Notes

Property Managers: Tips for Improving Your After-Hours Maintenance Hotline
While it is simple to speak to a property management answering service or call center and hang up an after-hours maintenance hotline, ensuring that it functions well in your case plus your tenants takes a little more effort. Below are some tips you can follow to ensure that you are doing everything it is possible to to obtain the most out of the service whilst your tenants happy.
1. Personalize the service as much as possible
The default property management script that your live answering services company provider is wearing file can get the job done, however it is always easier to personalize it to suit your business.
For example, the default manner in which operators answer the phone might be "Thank you for calling, may I enable you to?" Instead of leaving property management balwyn operate is, modify it to incorporate the your home and also the reason for the road, such as "Thank you for calling Forest Pines Condominiums after-hours maintenance hotline, may I help you?" It's a minor change, nonetheless it makes people more at ease if you know they're calling your dedicated line.
Or, for instance, if the hotline will probably be used for apartments which can be all in the same building and enjoy the same address, make sure operators only request the apartment number. It's annoying needing to provide all of your address when all that's needed the number. This goes for properties inside same City and State, also. No need to seek advice that you may have learned the reply to.
2. Clearly communicate to tenants what constitutes an urgent situation
Your tenants should know what is considered a crisis through your company and what isn't. Unfortunately, property managers often give criteria for their call center and not tenants, providing a large amount of heated conversations. Instead of just giving your tenants several to call after office hours, provide them with exactly the same set of emergencies that you simply give your live answering services company and make sure they know what's going to cause an after-hours maintenance visit and what will hold for that office.
Alternatively, it is possible to scrap the report on emergencies altogether, instead depending on a question that asks the tenant whether or not they feel their situation is urgent and requires attention before regular office hours. The potential for abuse here is obvious, however it is definitely an even more customer friendly approach.
Ultimately, only you can decide what exactly is best for your situation, but either approach works well if everyone is properly educated.
3. Stick to your office hours or prepare your answering services company to field additional forms of calls
Understandably, keeping the capacity to forward your lines for the after-hours service anytime might be too alluring to give up. If you're planning to leave the office or stop taking calls on your regular business hours, be sure that your answering services company is prepared to handle the different forms of calls that they will likely be receiving. It's damaging to business to push callers right into a answering services company that can't do anything whatsoever on their behalf and contains no more knowledge about what are you doing inside the office. By talking with your live answering services company and telling them what your schedule is so when you may be out, they've got more info to provide callers and turn into more confident handling your calls. In addition, the scripting and instructions they follow ought to be right for kind of calls they're taking and what they are telling callers.
As an illustration, while it's perfectly acceptable after-hours to tell a caller which has a non-urgent concern to call back the following business day, it's ineffective and confusing to get told that at 1 inside afternoon on the Thursday. Call centers can readily build variable scripting, so ensure that you simply have them do so. "The office is going to lunch right now, but I can ask anyone to return your call after they go back this afternoon" is much more appropriate.
4. Take advantage of the excess services, functionality, and technology that your answering services company has available
Today's sales departments tend to be more advanced as opposed to simple message taking services that came before them. Sometimes just having a message and delivering it properly is all that you need, however, you should look in the functions and technology that your answering services company has accessible in order to discover if there's more they may be doing to suit your needs. If so, there's a good possibility any additional service will improve the effectiveness of your respective answering services company and enhance the degree of customer service they're able to offer.
Examples of additional services include payment processing, scheduling showings in your stead, and integrating using your CRM or database as a way to look-up tenant information easier and automatically create work tickets in your system. Whether these services be the better choice for you personally often depend on your size and also the investment had to have the technology configured. When deciding whether to spend the excess money, be sure to factor in the time it will require that you perform certain tasks, whether the changes will reduce or increase your statement (by increasing or reducing call times), and whether having a more advanced answering services company will enable you to decrease vacancies and help the relationship you have with existing tenants.
I hope these pointers help make your answering services company experiences more prosperous. If you're working with a reputable answering services company and they're doing everything they are able to on their own end, third , list ought to be everything you should increase the risk for relationship profitable.
If you might have any feedback on employing an answering service /answering services company with your property management operation, I'd wish to read your comments. Whether your relationship was successful or possibly a complete disaster, I always think it is advantageous to talk with people and find out more on what exactly is working and what isn't.
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