There is a great deal that goes into property management. After all, the property doesn’t take care of itself. And regardless of what type of property you (or your organization) are responsible for managing, there is much to consider. If you have a high-rise apartment building full of tenants, for instance, then your concerns and daily tasks are different than if you are overseeing a series of office buildings.
However, just because the types of properties are different doesn’t mean there aren’t similarities and common best practices that can be adhered to when it comes to your property management efforts. For instance, every property management service has customers at the other end of the relationship. And like the types of properties, these customers might be varied. And yet they all need to be catered to, and even more importantly, they need to be heard and communicated with properly.
Whether your customers are maintenance professionals, landscaping crew, rental occupants, office managers, or any other type of professional or private individual who is making use of the property, there are best practices when it comes to improving property management customer service.
For some insights on enhancing customer service for property managers, here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Always Be Available
An important step toward enhancing customer service for property managers is to always be available for communication. This is crucial, because a property occupant, employee, or customer might be in need of something at any time.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that it is always an emergency (it might be a simple question or piece of information, for example), but it does mean that something is important enough that your customer felt the need to reach out. And if that is the case, then you (or your team) need to be available to address that customer’s needs.
2. Communicate Constantly
As a property manager, one of your greatest assets is your communication. Communication keeps relationships progressing smoothly, keeps your customers in the know, and leaves little room for disruption in the day-to-day operations of the property.
For instance, if there are maintenance needs on a particular property, then you have several customers you need to be in communication with. One is the maintenance team that is going to be performing the work, and when it comes to providing information to a maintenance team, there is no such thing as too much information.
They need to know where to be and when to be there, and they need to know any details about the property that could make their job easier or, on the other hand, get in the way and be a hindrance. This all comes down to communication.
But the occupants of the building (whether it is an office, living space, or another type of business) also need to be informed about what is going on with the maintenance. Top-notch property management customer service means keeping all customers in the loop and up to date, and this means communication is key.
3. Respond Quickly
Having your lines of communication open, and being in constant communication are crucial components to improving customer service for property managers, but so is the ability to respond in a timely fashion to a customer’s request. Whether the request is an emergency or a question, your team needs to be available to get the response (or assistance) to your customers in a timely manner.
Making a customer wait for a reply is an indicator that the property management service doesn’t have its ducks in a row, and might cause concern that the property management team doesn’t have its customers’ interests at the forefront of their thinking, which is not a perception that any property management service wants to put forward.
4. Hire a Bilingual Answering Service
Regardless of the type of property your organization is responsible for managing, there is a good chance that there are multiple languages that are being spoken and need to be accounted for. If some of your customers are Spanish language speaking, for example, then it makes sense that you would have an answering service that also speaks Spanish.
While this seems like an obvious notion, it is surprising how many property managers worry only about the state of the property and not about the language of the customers interacting with that property. If a property manager is serious about improving their property management customer service, then they need to partner with a bilingual call answering service to make sure all of their customers are heard and taken care of.
Keeping Customers Happy
Ongoing and constant communication are necessary components to improving property management customer service, but only if these communication efforts work for the customer. If a customer is having a difficult time, or a property management team is not comprehending precisely what the customer needs, then these efforts are lost. However, by having a bilingual answering service in your corner, your property management organization won’t have to worry about this, and rest assured that all customer communication is being handled efficiently, comprehensively, and in real time.
Answering services are for any industry and are designed to meet your needs, whatever those needs may be. And this is true for property managers as well. If you are serious about improving your property management customer service, then reach out to Answer Service Care today and learn how our property management answering service can help.
