Property Management Answering Service Pro Tips

Almost all property management companies leverage call centers and property management answering services to extend hours of coverage through a 24/7 call forwarding line. Ten years ago, this effort was primarily to limit loss by ensuring urgent calls were escalated to on-call technicians after-hours and on weekends when there were water leaks, electrical issues, or other problems that put property and tenants at risk. Answering services also helped screen calls and categorize routine messages that could wait for next day reply from the requests that actually required immediate attention (some residents think everything is an emergency—am I right?!). But with advances in technology, savvy property managers are now delivering a more expanded scope of support leveraging professional receptionists to deliver greater service access; higher levels of tenant satisfaction; and better communication/relations between maintenance professionals, leasing offices, and the building residents they serve. 

As a property management professional, you’re always working. From handling tenant inquiries to managing maintenance requests and ensuring seamless communication with your tenants, the workload can be overwhelming. This is where a specialized property management answering service like AnswerNet can help extend your efforts and limit the number of inquiries that require your direct intervention. Our property management industry service specialization is designed to take the load off your shoulders and streamline your operations while delivering amazing care and support. 

Here are some pro tips to maximize the benefits of using our property management answering service:

Leverage Leasing Support

One of the critical aspects of property management customer service is leasing support. Our answering service is equipped to handle all aspects of leasing support, from answering inquiries about available units to scheduling showings, leveraging your calendar. We integrate seamlessly with industry-specific management tools like AppFolio, Propertyware, Yardi, and others, ensuring that your potential tenants get timely and accurate information.

Pro Tip: Your answering service should maintain a daily updated rent roll or count of available units for quick reference and to emphasize when inventory is low (and scheduling viewings should be prioritized for same day). This can incorporate integrations into your property management software, notes about availability/dates/features for not-yet-listed units, and any other notes your leasing agents wish to provide our team. 

Efficient Maintenance Request Management

Managing maintenance requests can be a daunting task. Our call center specializes in receiving, prioritizing, and dispatching maintenance requests. Whether it’s scheduling routine repairs or dispatching emergency work orders, we ensure that the process is smooth and efficient. This allows you to focus on other critical areas of your business while we handle the details.

Pro Tip: Do you have a locksmith you refer lockouts to every time? Your answering service can refer maintenance requests from an approved list of support categories to preferred vendors for anything that falls outside of your property management technician’s scope of support.

Streamline Rent Payment Collection

Collecting rent payments is another area where we can assist. Our service can receive rent payments via telephone, making it convenient for your tenants and ensuring timely payments. This integration with your management tools ensures that all transactions are recorded accurately and promptly.

Pro Tip: If you don’t already have a secure payment by telephone-option with your answering service, call centers like AnswerNet can offer PCI-compliant options, integrated with your payment processor, and can now incorporate IVR/DTMF and other secure self-service payment options. 

Enhance Tenant Communication

Clear and consistent communication with your tenants is crucial for maintaining good relationships and ensuring tenant satisfaction. Our answering service provides round-the-clock support, ensuring that tenant inquiries and issues are addressed promptly. This not only improves tenant satisfaction but also helps in retaining tenants in the long run.

Pro Tip: If you give your call center team access to your CRM, we can assist with questions regarding lease renewal dates, provide copies of agreements electronically, update preferred payment methods for ACH and other scheduled electronic payment methods, and a host of other helpful support tasks. When your call center has greater (secure) access to your property management customer service technologies, you are able to extend your availability more seamlessly. Integrating systems can allow your call center to help with payment and renewal reminder communications, building-wide maintenance messaging, and personalized check-in calls. The list goes on… 

Emergency Work Order Dispatch

Emergencies don’t follow a schedule, and having a reliable service to handle emergency work orders is essential. Our call center is equipped to handle emergency requests efficiently, ensuring that the right personnel are dispatched promptly. This quick response can prevent minor issues from turning into major problems.

Pro Tip: Maintain a list of the urgent issues you for sure want to know about in real-time such as leaks that cause water to spill into the floor (not to be confused with routine calls for leaky faucets). Keep a list of non-urgent calls too if that helps. Many property management companies want to know about anything to do with the electricity especially if a renter notes there is a smell, a plug was melted, or anything else out of the ordinary. We used to train our teams to treat anything adjacent to “fire, flood, or blood” as an urgent call. Fire and flood are self-explanatory because they can require insurance adjusters to get involved even when contained. And “blood” was just the catch-all way of stating that anything that was a safety concern was to be treated urgently. In all cases, your specific requirements will be well documented so that your team can be trained to follow your routines. This doesn’t have to be one-size-fits all, but we’ve found there is a lot of common practice from one property management company to the next.

Integration with Industry Tools

One of the significant advantages of using AnswerNet’s property management answering service is our ability to integrate with various industry-specific management tools. Whether you use AppFolio, Propertyware, Yardi, Buildium, Entrata, or another cloud-based platform like AnswerNet’s own First Line Maintenance (FLM), our systems are designed to work seamlessly with yours. This integration ensures that all information is up-to-date and that there is no duplication of efforts.

Pro Tip: If you maintain accurate logs of units with rooms and features within your databases, it is easier for agents to lead your callers to provide more specific information regarding which room or which fixture specifically they are calling about. This helps expedite the support process and helps prepare/inform maintenance technicians for what they may want to have in hand ahead of performing their service response (this is especially appreciated by on-call technicians we’ve woken up in the middle of the night!). 

Choose AnswerNet

Having a reliable and efficient property management answering service can make a significant difference. AnswerNet’s property management industry service specialization is designed to support your operations, enhance tenant satisfaction, and ensure that all aspects of your property management are handled professionally. Not sure what makes sense for you? If you appreciate these ideas but feel overwhelmed with where you might start taking advantage of any of these opportunities, schedule a free discovery call and consultation with one of our property management experts. We’d value to the opportunity to talk to you about your unique situation and how you might leverage our services so that you can focus on growing your business. Visit our page and complete the contact form to request a call: