According to the American Apartment Owners Association (AAOA), over 60% of tenants name tenant-landlord communication as their number one priority. However, only 18% of landlords can say the same.
When it comes to communication, there is clearly a disparity between tenant expectations and landlord follow-through. How can landlords close this gap? Communicating thoughtfully and professionally with tenants boosts overall tenant satisfaction, which is an important factor in renewed leases. Long-term tenants generate stable revenue for you and contribute to the long-term success of your rental business.
Communication is the method to building strong landlord-tenant relationships. But how should landlords best go about communicating with tenants? From routine messaging to enforcing lease terms and clarifying problems, tenant communication isn’t always straightforward.
Here are five best practices for communicating with tenants and improving the tenant experience.
1. Use Chat Features
In general, it’s not a good idea to give our personal contact information to your tenants. If you do, tenant questions and concerns can get lost in your email or text inboxes when mixed with other messages. The last thing you want is for a tenant to think you didn’t care enough to respond to a concern.
Instead, landlords should take advantage of chat features on property management software. Beyond serving as a streamlined management system, property management software platforms usually include a chat feature where you can store and send all your tenant messages. This way, you always know where to look to find them and don’t have to worry about organizing or locating them in your other inboxes.
Communicating with tenants is easy through the desktop or mobile app of any property management software. With everything in one place, you can easily refer to prior conversations and respond as needed.
2. Automate Regular Messages
Automated messages are a great way to help your tenants keep track of important deadlines and rent details. With everything out in the open, automated messages help you create an honest dynamic between you and your tenants.
You can automate any message that is regular or reoccurring throughout the month. For instance, you can automate rent reminders, late fee warnings, maintenance ticket status updates, office openings or closings, and other notifications like power outages.
Property management software makes it easy to automate messages and indicate the recipients. Your software is even smart enough to know which tenants need which messages—for example, tenants who have already paid their rent don’t need to be reminded three more times. Your software can limit the amount of spam sent and only push reminders to those who need them.
3. Be Timely
Housing, amenities, and utilities are essential to tenants’ everyday lives. If something goes wrong or a tenant has a question or concern, their daily routines and basic livability could be hindered. As a housing provider, it’s your responsibility to get to the bottom of these matters as promptly as possible.
Being diligent about communication is also an effective strategy for retaining tenants. If you’ve done the hard work of screening, your high-quality tenants aren’t worth losing. Do everything in your power to show loyal tenants that you are also loyal to them—including showing care and responding promptly.
4. Be Professional
This goes without saying, but a professional tenant experience goes a long way toward retaining tenants. With property management software, you can cultivate a professional tenant experience from advertising and applications all the way through lease signing and long-term renting.
When communicating with tenants over chat, use a polite, professional tone and demonstrate care for tenant concerns. Let tenants know about defined procedures for certain scenarios and show them your business can handle problems efficiently and skillfully.
5. Delegate Communication
Sometimes, tenant concerns are out of your range of knowledge or ability. For instance, if you rent many units or struggle with anything beyond simple maintenance fixes, you might have hired additional team members.
In these cases, property management software allows landlords to add maintenance and other personnel as secondary users. You can then delegate maintenance communication to the people who know how to solve the problems better than you do.
You can always check in with your tenants after the maintenance ticket has been addressed to ensure they are satisfied with the job.
Prioritize Tenant Communication in Your Rental Business
Communication is a simple but important pillar of every rental business. Without effective communication, you risk losing loyal, high-quality tenants. Fortunately, tools like property management software make tenant communication easier than ever. Given how many tenants name it as their top value, it’s worth it to invest your time in communication.
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