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While it is easy to make contact with a property management answering service or live answering services company and hang up up an after-hours maintenance hotline, making sure that it really works well in your case along with your tenants takes a extra effort. Below are some pointers you can follow to ensure that you do everything you can to get the most out of the service and make your tenants happy.

1. Personalize the service around possible

The default property management script that your particular call center provider dons file is certain to get the task done, yet it’s always better to personalize it to match your business.

For example, the default method in which operators answer the device may be “Thank you for calling, may I assist you to?” Instead of leaving this the way is, modify it to incorporate the category of your property and also the reason for the line, like “Thank you for calling Forest Pines Condominiums after-hours maintenance hotline, may I enable you to?” It’s a minor change, however it makes people more at ease realizing that they’re calling your dedicated line.

Or, for example, in the event the hotline will probably be used for apartments which might be all inside the same building and possess the same address, make sure operators only request the apartment number. It’s annoying being forced to provide all of your address when all that’s needed is the number. This goes for properties inside the same City and State, as well. No need to find out that you just know already the answer to.

2. Clearly communicate to tenants what constitutes an unexpected emergency

Your tenants should know what exactly is considered an emergency by your company and what isn’t. Unfortunately, property managers often give criteria for their answering services company but not tenants, causing a lots of heated conversations. Instead of just giving your tenants various to call after office hours, let them have the same listing of emergencies that you give your answering services company and let them know after that lead to an after-hours maintenance visit and what will hold for your office.

Alternatively, you are able to scrap the set of emergencies altogether, instead relying on a question that asks the tenant whether feel their situation is urgent and requirements attention before regular office hours. The potential for abuse the following is obvious, but it is definitely a much more customer friendly approach.

Ultimately, only it is possible to decide what is perfect for your needs, but either approach work well if many people are properly educated.

3. Stick to your office hours or prepare your call center to field additional varieties of calls

Understandably, getting the power to forward your lines to the after-hours service without notice is sometimes too alluring to feed up. If visit the website 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 types of calls that they will probably be receiving. It’s bad for business to make callers in to a live answering services company that can’t a single thing for the children and has no info on what is happening inside office. By communicating with your live answering services company and telling them what your schedule is so when you will be out, they will have more details to deliver callers and stay more confident handling your calls. In addition, the scripting and instructions they follow needs to be right for type of calls they’re taking and what they are telling callers.

As an illustration, while it’s perfectly acceptable after-hours to share with a caller with a non-urgent concern to call back the next day, it’s ineffective and confusing to be told that at 1 in the afternoon over a Thursday. Call centers can simply build variable scripting, so ensure that you have them accomplish that. “The office is otherwise engaged to lunch at the moment, but I can ask anyone to return your call when they go back this afternoon” is more appropriate.

4. Take advantage of the additional services, functionality, and technology your answering services company has available

Today’s telemarketer firms will 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, but you need to look into the characteristics and technology that your particular answering services company has obtainable in order to determine if there’s more they may be doing in your case. If so, there is a good possibility the extra service will improve the effectiveness of your respective answering services company and increase the amount of customer satisfaction they’re able to provide.

Examples more services include payment processing, scheduling showings for your benefit, and integrating along with your CRM or database in order to look-up tenant information easier and automatically create work tickets in your metabolism. Whether these types of services seem sensible for you personally often depend upon your size and also the investment necessary to hold the technology configured. When deciding whether or not to spend the additional money, make sure you factor inside time it will require that you perform certain tasks, if the changes will reduce or increase your invoice (by increasing or reducing call times), and whether having an even more advanced live answering services company will allow you to decrease vacancies and enhance the relationship you have with existing tenants.

I hope these guidelines you could make your answering services company experiences more prosperous. If you’re working having a reputable live answering services company and they are generally doing everything they can on the end, following this list ought to be all you need to increase the risk for relationship a success.

If you might have any feedback on using an answering service /live answering services company with your home management operation, I’d wish to know what you think. Whether your relationship was a success or possibly a complete disaster, I always think it is advantageous to speak with people and find out about what exactly is working and what isn’t.