It takes a lot of effort to be a landlord. You’re responsible for searching out and doing due diligence on all new properties you add to your portfolio. You’re responsible for collecting rent and managing day-to-day operations. And you’re also responsible for contemplating and planning for the long-term growth of your strategy, which could involve repairing and improving your existing properties or adding new properties to the mix.
On top of that, landlords need to have a customer service strategy – though this is something that eludes many new people in the real estate market.
Why is customer service so important for landlords? And how can you make your strategy effective?
Why Customer Service Matters for Landlords
When managing a property, you won’t have traditional customers; instead, you’ll have tenants to manage. But the principles of customer service still apply here. You’ll need to make a concentrated effort to ensure your tenants are happy and take care of any issues they face as they arise. Depending on the condition of the property, the disposition of the tenant, and how many units you manage, this can add up to demand serious effort – up to dozens of hours a week for large portfolios.
This is one reason why so many landlords end up hiring a property management service. Property managers can handle most customer service issues on your behalf, with a full team of staff members who understand the importance of customer service already.
Good customer service in the property management game is important for:
- Tenant happiness, satisfaction, and retention. Providing good customer service makes your tenants happier and more satisfied with their living arrangements. This makes them much more likely to strive to pay rent on time and discourages them from leaving, improving your tenant retention. On top of that, good tenant relationships inspire tenants to be more cooperative and forthcoming, which can help you identify issues more proactively and reliably.
- Conflict resolution. Good customer service is also beneficial for expediting conflict resolution. With better customer service skills, your tenants will be more satisfied with resolutions you propose and will work with you on even the most aggravating problems.
- Referrals and reputation. If you plan on managing multiple rentals, you should know that good customer service leads to more referrals and a better reputation overall. If you’re known for treating your tenants well, you’ll have no trouble attracting more.
- Discussion and insights. When you have better relationships with your tenants, you can have more positive, thorough conversations with them. This can lead you to greater insights, allowing you to better understand the psychology of your tenants so you can serve them better in the future.
Tips for Better Customer Service
So what can you do to give better customer service to your tenants?
- Make it easy for tenants to contact you. At the heart of good customer service is good communication, so always make it easy for tenants to contact you. You should be available via multiple channels and you should proactively eliminate any barriers or obstacles that could prevent a tenant from reaching you.
- Build relationships with your tenants individually. It’s not necessary to become friends with your tenants, but you should get along with them and be familiar with them. When you have a relationship of mutual respect, your tenants will be much more satisfied.
- Respond promptly. It should be no surprise to you that tenants want – and appreciate – prompt responses. If and when they reach out to you, you should try your best to respond within 24 hours, and even faster in an emergency situation. Even if you don’t have all the answers or solutions, a simple response can go a long way.
- Listen with empathy. Always listen with empathy and listen actively. Most people who are angry or irritated because of an issue will instantly feel relieved if someone simply listens to them with courtesy and respect. Sometimes this means allowing tenants to vent.
- Resolve issues quickly and to the best of your ability. Whenever issues do arise, you should make a concentrated effort to resolve those issues quickly and to the best of your ability. That means taking care of repairs and maintenance requests within a few days and making sure that your fixes are permanent ones.
- Follow up to ensure satisfaction. You can also follow up with your tenants to make sure the service was successful. If anything goes wrong, or if your tenants are unhappy with how the service was arranged, work to understand the root cause and try to make up for the bad experience.
- Give thank you gifts and surprises. Positive surprises are psychologically impactful. You can give your tenants positive surprises in the form of thank you gifts, gift baskets around the holidays, and rent breaks in some circumstances.
- Train any employees and contractors to follow your customer service strategy. If there are any people working for you, make sure they adhere to the core tenets of your customer service strategy. After all, you may not be the only one interacting with your tenants directly.
With a better customer service strategy in place, your tenants will be happier, you’ll generate more revenue, and eventually, you’ll make more profits. It can be challenging, but it can also be highly rewarding, since in addition to making more money, you’ll also be making people happier.
