Whether managing a commercial or residential building, you must understand that you are the intermediary between the landlord and the tenants. As you grow your property management company and the buildings you manage, you shouldn’t forget the tenant needs. You and your employees will be handling calls from tenants with maintenance emergencies, complaint resolution, and resolving disputes between neighbors. Unfortunately, you will be doing this around the clock, meaning you might be forced to hire more receptionists.
An answering service for property management entities will eliminate the need to employ more receptionists by providing quality call answering services. As a result, your clients will obtain outstanding customer services and their needs addressed on time. If you are not sure you need answering services, it is time to understand the benefits of working with these call experts.
Assists You in Managing Tenant Needs and Desires Promptly and Professionally
If you are in the property management business, you have many responsibilities, including coordinating maintenance activities, addressing complaints, and paying attention. Juggling between these responsibilities is not an easy task because as you handle one matter, others arise, which could be overwhelming. As a result, customers’ needs pile up. Any attempts to manage the little time you have to meet these needs will result in fading customer service and decreased professionalism which might push customers to work with other management companies.
Fortunately, an answering service for property managers will ensure that as you handle one client’s needs, their call agents answer the subsequent calls, giving you time to address each customer with utmost professionalism. In addition, no customer calls will go unanswered because you are talking to another customer, meaning you will handle their needs and expectations promptly as they come.
Similarly, as you attend to other company problems, they will keep the management firm running by sharing critical info to prospective clients, scheduling meetings, and sending out maintenance personnel where tenants have emergencies.
Lastly, call agents for property managers will juggle these expectations not in their way but as per your instructions. Usually, property management call agents require a written script for responding to clients depending on their needs. The answering agents can remain professional with these scripts, and a caller will not even know they are talking to a third party because of the high professionalism levels.
An Answering Service Will Address All Emergency and Routine Maintenance Problems
A property management answering service will help resolve issues regarding maintenance in the buildings you are managing. Maintenance falls into two classifications, emergency and routine.
Emergency maintenance includes issues like heating problems in the house, a broken air conditioning system, gas leak, or water leak. If a tenant has any emergency maintenance needs, it must be addressed because it could result in further property damage or harm. Winning a prospective tenant and convincing them to lease or buy a property you are managing isn’t enough because you need to convince them to stay. The best way to do this is by addressing their needs, especially maintenance emergencies.
The other category is routine maintenance problems like cracked windows and broken light equipment. To keep tenants happy, you must perform these routines as scheduled. Emergency maintenance and regular maintenance are open to interpretation. For instance, a tenant with heat issues during winter is experiencing an emergency because living in the house will be almost impossible. However, if the heat is out during summer or spring, it won’t be an inconvenience because it’s an issue that can hold on until the following day to be addressed.
As a property management company, you must decide what constitutes an emergency or routine maintenance, so those call agents are not left to interpret emergency and routine maintenance. You should provide a procedure for determining the maintenance type that is an emergency and not. If a call qualifies as an emergency depending on the criteria you have provided, you could instruct the call agents to contact a maintenance professional right away. On the other hand, if the care falls under the routine category, you can ask the call agents to collect all the relevant information about the repairs from the tenant and provide it to you the next workday.
Property supervision answering service will ensure all the maintenance needs in the buildings you are managing receive the appropriate attention. That way, you message your clients that their needs are paramount to your business, no matter when the need arises.
A Property Management Answering Service Will be Available After-Hours and Weekends
You and your staff are available to handle clients’ needs during business hours. Sadly, some existing and potential tenants tend to call after hours because, during working hours, they are usually busy. Whether a commercial or residential building, tenants will contact you during weekends or after-hours when you and your staff are away from the office. If these calls go unanswered, a prospective tenant will call your competitor, meaning the vacancies in your buildings will remain the same. If the unanswered call is from a current tenant, the situation becomes even worse. They may be dissatisfied and forced to move to another building to receive the attention they need, leaving more vacant apartments.
Luckily, if you partner with a property managing answering service, all business leads, even those that come during weekends and after-hours, won’t be lost to competitors. No caller will be sent to voicemail with call agents by your side. Virtual receptionists will answer all questions and provide any information needed by prospective clients to determine if they are interested in working with your company or not. When you receive a list of potential customers interested in your company from the answering service every morning, you won’t need to sidetrack potential clients who are not interested in renting or leasing apartments in your properties. However, without an after-hour and weekend service, your business leads will go to voicemail, and the following day or week, you will be forced to go through the voicemails or call back prospects, some of whom aren’t interested in your business, resulting in time wastage.
When your clients know that their calls will be answered regardless of the day or time, they will feel more confident that you care about them, resulting in fewer vacancies in your buildings. However, if they call outside business hours or weekends and are sent to voicemail, they will lose confidence in your Management Company and take the business elsewhere.
Does your company need an outside business hours answering service?
You will know your property management firm needs after-hour services if you develop concerns about the quality of your customer service. For example, when a customer calls after-hours, and no one is available to respond to their call, they will feel that you place less value on client support. However, if you provide quality client support services, including after-hours and weekend answering services, clients will judge your value for them, which is essential for your growth.
Also, you can tell if your property management company needs an answering service if there is a business gap or opportunity. For example, when you notice many clients calling outside working hours leaving voicemails behind, you need to bridge this gap by having an answering service available when you are not in the office. Forwarding these calls to your phone isn’t an option because it might be interrupting your private life, and the caller might not have a good experience, meaning they might not be satisfied by your company. However, if you have call agents available during these hours, these clients will have a positive experience by talking to professional virtual receptionists, which is a plus for the company.
Happy Tenants and Building Owners
An answering service for your property management company will ensure satisfied tenants and landlords. Tenants and property owners need to speak to someone whenever they call your office. Their last wish is to be sent to voicemail because no one can answer their phone call. Property management call agents will ensure prompt call answering by professionals regardless of the time.
If tenants are happy during their lease, they will spread the good word about your property management firm, which will build your reputation. With a good reputation, more tenants will buy, lease or rent your apartments, increasing your revenues and those of the property owner. Also, landlords will be interested in working with your management company because you will be generating more money for them than your competitors while at the same time handling their calls efficiently.
Fewer Interruptions and Enhanced efficiency in Your Property Managing Company
An answering service will improve efficiency around your office. You won’t need to stop a staff meeting because the phone is ringing. With your phone calls covered by professional call agents, you will no longer interrupt an apartment showing potential customers to attend to a ringing phone.
As you already know, your business is more about putting out small fires. It involves coordinating repairs and maintenance in different buildings, processing rental applications, and answering phone calls. An answering service will offer the administrative support you and your staff need to focus on more pressing matters. This is not to say responding to phone calls isn’t a critical part of your business, but you will have the freedom to come and leave the office when necessary without feeling like you are chained to your office desk.
The call patching feature will ensure that only the most critical calls are transferred to you. Calls received by these call agents are screened to establish if they should be transferred. If there is a need to transfer the call to your phone, the virtual receptionist handling it will note down the caller’s name and any other relevant information in case the call ends. Then, the agent will put the caller on hold, press the patch number and convey the info by the caller to you. If you are unavailable at the moment, they will take a message and deliver it when you are available. And when you are ready to take the call, they will transfer it right away.
If you look at how patching works, you will realize it benefits your business a lot because it prevents distractions that may interfere with workflow, enabling your staff to focus on the assigned duties. For example, when your property management business receives multiple calls from sales agents looking to sell their goods or services, and you are not interested, an answering agent will screen out these calls to avoid interrupting you and your staff from the duties you are focused on. Additionally, if many tenants or landlords call making the same inquiries, a patching agent could screen calls like these and provide standard responses. That way, you and your employees don’t have to answer the same question every time.
A Property Managing Virtual Receptionists Conducts Tenant Outreach
By partnering with answering agents for property management companies, you don’t have to wait for tenants to raise concerns or make inquiries. Instead, a reputable answering service will be proactive and regularly conduct tenant surveys to identify some of the challenges clients might have before they develop into significant issues. If problems are addressed before they are out of hand, tenants and landlords will feel that you are more proactive to their needs, giving them the impression that you care about their needs and are the right person for the business. That way, you will find more landlords hiring your company to manage their properties. Further, you will have more tenants leasing or extending their lease agreements with your company.
A property Management Answering Service Make Rent Reminder Calls
Not all tenants pay their rent on time, a significant challenge for many property management firms. And because you might not have the time to call or send text message reminders to tenants who are yet to make rent payments, you can have your call answering service make these reminders. All you need is to provide them with a list of tenants yet to make payment. Some only need a reminder, but others will need prodding and warning against late rent payments, which virtual receptionists will do on your behalf.
Find the Right Property Management Call Agents Near Me
When you look at the above benefits of a property management answering service, you already know why you need one. At Best Call Center, we are ready to show you how our answering services will help grow your property management business and ensure your tenants and landlords are handled by professionals. If you are eager to test our services, do not hesitate to call 800-385-4656 for a free consultation.