Interview with Claire Westwood from WCS Bespoke Sotogrande

In this in depth interview, Noll Sotogrande, talks with Clare Westwood, owner and director of ​WCS Bespoke​ based in Sotogrande, about how the Covid 19 pandemic has affected her both professionally and personally and what she thinks may happen over the coming months.

WCS Bespoke​ has been providing property management services to second home owners and holiday rentals in Sotogrande since 2006, when Clare founded her company.

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We are just beginning to see the effects of the de-escalation of the COVID 19 lockdown measures here in Sotogrande, how did you react to this initial lockdown?

I remember the week before the lockdown orders were issued, vividly. You could feel something in the air had changed. We were all watching what was happening in Italy with horror and could see our numbers in Spain start to climb. No one knew what exactly was coming but we all knew something was about to happen and it came at lightening speed.

I had already prepared my team earlier in the week on what action we would take under different scenarios, so there would be no panic and we would all know what to do. So when the announcement was made on that Friday that the schools would be closed on Monday, we all started to move.

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How was the transition to lockdown?

I began investing a lot of time, effort and a considerable amount of financial resources into tech over 5 years ago when I started to build ​Propierge, our Operational Property Management System. ​Propierge​ is on “the Cloud” and automates all of the cleaning, property inspections, arrivals and departures, supplier comms and issues management all at a property and client/owner/guest level.

WCS Bespoke​ was fully on the Cloud about 3 years ago when we completed the integration into ZOHO for CRM, Accounts, Issues and moved everything to G Suite. So the physical transition was incredibly simple. Just lift the computers, take anything else essential from the office and set up at home.

This meant that Lola, Marisa, Pepi and I were fully operational and working from home first thing on Monday morning, which was very timely as over the weekend, the full lockdown orders were issued. We have been pretty much 100% operational apart from a few weeks when no one was allowed to leave their homes other than for essential work, food and medical supplies. This meant we had to cancel all inspections and cleaning at the properties for these weeks, but the administration and client communications have not stopped throughout.

How has this all affected your business?

WCS Bespoke​​ is an “old school” Property Management company – albeit with a very up to date and forward thinking approach to its operations! What I mean is that we have always taken a “Property and Owner/Client First” approach. We see our clients’ holiday homes as valuable assets that they trust us to manage and look after and we take this very seriously.

The services range from simple property management to include inspections when the property is empty, arrival/departure requirements, cleaning, concierge services, maintenance, small building projects, administration and bills payments, coordinating fiscal requirements with professionals and achieving income objectives through holiday rental activity.

We charge a monthly fee for the property management services and everything, apart from the arrival/departure activities (owners and rentals) has continued throughout the lockdown. We have even taken on new property management clients during this period, proving how valuable these services are. But only when provided by a professional, reliable and trustworthy property management company who is there for their clients and their properties – even when leaving your home is a potential risk to your own health.

We do not provide full Property Management Services on a % of rental income basis as it doesn’t work. We charge our flat fees for the full Property Management and a lower % of rental income for the rentals. I think this model is the right one for both the property owner and the property manager, as when rental income vanishes overnight like it has with Covid 19, WCS Bespoke​​ is still here and operating at a time when property owners are very concerned about their properties.

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How have your property owners/clients reacted to what has been going on?

In the week before the lockdown, I sent out an email communication to our clients detailing what was happening here in reality, what this meant to us locally, what it meant to them personally and to their properties, what they should do about any planned visits to Sotogrande and what services we were providing and from where etc.

I have continued sending these client communications out at least once every two weeks, but more often than not, more frequently than this as and when anything significant changed, or information was released. I am still doing this and will continue to do so.

The response from our property owners/clients has been fantastic. We are really incredibly lucky to have received the support and good wishes that we have had from them. Most of our property owners/clients are from the UK, but we also have some Spanish and others from Belgium, Singapore, Lithuania and many other countries. Communication is and will continue to be key with this, along with a super-team supporting me!

How is your team?

My team is amazing. I do not know how I would have coped over the past couple of months without them. The ​WCS Bespoke​ team is mainly women and most have children who they are now having to look after during the day and home school, whilst keeping up with their work. I really don’t know how they do it – I struggle with just looking after my dogs whilst home working, so I have great admiration for them!

We have regular group video chats to catch up and check in on one another. I am not saying it has all been rosy, far from it. We have all had our good and bad days, I think week five of the lockdown was pretty horrendous for all of us.

But the main thing I wanted to encourage in my team was to “be kind”. Not just to others, but to themselves as well. The problem with having a team of perfectionists is that they are their own worst critic. So it was really important to make sure they took time for themselves and not to beat themselves up too much on a bad day. Just stop working and leave anything that is not absolutely time critical. Tomorrow will be better!

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How has it been for you personally?

I think I am pretty typical of most people. The first few weeks were tough and I continue to have my good and bad days.

Hospitality and tourism runs in the family so my family have all been supporting one another. My dad worked in business travel for years and now is involved in a yacht charter business, his partner Jacqui is a joint owner of a large travel agency in Argentina and my brother in law James, is the MD of ​Go Rentals​, one of the largest privately owned hire car companies in New Zealand. You can imagine what our family video calls were like in the first few weeks!

I lost one of my three dogs in the second week of lockdown as she was old and very sick – this is a heartbreaking thing to have to go through at any time but was a lockdown experience I would not wish on anyone. It has also been very hard here not being allowed out for a walk for nearly 2 months so my two younger dogs who are used to 7km runs every morning got fat and lazy – I have become a home gym/exercise programme junky!

But I am incredibly lucky to live where I live. Sotogrande is a low density destination and even though we are all here because of travel and tourism, there is a very strong local community that live here all year round. I have fantastic friends and a great network of business contacts and people who I work with. Everyone has pulled together to support one another. The Sotogrande community is strong.

How have you been as a business owner during this lockdown?

The first week I think we were all in shock. Trying to get our heads around what exactly was going on. I had stomach lurching realisations dawning on me in terms of what exactly all of this meant. Calculating what losses to expect this year and working out how on earth we were going to make it through this.

For example, without any arrivals and departures, there would be no income to pay the cleaners. We had already gone through the winter where, as normal, I keep all cleaning staff on contract even though there is nowhere near enough activity to pay their salaries (good cleaners are like gold dust so you hold on to them) and in March/April every year we start to see the season pick up so over the year, this all balances out. But this year would be very, very different.

Holiday Rentals were cancelling and asking for their money back – it was pretty tough going for a few weeks.

However, I took some very early and tough decisions to protect my staff from a health and wellbeing perspective, their jobs and the business.

I employ all of my staff 100% on a salary and I am very proud of this. Anyone who says you cannot make this work especially with cleaning hasn’t tried hard enough and to be honest, I have never been so thankful that I have been so firm with this position, as all of my staff have been protected. I have done the Spanish equivalent of furlough (with guaranteeing all of their jobs afterwards) for all but one of my cleaners who has carried out property checks for us in the past, so she has stayed on to do the minimal cleaning we had left and is now doing the property checks as Juan our inspector is in is 60´s and I have to look after his health.

It’s not been easy, but without ​Propierge​ and the other tech solutions I have in place and of course my fabulous super-team, we would have really struggled.

As for the short and medium term, we have a very solid core business of property management, loyal clients who are genuinely, really good people, the lockdown is de-escalating and borders should open up in the next few weeks/months, so we are now seeing our way through to a much more positive latter part of the year.

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As you look after both property owners who come to spend time and holiday in Sotogrande and holiday rentals who visit less frequently, what do you expect this summer season to look like?

It is very difficult to provide a definite answer to this as so much is still unknown. We are in the middle of a State of Alarm that the President has just recently extended this again until 7 June. However, it has also just been announced that the 14 day quarantine period is going to end on 1 July and the borders will open again to tourists.

We also have to work on the assumption that the flights will start moving again so that people can get here.

However, the one thing that is less easy to predict are the psychological effects of the lockdown and any ongoing fear there is to travel any great distance, especially on a plane.

In terms of the holiday rentals, we have a number of Spanish rental bookings who we are still expecting to come via car, assuming the de-escalation continues as per plan. We have some August international bookings that again, we are expecting to still come provided they can get here. I am expecting more domestic (Spanish) bookings to come in from June onwards for late July and August along with some European bookings.

My property owners/clients have nearly all indicated a strong desire to come to Sotogrande as soon as they can, to relax and recharge in what is a great outdoors sporting destination. A lot of clients have said that they are going to get the ferry and drive or even the Eurostar and then drive down to Sotogrande.

So I am expecting some of our clients to come in July and August, but a very busy September, October and possibly November too, depending on the weather. We have had such terrible weather here throughout April and May that I am hoping the balance of the good weather will extend up until the end of the year and we will see a much stronger than normal end to the year for both owner and holiday rental occupation.

Most restaurants here have large outdoor terraces to accommodate diners whilst meeting social distancing requirements, the tennis clubs are opening up, as are the world class golf courses along with the beach Chiringuitos.

We are all here ready, prepared and very excited to welcome people back to Sotogrande which, being a low density beach and countryside destination, lends itself incredibly well to visitors and second home owners alike to get some much needed time out after a difficult few months.

What changes do you expect in terms of how people will book their holiday rental accommodation?

Without repeating the point above with regards to distance to destination and its effect on bookings over time, we are expecting a very different attitude towards how people will book their holiday rental. Up until now, the bookings channels (Airbnb and similar) have dominated the market with the ability to browse, book and pay all in a few clicks. I think that there will be less enthusiasm to book and pay without speaking and interacting with the person who is going to be getting the property ready for them.

Direct booking is therefore going to be a preferred option to many more people so we are hoping that our destination site ​StaySotogrande​ will fare well with this.

Travellers are going to be increasingly interested in cleaning standards and will want to be reassured that where they are staying is not just clean on the surface, but professionally cleaned and Covid 19 free. Professionally managed properties by “old school” property managers with their own in-house professional team of trained cleaners such as ​WCS Bespoke​​, will also prove very popular.

In addition, cancellation policies and Covid 19 clauses are going to be very important.

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What new procedures and practices are you going to implement to protect your staff and reassure visitors that it is safe to come to Sotogrande?

As far as reopening the ​WCS Bespoke​ office is concerned, we are taking our time with this as the home working solution works and I am not going to put my team at risk. All staff have been issued with the relevant masks, gloves, gels etc to ensure that they are protected whilst working and interacting with others.

However, for the time being, we will continue as we are as we have the ​KeyCafe​ secure and digitally controlled key management solution installed. This was originally installed to manage the keys with holiday rentals, however, we are now using this for the management of all keys so that suppliers can be issued with keys securely and controlled remotely, without the need for any interaction with our staff at all. This will mean that there is no need for disinfecting keys every time these are passed back as they stay in a controlled area.

When looking at the cleaning, my cleaners are professional, permanent employees. Angeles has been with me for over 11 years, Tere, 7 years and Desi and Raquel both 4 years each. We do not use casual staff so we can guarantee standards.

We will be making some small changes to ​Propierge​ to cover the Covid requirements and all of my team are going on a Covid 19 disinfecting and cleaning training course. We will also take a balanced approach to the cleaning. There are a lot of views and information out there at the moment, but cleaning a holiday rental property is very different to a holiday home and both are very different to hotels.

If the requirement is to disinfect any potential touch points between rentals, this would not just be the standard light switches, remotes, handles etc, but would involve a thorough “everything out” full spring clean at every turnaround with the additional requirement of disinfecting absolutely everything and putting it all back in.

How would you know what the previous guest has touched in the kitchen?

They may not have used all appliances and cutlery or utensils, but they may have moved some to see what else was in the cupboard or drawer.

We will be using our 15 years of experience of actually running teams of cleaners to base our protocols on. There will be a combination of high quality cleaning as normal, disinfecting with products that do not destroy the property fixtures and installations (for example, bleach cannot be used on marble and most bathrooms are marble in this part of the world) and minimum time gaps between rentals to ensure the virus is no longer there. Without this, you cannot guarantee the virus has been eliminated 100% without a full, deep, spring clean with in depth disinfection of absolutely everything, and this will make the rental non-viable from an operational cost perspective.

We will be offering the full range of concierge services as normal which will include grocery deliveries and are working with local partners to provide these sorts of services to ensure our clients and holiday rentals have complete peace of mind when they holiday here in Sotogrande.

Do you see the holiday rental prices going down once people start to book again?

Possibly, with the non-professionally managed properties. However, they are unlikely to be able to reassure guests that their property is safe to stay at in terms of Covid 19 cleaning standards.

In terms of the professionally managed properties I cannot see how the prices can fall, as the Covid 19 cleaning costs in terms of additional time and products is going to result in increased costs of turning the property around. However, I do believe that guests will accept and value this and see it as an essential part of the property requirements checklist.

So how do you feel about the future?

No one knows where we will be in the next few months let alone any further into the future than this.

However, what I have learned over the past few months is that Sotogrande is strong. It has a hugely interconnected network of people who passionately believe in the area, love living here, will support one another when the chips are down and all very much want to see us all get through this difficult time, with our health intact.

We care about our clients and visitors and we will all do everything we can to make sure people continue to want to spend time here, in what has been a relatively safe haven to shelter a storm that has had such devastating and sad consequences world wide.

Nothing is certain, that is for sure. However with a greater appreciation of the need to be agile and nimble in order to adapt to change at a pace none of us has ever experienced, along with genuine compassion and care for others, I am positive about the future.■

Clare Westwood

Owner & Director
WCS Bespoke Management SL – NIF:B72118136

Property Management, Maintenance & Administration – Holiday Rentals & Bookings – Destination & Concierge Services

M: +34 607 494 802
Email: clare@wcsbespoke.com
Web: www.wcsbespoke.com