Property Managers and relationships management: Proactive or reactive?

Introduction

Being proactive really makes the change for property managers.

There is a question business owners in Property Management often ask themselves:

“How do we stop only being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”

We know landlords exit the market or leave their Property Manager for a number of reasons. Some are unavoidable, but most are not.

If you think about it, even a Sale of a Property should be categorized as an “Avoidable Loss”. Indeed, the logic goes that if a landlord is receiving a good return, then there would be no need for them to sell to realize capital.

In order to protect your customer churn, you shouldn’t simply try and identify landlords that are likely to leave. The damage is already done and, more often than not, it will be too late or painful for you to recover the relationship.

This reactive focus leads to constantly feeling like you are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

Proactive vs. reactive approach for property managers

What will work for you instead is being proactive. It means knowing about the factors that could lead to this customer wanting to leave your business, before this even enters their minds.

Enter the other party, the tenants.

Tenant needs are different to a landlord, we all know this. But by nature, the Property Management experience is geared towards the landlords (they are our paying clients after all right?) .

Well… we also know that a happy tenant stays longer, asks for less maintenance (or are helping with being more proactive with Maintenance)… which ultimately leads to a better return on investment for the owner!

So, by simply starting with the tenant experience, you can completely change the value proposition for a landlord. Imagine: no downtime in between tenancies, long leases, regular rent increases and a maintenance plan that stays on budget.

Would anybody sell an investment performing like this? Probably not.

Knowing the satisfaction of both your client types

Is having access to data on who in your portfolio is at risk as a landlord important? Absolutely.

But what’s even more important? It’s having access to real-time and actionable data on which of your tenants are at risk.

Because these clients are the first, and most dramatic indicator to which Landlords will be experiencing pain next.

The answer to the question “How can we stop being the Ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” is knowing who in your business needs your attention and at the earliest stage possible, allowing you to activate your service recovery programs.

At Umanest this is our focus: giving you the data and tools to understand and keep your client, before they become a churn rate on your board.

If you’re interested in finding out how Umanest can help keep managements, longer and more profitably for you, you can schedule your free meeting with us here.

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Interested to know how we helped a company save over $150K annually with our customer satisfaction programme?

Download our Case Study HERE

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Max Oliviero is helping Property Managers grow profitable and reputable businesses. He is the Founder of Umanest. Connect with Max on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Want to take your Property Management business to the next level? Schedule your free meeting here.