you to know your client. So we ask, you may have heard of them, what we call kawaici. This is basically minimal information. You have opened a bank account, to simplify, in a banking establishment, you must provide... To our customers who register, as soon as we have to pay them 1 euro, we ask them for an identity document, proof of domicile, of that ilk, precisely to be able to say to the bank: “Look, he’s a respectable person. » This is a legal obligation. That bothers us, because it's a bit of a hindrance to growth. But that's part of security.
− Okay. To make sure you're not laundering drug money.
− Exactly.
− That's pretty good. Another question that gets asked a lot, and that I also absolutely wanted to ask you today: why SWIKLY versus Stripe? We know that in seasonal rentals, some use Stripe. What answer do you give to that?
− What we bring in addition is mainly automation. Everything that is connection, referral of a deposit request. Stripe is very good for payments, we are really focused on the deposit. The automatic request for a deposit online, connected with a reservation that falls into your Channel manager, that's really our job. And it saves you time. That's the first element: automation. Second element, I talked about it a little, that is to say that Stripe will come and do a pre-authorization, that is to say that it will block the limit of the card. And so, if you ask for a deposit of 1,000 euros, you will try to block 1,000 euros on the card. If the card says no, you cannot take a deposit. So, at this stage, you need to direct your guest and say: “Can you write me a check? Can you make a transfer to me? » There, it starts to get complicated. The third element, where we differentiate ourselves from Stripe, is that as we do not require pre-authorization, we have the entire insurance system with us... Stripe is a legal obligation, can only take a pre-authorization online for seven days. So on the eighth day, and it's usually for a week, so if you take your deposit on Friday evening, seven days later, you can no longer. On Saturday morning, you can't anymore. So we can secure a deposit with an insurance system for one month, two months, three months or even six months, sometimes depending on the sector of activity.
− So that also means that if, for example, I have a traveler who stays for a medium length of time, so that's a little outside the scope of Airbnb and Booking, but someone who takes an apartment for two months...
− It’s completely within our ropes. We have a time limit of around six months. Often, the standard is three months. Depending on the negotiations we have with our clients, we can go a little further. Because afterward, it's a question of insurance: what is the loss ratio in the sector, and how do we know how to guarantee its length? On Stripe, too, the card has an expiration time. A card, you know, lasts about three years on average. And so, we come to check, obviously, that at the time of the guest's departure, the card is still valid, in order to be able, just in case, to debit deposits.
− So if we sign a mobility lease, for example, which is a bit different from Airbnb and Booking, we can make our deposit with SWIKLY?
− On the mobility lease, you are reaching the limits of my knowledge, because I don't know if we can take out a deposit. It seemed to me that it was forbidden. I don't know if it can be done.
− Yes, maybe I'm saying something stupid.
− In any case, for the long term, regardless of the lease, the legal tool you use to make your rental, it can be a standard rental for two months, three months, without using this mobility lease. And in fact, there you can take out a SWIKLY deposit.
− Yes. In fact, with the mobility lease, we fall back into the rules linked to the different…
− Yes.
− Super interesting. Thank you very much, Xavier, for all this information. It was super interesting, super precious to hear you share it with us, explain it to us.
− Thank you for inviting me.
− Thank you for all that, and we look forward to discussing again. We may have questions under the video, so I won't hesitate to share them with you so that we can provide answers.
Don't hesitate. If you want to ask Xavier questions, don't hesitate to write that in the comments of the video. I made sure to either alert Xavier, or collect Xavier's response, and give you the response without problem.
− Thank you again, Xavier, for the time you spent with us. It was very nice.
− Thank you very much,
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