Laajis offers its visitors a wide range of possibilities to experience outdoors. During the winter, ski resort services such as rentals and ski schools are naturally in high demand. In contrast, Laajis' famous bike park, adventure course, and disc golf facilities keep people active in the summertime. In addition, Laajis sells and manages guided tours and ski lift tickets through Rentle.
The Ski Resort Association of Finland (SHKY) acknowledged Laajis' incredible work by rewarding it as the best urban resort of the 2018-2019 season.
Laajis was Rentle's first pilot customer back in 2018. Lasse Niivuori, the managing director of Laajis, was looking for suitable rental software for a couple of years but could not find one before Rentle.
While Rentle could only partly solve the operational challenges at Laajis, Niivuori and his team were convinced of Rentle's vision and direction in which Rentle developed the software. Today most of Laajis' revenue goes through Rentle.
Before switching to Rentle, Laajis used tools and apps such as Google Calendar, Trello, Gravityforms, and Google Sheets for reservation and inventory management.
Needless to say that there was room for streamlining. With Rentle, Laajis has simplified daily operations by replacing all the applications mentioned above with one software.
Laajis has adapted to using Rentle step by step. First, the company started improving the on-site rental experience by utilizing Rentle's check-in kiosks. Soon after, online rentals and payments followed, and the latest functions transferred to Rentle were ski school management and ski lift tickets. Today, Rentle is Laajis' most important ERP and e-commerce software.
Niivuori says that the most crucial feature of business software is the simple and easy user experience for the employees. Laajis employs many seasonal and part-time employees, so if the software is too complicated, staff education becomes tedious.
If the user experience is too complicated, slow or otherwise bad, we are on a very shaky ground. A good user experience ensures that we’re able to simplify and improve our processes and not the other way round.
Niivuori is also happy with Rentle's customer support. He says the response to requests and problems is immediate and appreciative, and challenges are solved together. He also points out that the more critical function software solves, the more important customer support is.
The active and honest feedback from Laajis has been invaluable for Rentle's product development. Working together at this level is only possible with a sound and open relationship between the software provider and personnel of the resort.
Rentle is already a good solution for running daily operations, but the most important factor, why I would recommend Rentle, is the vision about the future and speed of progress.