We use our phones for almost everything. Phones are such an accessible and convenient part of our daily lives. Therefore, making a call to inform a tenant of something related to the property might seem like the most straightforward way to go.
But, there are downsides to using phone calls as the primary way to communicate with your tenants. For one, information gets lost from phone calls as it goes undocumented.
This article will highlight some of the reasons why phone call communication isn’t the best option for a property manager. We will also provide a more efficient and convenient solution for handling your tenant communication.
Evaluating Phone Calls For Communication
The main benefit of phone call communication is its immediacy. Picking up the phone and chatting to your tenants is an instant way to get information to and from them. You don’t have to deal with delays or wait for them to respond so it speeds up your tenant communication process.
This convenience, immediacy, and accessibility are great if you need to contact tenants in an emergency. For daily updates and communication, however, phone calls might not be the way to go.
Why Phone Calls Are Not The Most Effective Communication Method For The Tenants
In the past, exchanging phone numbers would have been the most important onboarding step for communication with your commercial tenants. You would record their number and give them your service number. That way, they could call you whenever they needed to and you would be able to do the same.
This worked in the past as phone calls were the primary way to engage. Today, however, tenants prefer other forms of mobile communication. They may find phone calls annoying and disruptive, especially if you have to contact them repeatedly.
Calls are an impractical communication technique to use in tenant communications for matter like daily updates, announcements, and more. Tenants definitely would not appreciate a phone call from you daily or even weekly to inform them of the smallest changes to the facility. The only time your tenants would appreciate a phone call is if the situation was urgent or emergent.
Why Phone Calls Are Not Effective From A Property Management Perspective
Phone calls aren't just inefficient and bothersome for your tenants. They’re also not the best way for you to manage your tenants and properties. With several commercial tenants, having to call each one for every general announcement or facility update is simply impractical and counter-productive. It takes a long time and you can end up having long conversations with each one.
Another impracticality is the inability to record or track communications. When you opt for phone call communication, you only have records showing that you made the phone call. You have no proof of the conversation that took place, of issues that came up, and more.
As such, it’s difficult to ensure that you address issues and follow up about things that come up on the call. Even if you jot it down somewhere, the likelihood of you forgetting or misplacing that note is high.
Phone calls simply don’t offer you an organised way to link your tenant communication to your service provision and management updates. Instead, they can harm the quality of your property management and tenant service and experience.
What Channel To Use Instead?
If phone calls aren’t the way to go, what is?
The first alternative most people would jump to for tenant communication is email. It’s tempting to switch from phone calls to emails and text messages. But both these platforms may have similar issues to phone calls.
Emails and text messages can get lost and forgotten on a busy day. Your tenants wouldn't just be receiving texts or emails from you so it would be easy for your communications to get lost amongst all their other incoming messages.
Even chain emails or text groups don't work effectively. With many tenants in the group, you can miss messages and the threads can become confusing.
This also applies to you as the property manager and your emails and texts. You don't just engage with your tenants. You also liaise with your colleagues, service providers, facility managers, reception services, etc. If your tenant’s messages all come to the same inbox as all these other parties, it's easy for you to miss what they have to say.
The Best Alternative: A Dedicated Tenant Portal
Instead, implement a digital portal where tenants can be informed of anything important, and find information about the property.
A centralised, digital platform can help you organise and track all communications, reports and updates. You can also get notifications every time tenants communicate with you.
In addition, tenants can easily find your communications or updates and turn on mobile notifications so that they know when you contact them. They can receive general announcements straight to their phone and send and receive important documents.
Your portal acts as a central space for all tenant communication. It has the convenience and accessibility of phone calls combined with the information storage and recording of emails and texts. It’s the best of both.
Commercial tenants will appreciate this space for all property-related information. It makes it easier for them to manage and point back to chats, follow up on any issues they reported, and more. They can find everything related to the property in one place, allowing them to always be in the know about what’s going on in their rented space.
Final Thoughts
Landlords and property owners need to be flexible in what communication channels are used. They need to adjust their communication strategy with their clients to suit the situation. While phone calls may work in case of emergencies and to tell tenants about pressing issues, they aren't always the best way to handle tenant communications and general updates.
A mobile tenant communication portal is the ideal way to maintain and conduct tenant communication. It enables mass announcements and updates for all your tenants as well as individual chats.
A portal is also a great way to track tenant concerns and ensure you follow up or address them. And the best part is that you get the information to the tenant without disrupting them with a phone call.
If your organisation is looking for a 360° tenant experience tool to involve all employees, service providers and tenants to improve the quality of your operations, have a look at the 30-day free trial of Falcony Tenant Portal:
We are building the world's first operational involvement platform. Our mission is to make the process of finding, sharing, fixing and learning from issues and observations as easy as thinking about them and as rewarding as being remembered for them.
By doing this, we are making work more meaningful for all parties involved.
More information at falcony.io.
