What’s Next for Software in the Shared-Ownership Industry?

A Discussion With Mike Norton, Director — Customer Relations, TimeShareWare

As publisher of Resort Trades Media Group, I had the privilege recently of speaking with TimeShareWare’s Director – Customer Relations Mike Norton about the software company’s upcoming October 1st and 2nd 2024 Owners Conference, among other topics.

Sharon:

Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to speak to our audience of resort professionals. And, while I have you, I wanted to state our appreciation at Resort Trades for the remarkable article you and Dane Ashworth contributed recently, “Navigating the Tech Tide in Shared-Ownership Industry”. You’re doing some pretty ground-breaking work with the incorporation of AI into your communications!

Mike:

Thanks Sharon – always good to talk with our friends at Resort Trades. As for the article, I’m glad you liked it! Determining how to leverage the “A.I. Tide” is a big topic to tackle. We at TimeShareWare want to lead the way of how to best incorporate it into our software and the industry.

Sharon:

I remember being introduced to TimeShareWare back in 1992, I believe it was. You’ve come a long way since then!

Mike:

Wow! That’s right. It has been a while. I, myself, was not fortunate enough to be part of TimeShareWare in the early days, but I can sure tell you where we come from. I love hearing the war stories of our original DOS application and all the different little off-shoot products that we touted in the beginning to show our breadth to those who didn’t know us. It is interesting to me to see how when we are starting out and trying to grow, we do these things and then they coalesce into something bigger.

Fast forward to today and you see how far we’ve come. We are celebrating our 31st year after incorporating back in ’93, so that is exciting. Having been here since 2006 after living in the fast-paced, call center industry running 700-seat call centers in the BPO space, I can tell you the changes have been incredible. We have continued the upward trend from where we were not only in the beginning but just in the past few years. I’ll try to give you the short version.

Security, Reliability, Interfacing, User Experience, and Value. These are the areas prospects and customers are looking for and are critical in today’s environment. Our Enterprise product has become the most advanced software for the shared-ownership industry. With a beautiful user interface, the technology allows expanded functionality and technology to be the only option for large, enterprise-level customers worldwide. Fully web-based with all APIs used by the application being accessible to the client’s IT teams is only one facet of how we lead.

Sharon:

What other advances in technology are being introduced by your company?

Mike:

TimeShareWare Professional is our work-horse application for small-to-large resorts alike. No one can match the simplicity of setup with its robust rules engine for owner and reservation management. We are close to a complete revamp of this application with a completely enhanced user-interface planned for release at the end of 2024. It will allow customers to update their front-end experience with very little impact to APIs, the database, or reports.

Other updates include our Essentials product improvements. Essentials is a great entry-level SaaS product that helps resorts get on to a management system efficiently and economically with a new-and-improved user interface. This along with the expansion of our messaging capabilities to schedule email notifications and route texts to internal teams are the tip of the iceberg of our incredible improvements and amazing vendor partner relationships. Lots of great user improvements here.

Sharon:

I saw you’re hosting “Client Conference 2024…Expand your industry and solution-specific knowledge during our premier event in Salt Lake City on October 1st-2nd.” What are some of the topics you’ll be addressing?

Mike:

Now this is exciting. Since our first conference in 2006, we have revived the post-Covid tradition of gathering to ensure our clientele’s success. We will talk about the recent product enhancements, how we are expanding our functionality, and separate tracks for the various products and how they will benefit resort operations. There is also a track for the purely tech-focused individual to have some one-on-one time with our developers.

We have also extended our registration invitation to potential customers as well as existing clients. This is really putting ourselves out there! We believe letting non-clients see and provide feedback on our products in this forum and the interactions with our talented staff not only improve our software, but the entire industry while showcasing how great TimeShareWare is.

Events include an amazing keynote event and a fun, off-site event attending an MLS Real Salt Lake soccer match in our beautiful fall season is in the mix. Our customers and prospects won’t want to miss it!

Sharon:

Mike, thank you again for sharing with us. If someone is curious about TimeShareWare and wants to learn more, Mike can be reached at (509) 645-2099 or mike.norton@timeshareware.com.

[ SPONSORED CONTENT ]

Sharon Scott Wilson, RRP

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