Whether you’re a landlord with a single rental property, a portfolio landlord – or operating as a property management company – you have a lot of tasks to juggle for your tenants and properties.
More than 40% of private landlords in the UK have between two and four properties that they manage, according to Statista.
This means a lot of admin, management and rent collection to deal with.
That’s on top of investigating, viewing and buying new investment properties for those landlords wishing to further grow their portfolio.
These are all time consuming tasks.
And with all this to do, finding time to answer all the calls that come through to you, and offer tenants a good level of customer service can be difficult.
Not to mention when it comes time to find new landlords if you’re a property management company.
If a landlord calls you because they want you to manage their properties, what happens if you miss that call?
For the most part they’ll just go to the next property management service.
Which means you have fewer lettings, and less cash coming through the door.
It’s the same when it comes to general customer service and responding to calls from tenants.
Whether it’s failing to respond quickly to urgent repairs that put tenants at risk and could damage your property, to missing out on new tenants, not answering the phone could be a real problem.
This is when an outsourced call answering service could step in and take the hassle out of call answering, without sticking you with members of staff and freeing you up to enjoy your investment.
Here’s just a few ways an outsourced call answering service could help you as a landlord or property manager.
Be available for emergency calls
It’s a fact of being a landlord or property manager that issues are going to come up with your properties and tenants are going to call you trying to get them fixed.
When those calls come in, you need to be available to answer them so you can resolve the problem.
Not only from a customer service standpoint and keeping your tenants happy, but also from a property protection point of view.
If a tenant calls because there’s a problem with the property, any delays could lead to that problem getting worse quickly and potentially damaging the building further.
With a call answering service you can instantly be alerted when a tenant calls, while ensuring you’re not constantly answering the phone for every small issue.
Even when you can’t get to the phone straight away, your call answering service will be available to take down any information and send an instant alert to you.
Take the hassle out of property viewings
The number of viewings per property are now at a 10-year high according to research.
Today it’s not uncommon for landlords to receive up to 20 requests to view a property for rent, with some prospective tenants requesting multiple viewings.
That’s a lot of calls to handle on your own and you can’t always be available.
Missing one of those calls might not cost you a tenancy with so much interest, but it could cost you a tenant who would be a better match than who you end up with.
Using an outsourced call answering service means you’ll never have to worry about missing a call.
Your team of virtual PAs can deal with all incoming calls and even book viewings into your diary so you never have to worry about juggling your time.
Screen out time wasters
Just as trying to juggle viewings can be a hassle for landlords, so can dealing with prospective tenants who really have no hope or interest in renting the property.
An outsourced call answering service can help you screen potential tenants and only book viewings for those who have a genuine interest and the funds to afford the rent.
You can simply provide your PA with a list of questions to ask when someone calls.
Then, based on the answers, they can either decline to book an appointment, or schedule a viewing with you.
This will save you a lot of time and hassle and ensure you’re only dealing with genuine tenants.
Take more calls out of hours
There’s no getting around the fact that some tenants are going to call you out of normal business hours.
Whether it’s someone trying to book a last minute viewing, or an issue coming up at your property.
When this happens you don’t want calls coming through to your phone when you’re trying to relax or spend time with family.
On the other hand, you don’t want to miss urgent calls.
With an outsourced call answering service you can have calls answered during evenings and even during the weekend.
Depending on the type of call, you can either request that your PA takes information that you can deal with later, or puts urgent calls through direct to you so you can deal with them quickly.
Which type of calls are diverted and which get through will be determined by you when you first sign up to your call answering.
Why outsourced call answering is a great choice for property professionals
Whether you want to retain more tenants, make it easier to deal with viewings or screen out nuisance calls and time wasters, an outsourced call answering service can streamline your landlord communications and free up more of your time to find your next investment property.
By staying on top of calls and messages, and having your diary and meeting management handled by a team of virtual PAs you can take the comms administrative hassle out of being a landlord and make sure you never miss a new business opportunity.
