Smart Utility Monitoring & Billing
Concerned about your self-catering property energy bills?
As an owner rising energy costs and their impact on your rental income have likely become a concern in recent years. Increasing rental rates to cover rising energy costs is often to the detriment of occupancy levels. At Unique Cottages, we have come up with an alternative approach, a smarter and fairer way of ensuring you are not out of pocket for excessive energy usage.
Our energy management system has been specifically designed for the short-term letting market to revolutionize the consumption and management of utilities at your property.
Does your holiday property have a smart meter?
Smart meters are being rolled out across the UK and are supporting householders to control their energy spend by giving real-time information about their energy consumption in their own homes. Why shouldn’t the same technology be used to support holiday-makers to do the same?
Unique Cottages has developed software that does exactly that – utilising smart meter readings, our energy management system provides fair transparent billing so guests can enjoy the peace of mind that they are only paying for the energy they use while you as an owner can rest assured that you won’t be out of pocket if there is excessive usage.
No smart meter? No problem!
Your energy supplier may not yet have installed at smart meter at your property, but this doesn’t mean you can’t also advantage of the benefits of our energy management system. We can provide you with an inexpensive & easy to install Meter Interface which will provide you with the same data, knowledge and control as if you already had a smart meter in situ.
How does it work?
You have enough to think about as a holiday cottage owner, so our energy management system is fully automated. After a simple set-up, guest alerts and billing are all taken care of for you. Working seamlessly with the booking engine of your choice, guest information is securely passed to the energy management system ensuring that personal data is dealt with appropriately. Following the end of their holiday, guests are provided with details of their energy Ausage, a breakdown of costs, and a quick & easy way to pay directly to your bank account.
Do I have to charge my guests?
It's up to you if you choose to charge your guests. Our energy management system gives you the flexibility to just monitor costs, to set up an ‘included’ amount (and only charge for excessive usage) or to pass all utility costs directly on to the guests. We know each cottage is unique so our system can cater to all. Whether you choose to charge or not, our system accurately reflects each party's consumption, fostering trust and transparency. We believe this not only exactly what the self-catering industry in the UK needs but is exactly what the planet needs as well! Our system encourages energy-efficient usage, contributing to a greener, more sustainable holiday experience and a healthier planet.
Benefits
- Increased energy efficiency, cost savings, and a boost to property appeal
- Hassle-free remote monitoring and real-time usage insights
- Accurate data on energy usage to support understanding of seasonal energy usage patterns
- Fully security and privacy compliance built keeping customer data safe
- Utilise Smart Meter technology to reduce your energy costs whether your property has a smart meter already installed or not.
Website Developments
Since its launch the website has continued to be worked on and improved and we regularly add new features and functionality to it. We now have the independent Feefo ratings for each cottage live on the site that generate a star rating for each cottage based solely on your guests' reviews.
You will start to notice these appearing on the site as we go through and turn on the reviews for each property. Properties that don’t yet have any reviews will not show a rating until they receive their first few reviews. These reviews, particularly as they are independent, reassure people and have been proven time and time again to improve on conversion through to booking.
Following your feedback we have added a calendar into the Availability and Book section to make it much clearer to guests that there may be part availability within a week, thus generating more interest in short breaks (where available). We have removed the reference to booked weeks and added a link through to the full availability calendar when a month is fully booked.
We have added a 'recently viewed cottages' section on the bottom right of the page that keeps track of the last three properties that the guest has looked at so that they can easily navigate back to them if need be. We are also looking into adding a ‘shortlist’ feature that will allow guests to add their favourites to a shortlist so that they can then review them in further detail.
We receive a lot of positive feedback from guests on the new site, some examples of which have come in through our Feefo service reviews:
‘Very good and easy to use website. Have used Unique Cottages before and will gladly use again.’
5 June
‘The choice of cottages is very good and the website is easy to navigate.’
21 May
‘Good website with clear photos and all the info you need. Good search options too.’
7 May
‘Website layout is inviting - it makes you want to look through what's on offer.’
7 May
‘Good website, easy to navigate and importantly had good pictures.’
18 April
We already have an owners section of the website, but this is an area we are looking to improve on for you. We are currently investigating adding an owner login area where you can log in and view your bookings and financials, etc.
We are very much open to ideas on improvements to the website, so if you have anything you think it would be good for us to add, including items that would be useful to include in the owner login area, then please contact us: