Activity

While it is simple to make contact with a property management answering service or live answering services company and hang up up an after-hours maintenance hotline, ensuring it works well for you as well as your tenants takes a little more effort. Below are some suggestions it is possible to follow to ensure that you do everything you are able to to find the most out of the service and your tenants happy.

1. Personalize the service around possible

The default property management script that your particular live answering services company provider dons file will get the job done, but it’s always easier to personalize it to fit your business.

For example, the default manner in which operators answer the telephone could possibly be “Thank you for calling, may I help you?” Instead of leaving this the way it is, modify it to add the name of your home as well as the function of the road, like “Thank you for calling Forest Pines Condominiums after-hours maintenance hotline, may I allow you to?” carlton property management ‘s a minor change, however it makes people more at ease knowing that they’re calling your dedicated line.

Or, as an example, when the hotline will probably be used by apartments which are all inside the same building and possess the same address, make certain operators only request the apartment number. It’s annoying having to provide your complete address when all that’s needed the amount. This goes for properties in the same City and State, too. No need to seek advice that you simply know what is anxiety.

2. Clearly communicate to tenants what constitutes an unexpected emergency

Your tenants should be aware of precisely what is considered a crisis from your company and what isn’t. Unfortunately, property managers often give criteria on their answering services company although not tenants, producing a lots of heated conversations. Instead of just giving your tenants various to call after office hours, allow them to have exactly the same set of emergencies that you give your call center and make sure they know what will lead to an after-hours maintenance visit and what is going to hold for that office.

Alternatively, it is possible to scrap the listing of emergencies altogether, instead depending upon an issue 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, but it is definitely an even more customer friendly approach.

Ultimately, only you are able to decide what is best for your situation, but either approach will continue to work well if so many people are properly educated.

3. Stick to your office hours or prepare your live answering services company to field additional kinds of calls

Understandably, keeping the capability to forward your lines for the after-hours service without notice might be too alluring to pass up. If you’re likely to leave any office or stop taking calls on your regular business hours, be sure that your particular call center is prepared to handle the different types of calls that they will be receiving. It’s bad for business to push callers in to a call center that can’t a single thing for them and contains no information regarding what are you doing in the office. By communicating with your live answering services company and telling them what your schedule is then when you’ll be out, they will have more information to provide callers and be more confident handling your calls. In addition, the scripting and instructions they follow must be suitable for type of calls they’re taking and what they are telling callers.

As a good example, while it’s perfectly acceptable after-hours to see a caller using a non-urgent concern to call back the next working day, it’s ineffective and confusing to be told that at 1 in the afternoon on a Thursday. Call centers can certainly setup variable scripting, so be sure that you ask them to do this. “The office has gone out to lunch right now, but I can ask someone to return your call once they go back this afternoon” is much more appropriate.

4. Take advantage of any additional services, functionality, and technology that the call center has available

Today’s call centers are more advanced than the simple message taking services that came before them. Sometimes just choosing a message and delivering it properly is that’s needed, but you may need to look into the capabilities and technology that your particular answering services company has for sale in order to find out if there’s more they may be doing for you personally. If so, you will find there’s pretty good possibility the additional service will help the effectiveness of the answering services company and enhance the a higher level customer care they’re able to provide.

Examples of additional services include payment processing, scheduling showings for you, and integrating together with your CRM or database as a way to look-up tenant information easier and automatically create work tickets in your body. Whether these facilities sound right to suit your needs often rely on your size and the investment had to possess the technology configured. When deciding if you should spend the extra money, make sure to factor in the time it will take that you perform certain tasks, whether the changes will reduce or improve your statement (by increasing or reducing call times), and whether having a more advanced live answering services company will help you decrease vacancies and improve the relationship you’ve with existing tenants.

I hope the following tips help make your answering services company experiences more prosperous. If you’re working with a reputable answering services company and they are doing everything they could on their end, following this list needs to be all you have to increase the risk for relationship profitable.

If you’ve any feedback on having an answering service /live answering services company with your premises management operation, I’d like to know what you think. Whether your relationship was a hit or possibly a complete disaster, I always still find it advantageous to talk to people and find out more on precisely what is working and what isn’t.