Effective communication between commercial tenants and property management benefits both parties. Tenants can communicate their needs. Property management can meet these needs, gaining loyal tenants in the process. It's a win-win.
However, maintaining communication processes between tenants and property managers isn’t always easy. Read on to learn why tenants might struggle to reach property management and how to solve this problem.
Why Are Property Management Companies Hard To Reach
Property management companies typically have many employees and manage multiple properties. However, when tenants are leasing a commercial property through a property management company, they often only interact with one or two people from the company.
When issues arise, tenants might be unsure of who to contact and how to alert the company to the issue.
When they do reach out to someone from the property management company, they might reach out to the wrong person. This person might be unsure of how to deal with the issue.
Internal communication breakdowns often see the issue falling between the cracks. This leaves many tenants discouraged from trying to further alert the property management company to an issue when they don't see any results from their previous attempts to do so.
Ultimately, many tenants find property management companies hard to reach because they are not provided with clear channels of communication they can use to alert the companies to their issues.
How Lack of Contact Affects Tenant Experience
In today's competitive commercial real estate markets, it is essential to provide tenants with a good tenant experience. This experience can be the difference between a loyal tenant that stays for years to come and a disgruntled one that leaves as soon as their lease period is up.
It is nearly, if not entirely, impossible to give your tenants a good tenant experience if you do not communicate effectively with them. You will not be able to meet your tenants' needs simply because you don't know what they are. You don't know what you are doing right and which areas need improvements. As a result, any issues will persist because you are unaware of them. All of this will negatively impact the tenant's experience.
Keeping in contact with your tenants, on the other hand, leads to happy, involved tenants, which in turn leads to loyal tenants.
Early Warning Signs Property Managers Should Know About
When there is a lack of communication between you and a tenant, it can be difficult to know whether they are trying, or failing, to reach out to you. There are, however, some warning signs to look out for.
If your tenants are fixing issues themselves and simply sending you an invoice for the costs, this is a sign that they are struggling to alert you to these issues ahead of time.
Moreover, if tenants start paying their rent late, or are withholding rent completely, it might be worth your while to find out if they are struggling to communicate certain issues with you.
Lastly, you might think that no news is good news. However, this is not the case when it comes to commercial tenants. If you are hearing absolutely nothing from your tenants, it might be a sign that they are failing to reach you.
What Tenants Can Do In This Situation
The first thing a tenant should do is have a good understanding of their rights as a commercial lessor. They need to know all the terms and conditions of the lease agreement. This will help them understand each party's obligations.
Another thing a tenant can do is make sure that all communication is in writing. This makes it easier to prove that they attempted to reach out to the property management company down the line.
Moreover, tenants should not be afraid to call a contact at the company and directly ask them who they should contact about a certain issue. This is a lot more effective than explaining the issue to their contact at the company and hoping that it will be referred to the right person.
What Can A Property Management Company Do?
To make it easier for a tenant to contact a property management company, the company should work on its communication channels.
If an employee is not responsible for dealing with an issue to which they have been alerted, they should know to whom they should refer the issue.
Moreover, employees should understand that if they don't know how to deal with something and/or don't know who to refer the issue to, they should not simply ignore it! They should alert their superior to the issue who, in turn, must do the same if they don't know how to deal with the issue.
Moreover, property management companies should, at the outset, establish a good, user-friendly, channel of communication between them and their tenants. Tenants should know who they should contact with what issues. It should not be difficult for them to contact these people. An easily-accessible mobile tenant communication portal solves this problem.
Solutions That Work For Both Sides To Fix The Problem
Ultimately, the best way to tackle this problem that caters to both sides is to establish and maintain a clear channel of communication between the tenant and property management. This should be agreed upon at the outset.
The property management company can also provide their commercial tenants with a list of who to contact for what issue. While this will make it easier for the commercial tenants to reach property management, it is not necessarily the most effective way to do so.
We recommend that the commercial property management use a dedicated tenant portal that will streamline communication between the two parties. These portals are designed to enable effective communication, providing tenants with an easy and simple way to reach out to commercial property management.
Final Thoughts
Communication is key to good tenant and landlord relations in commercial real estate. An important part of the property managements' responsibility towards to the tenants, is making it easier for the tenants to get a hold of the right people when issues or questions related to the property arise.
The tenants also has a responsibility to inform the property management company about anything they notice in terms of their lease agreement and the property. By making sure you have transparent processes around property communications, you will not only get happy and loyal tenants, and a healthy property. You will also increase the tenant lifetime value.
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 our 30-day free trial:
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.
