Notes

Property Managers: Tips for Improving Your After-Hours Maintenance Hotline
While it is all to easy to make contact with a property management answering service or answering services company and set up an after-hours maintenance hotline, making sure that it really works well in your case plus your tenants takes a much more effort. Below are some suggestions you'll be able to follow to ensure that you are going to do everything it is possible to to have the most out of the service whilst your tenants happy.
1. Personalize the service just as much as possible
The default property management script that your live answering services company provider dons file is certain to get the position done, but it is always safer to personalize it to match your business.
For example, the default way that operators answer the product could be "Thank you for calling, may I enable you to?" Instead of leaving this operate is, modify it to add the your property along with the function of the road, such as "Thank you for calling Forest Pines Condominiums after-hours maintenance hotline, may I allow you to?" It's a minor change, but it makes people more comfortable knowing that they're calling your dedicated line.
Or, for instance, if the hotline is going to be used by apartments which are all within the same building and enjoy the same address, ensure operators only request the apartment number. It's annoying having to provide all of your address when all that is needed the number. This goes for properties inside the same City and State, as well. No need to find out that you just may have learned what is anxiety.
2. Clearly communicate to tenants what constitutes an unexpected emergency
Your tenants should know about precisely what is considered an emergency by your company and what isn't. Unfortunately, you could try these out give criteria on their live answering services company but not tenants, providing a lots of heated conversations. Instead of just giving your tenants a number to call after office hours, give them a similar set of emergencies that you give your answering services company and tell them after that cause an after-hours maintenance visit and after that hold for your office.
Alternatively, you can scrap the listing of emergencies altogether, instead relying on an issue that asks the tenant whether or not they feel their situation is urgent and requirements attention before regular office hours. The potential for abuse here is obvious, but it's definitely a more customer friendly approach.
Ultimately, only you'll be able to decide precisely what is best for your situation, but either approach will work well if most people are properly educated.
3. Stick to your office hours or prepare your answering services company to field additional kinds of calls
Understandably, having the power to forward your lines for the after-hours service anytime may also be too alluring to pass up. If you're going to leave a cubicle or stop taking calls on your regular business hours, be sure that your live answering services company is prepared to handle the different varieties of calls that they will probably be receiving. It's harmful to business to push callers into a answering services company that can't do just about anything for them and has no specifics of what's happening inside the office. By talking with your answering services company and telling them what your schedule is then when you will end up out, they've got more details to provide callers and be more confident handling your calls. In addition, the scripting and instructions they follow needs to be suitable for form of calls they're taking and what they are telling callers.
As a sample, while it's perfectly acceptable after-hours to inform a caller which has a non-urgent concern to call back the subsequent business day, it's ineffective and confusing being told that at 1 in the afternoon with a Thursday. Call centers can readily build variable scripting, so ensure that you simply you can keep them accomplish that. "The office has gone out to lunch currently, but I can ask anyone to return your call whenever they go back this afternoon" is more appropriate.
4. Take advantage of the extra services, functionality, and technology that your call center has available
Today's telemarketing companies tend to be advanced compared to simple message taking services that came before them. Sometimes just taking a message and delivering it properly 's all that you need, nevertheless, you will want to look to the characteristics and technology your answering services company has available in order to determine if there's more they may be doing for you personally. If so, you will find there's good chance the excess service will improve the effectiveness of one's answering services company and improve the degree of customer satisfaction they're able to provide.
Examples of more services include payment processing, scheduling showings for you, and integrating along with your CRM or database as a way to look-up tenant information easier and automatically create work tickets in your system. Whether these services make sense in your case often depend on your size and also the investment necessary to contain the technology configured. When deciding whether or not to spend the additional money, be sure you factor in the time it will require that you perform certain tasks, whether the changes will reduce or enhance your payment (by increasing or reducing call times), and whether having a far more advanced live answering services company will assist you to decrease vacancies and improve the relationship you've with existing tenants.
I hope these pointers make your answering services company experiences more prosperous. If you're working with a reputable answering services company and they're doing everything they can on the end, after this list must be all that you should make relationship profitable.
If you've got any feedback on employing an answering service /call center with your premises management operation, I'd want to read your comments. Whether your relationship was successful or even a complete disaster, I always still find it advantageous to schedule an appointment people and find out more on what exactly is working and what isn't.
Read More: http://www.masonre.com.au/