Complete Cloudbeds CRM Review for Hotels in 2024

What Does Cloudbeds CRM Do?

Cloudbeds is industry-specific software that combines CRM features with a property management system. The software enables accommodation providers in the industry to manage their properties seamlessly to create a better guest experience.

The software is primarily targeted towards hotels. However, it works equally as well for smaller setups, such as inns, motels, self-catering apartments, and even backpackers.

A CRM like Cloudbeds lets property owners link their reservations system with other third-party booking platforms. Bookings are also synced automatically across all channels.

With Cloudbeds you can get more bookings by listing your property on many platforms. You won’t have to worry about double bookings due to the live-syncing feature that immediately updates your availability across all platforms.

In this review, we take a closer look at Cloudbeds and what the tool offers.

Key Features of Cloudbeds CRM

Cloudbeds has numerous features that are specifically related to the hotel industry. By combining these features, users can experience many benefits. These benefits include:

• Improving internal operations
• Automating repetitive tasks
• Integrating all essential systems
• Enhancing the guest experience
• Access to hotel data online and via mobile
• Efficient management of guest data
• Saves time

Let’s explore some of the features of Cloudbeds so that you understand how they can benefit your business.

Property Management System (PMS)

The property management features are one of the tools that sets Cloudbeds apart from other CRMs. With the property management features, you have more control over the minutiae of your hotel business. The Cloudbeds PMS allows you to manage reservations easily.

You can quickly get an overview of your reservations and see what’s happening daily, weekly, or monthly. You can access guest details and make notes based on other communications. 

You can manage your room inventory by seeing what’s available, moving guests between rooms when needed, or blocking rooms that require maintenance. You can even update your prices directly on the PMS, which will automatically update all your linked channels.

With Cloudbeds, you can also manage your team’s daily tasks. For example, you can assign housekeepers to rooms that must be turned over, etc. You can also assign managers if the client has left a special request. This means that everything can be managed from a single platform, from guest interactions to housekeeping.

Additional features included with the Cloudbeds PMS are a drag-and-drop calendar, on-click check-in/check-out, and an overview of sales and cancellations as they happen. 

Booking Engine

A booking engine is another vital feature of hotel-specific CRM. A booking engine is an element you can include in your website, allowing guests to make direct bookings. This booking tool syncs with your PMS and updates availability automatically.

Any accommodation provider understands the importance of direct bookings. After all, these are the only bookings for which you don’t tend to pay commissions. From a purely revenue-driven aspect, a booking engine is vital for any hotel, lodge, or motel.

A booking engine also makes it convenient for guests to make direct bookings, even if they’re viewing your website from their mobile device. Mobile accessibility is equally important, and having a booking engine optimized for mobile is essential. 

A booking engine also had the necessary features to make booking a room a breeze. Aside from being mobile optimized, a booking engine can also take payments. This makes it easy and convenient for guests to make and confirm reservations in only a few clicks.

The booking channel feature also enables owners to set multiple guest payment options. With simple integrations, you can set the booking engine on your website to accept different forms of payment, such as Stripe, PayPal, and PayU, among many others.

Revenue Management

Regarding revenue management, Cloudbeds offers a few features that make it easy for hotels to stay on top of their income. Cloudbeds calls their revenue management tool the Pricing Intelligence Engine, or PIE for short.

With PIE, users can effortlessly gather market trends and pricing information to help guide your decisions. With a click, you can compare rates with those of your direct competitors. You can compare services and other competitive elements to stay on trend.

Pie also had a single-view dashboard that shows all of your most crucial information at a glance. This includes your current occupancy rate, the current number of room nights sold that day, and other useful metrics such as REVPAR (revenue per available room) and ADR (average daily rate).

PIE is also great for monitoring your rates and, equally as important, your rate parity. With Cloudbeds’ rate parity feature, you can ensure that your rates are the same across all of your platforms. This is important as it avoids discrepancies in your rates that could lead to lost bookings and guest dissatisfaction.

Channel Manager

A channel manager is one of any hotel-specific CRM’s most specialized and vital features. A channel manager links your CRM with all of the third-party booking platforms and online travel agencies (OTAs). 

As a modern accommodation provider, you want your property to be visible where your clients are searching for hotels. This includes platforms like Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, and many others. However, managing each platform independently isn’t efficient and can cause many issues, such as overbookings, rate disparity, and more.

A channel manager enables you to manage all of these platforms from within your CRM. You can update rates, availability, rooms, and more through the PMS, and the channel manager will ensure everything is updated in real-time across all of your linked platforms. 

With Cloudbeds channel manager, you can link your property with more than 300 booking platforms and easily manage them all from one platform. This increases your chances of increasing your occupancy without introducing issues such as double bookings since the system syncs your availability.

Other Notable Features

Aside from the above-mentioned popular features for any hotel CRM, Cloudbeds also offers a few other features worth mentioning in this review. First off, it should be noted that the CRM provides several payment features.

Accepting bookings and payments is essential for any PMS and CRM tool. Any hotel manager will tell you a booking is only confirmed once the required deposit is received. So, offering payment options to guests is essential to ensure this happens immediately. 

Cloudbeds has partnered with many different payment processors that you can use to make payments. These payment processors include PayPal, Stripe, PayU, SagePay, Authorize.net, and many others.

Additionally, Cloudbeds also has a feature called Cash Drawer. This feature can be found as an icon on the right-hand side of the screen and is helpful in tracking and managing any cash amounts. You’re able to create multiple drawers, depending on what you need. Some examples of drawers can include one for daily petty cash, one to manage walk-ins, and others based on your cash flow requirements.

Another useful feature that may go unnoticed, if not mentioned in a review, is the housekeeping feature. Located as an icon right next to the Cash Drawer, it is a useful tool to help manage the housekeeping of your hotel or inn. With this feature, you can add the names of your housekeepers and then assign them according to the tasks for the day. 

The housekeeping features give you an overview of all the tasks for that day, such as a quick turnover for guests still staying, a complete clean for guests checking out, and more. Using this feature makes it easy to see what your housekeepers need to do at a glance and makes it easy to assign tasks to ensure everything gets done efficiently.

Cloudbeds University is another feature you won’t see with many CRM tools. This invaluable resource is filled with training videos, courses, and more to help new users get the most out of the software. Apart from that, this tool also helps individuals new to the industry by teaching them how to increase bookings, optimize their use of CLoudbeds, and even elevate their property.

Available Integrations

Cloudbeds offers numerous integrations with third-party tools and a handy API for more custom connections. Some of the integrations offered by Cloudbeds include: 

• 4wifi: for WiFi management
• Quickbooks: for accounting
• CheKin: for pre-check-in features
• Facebook Pixel: for analytics
• GuestRevu: for guest feedback
• GuestHub: for guest communications

Beyond the integrations with additional third-party software, Cloudbeds also links with more than 300 booking platforms. Some of these platforms include:

• Agoda
• Airbnb
• Booking.com
• Expedia
• Hopper
• HostelWorld

Pricing Plan

Cloudbeds doesn’t display pricing information on its website. The reason is because each quote is customized based on your needs and the property you’re managing. As such, you’ll need to contact their team for a quote before starting your journey with Cloudbeds.

CloudBeds offers a 21-day demo version, which you can use to get a feel for the software before committing to a subscription. The demo uses a dummy account with alias bookings and rates just to give you an overview of how the software works. Alongside the demo account, you also get how-to videos and step-by-step guides to teach you how the software works.

Once you’ve agreed to the terms in the quote, the dedicated onboarding team will be in contact to help you set everything up for your property. Beyond the onboarding, Cloudbeds provides a number of features to make sure that your team knows exactly how to use the software.

If you get stuck, there’s 24/7 email and live chat support. Additionally, numerous training videos and courses are available through Cloudbeds University. You can even have a custom training set up for your team that covers your needs. You also have access to business review and account optimization support when signing on with Cloudbeds.

Scaling with Cloudbeds is also simple. You can add more rooms or properties as needed, and your dedicated support team is always available to help you with this. You also have access to numerous add-ons that benefit scaling your business. These add-ons include priority support, payment terminals, and additional performance packs to boost certain areas, such as marketing, within your business.

Is Cloudbeds CRM Easy to Use?

Cloudbeds has a very intuitive interface. This makes it easy for users to start using the platform and find the necessary functions. As someone who is familiar with CRM and property management systems, I found the platform very easy to navigate.

That being said, Cloudbeds does offer a robust set of features. With all the features that are available with the tool, there could be a learning curve for some users. This is especially true if the user has little to no previous experience with these types of software.

Luckily, Cloudbeds understands this and has released a wealth of tools to help new users. Initially, you’ll have an onboarding process where a member from Cloudbeds will walk you through setting up some of the basics of your property within the tool. They’ll show you how to add rooms, set rates, and connect your channels.

Besides the training you received during the onboarding process, Cloudbeds has numerous educational resources available to help your team make the most of the software. From Cloudbeds University, which includes courses and training videos, to 24-hour customer support, you’ll never be left with an issue without a solution.

While testing the tool myself, I found it easy to quickly set up rooms and rates. Of all the setup required, using the channel manager was probably the most complex. However, this isn’t unusual within the industry. Syncing information between multiple platforms always comes with its issues.

While the tool was able to connect with all the channels I wanted, it should be noted that, in some cases, you’ll have to invest more time than you expect. The reason for this is that some channels only sync your calendar, availability, and rates. This means that you’ll still have to create the listing on some platforms, like AirBnB, and once complete, you can link your channel manager.

Does Cloudbeds Offer Customer Support?

Cloudbeds offers great customer support. As a user, you’ll have access to twenty-four-seven support via email and live chat. I found the email responses to be quick and helpful for less serious situations. Live chat was great for situations that needed a faster solution.

Aside from this, you also receive a Customer Success Manager, which is dedicated to your account. This manager can help to provide you with additional one-on-one training, create custom training for your team, and help you develop strategies to meet your goals.

Which Companies Work with Cloudbeds

Let’s take a look at some of the companies that already use Cloudbeds:

• Alma Maya
• Bogentrackt Hostel
• Nay Palad Hideaway
• South Wind Motel
• George Street Hotel
• Bocardo Hotel
• The Cabot Lodge

Alternatives

Cloudbeds is a robust CRM and PMS solution for many businesses in the hospitality sector. However, there may be situations where CloudBeds isn’t the right software for your property. In that case, you might want to look at these alternatives:

• Oracle Hospitality
• Hostaway
• SkyTouch Technology

Suitability Assessment

Now, let’s take a look to see if Cloudbeds is the ideal CRM solution for your business.

Choose Cloudbeds if:

• You have a small to medium size property
• You run a hotel, motel, self-catering property, inn, guesthouse, or hostel
• You’re looking for a simple solution to manage your entire property
• You need a tool that’s focused on inventory management and guest relations

Avoid Cloudbeds if:

• You run a large size property
• Your property requires event or conference management features
• Large hotel chains or resorts
• Luxury hotels that offer a customer loyalty program