Missing these common communication mistakes could prove catastrophic for PM businesses.
If you recognise these issues occurring in your business – investigate, identify the cause, and make changes to ensure the communication complaint never occurs again.
Here’s the big eight:
New business enquiry not returned
Yes, unbelievable isn’t it! From our own secret fee shopper calls we know 15-20% of companies contacted will never return our call when we enquire on services acting as a property investor.
Property sitting vacant
When a property is vacant, the landlord is on edge as they are receiving no income, and if they are receiving no communication (or not regularly enough) they will assume that you are either not doing enough or worse – doing nothing at all. Twice per week contact is the bare minimum to ensure that your landlord client can see you’re doing all you can.
Lack of routine inspection detail
When a client is emailed their inspection report, if they are greeted with a lack of detail (and a lack of photos), it creates a sense of a loss of value, and dissatisfaction follows. Ensure all of your reports have plenty of detail.
Not knowing when payment will be received
Right at the start of the management agreement relationship, are you advising your clients when they’re getting paid? If they call after the property is let and have to ask ‘when do I get my money’ you know this wasn’t communicated correctly!
Rent arrears process confusion
As part of your new client induction let them know about the rental arrears process that must be followed so they fully understand – and while you’re at it, promote quality landlord insurance. Emails and calls not returned and ignored
This is probably the biggest communication-related complaint of all. Most of these complaints come down to ONE main issue – the property manager is lacking the care factor to value the client enough to ensure that their query or communication is quickly followed up in a timely manner. Being dedicated to returning calls and emails on time is an attitude! If you cannot get this right, property management is NOT for you!
Build up of repairs due to unawareness
When a landlord views a property after a tenant has vacated, the repairs that have not been reported are obvious. The landlord is now faced with a much bigger repair bill because the repairs have been left to build up over time, giving them a previous false impression that everything was OK.
Over promising and under delivering
Letting a client down because you said you would get it done by a certain time or day, only to leave them waiting creates a high level of dissatisfaction. Always under promise and over deliver! It is best practice to educate landlords upfront and spending time going through key issues that could be a problem later.
