Communicate With Your Tenants

​Many landlords use their smartphones to handle calls, emails, text messages, and countless other chat apps.  However, keeping track of your conversations with your tenants can become challenging between calls, emails, SMS messages, and instant chat.  

Communicate With Your Tenants
By Pierre Mouchette | Bits-n-Pieces

​With all the various aspects of being a small asset investor, communications are essential if you want to keep good, happy, and reliable tenants.  How you communicate with your tenants will impact your relationship.  Choosing the best way to communicate with tenants is crucial to your success as a respected landlord, and modern technology provides you with the options to solve any communication pitfalls.
Many landlords use their smartphones to handle calls, emails, text messages, and countless other chat apps.  However, keeping track of your conversations with your tenants can become challenging between calls, emails, SMS messages, and instant chat.  Then multiply that difficulty by the number of tenants you have, and now you are in a quandary.  Ultimately, poor communication will cost you time, money, and tenants.  
 
Landlords Should Communicate With Tenants by Texting 
 
Texting is fast - Text messages are the quickest way to contact tenants.  Text messages are sent and received in an instant.  Depending on your service or app, you can also see if the tenant has read the text message.  And it is more likely that the tenant will check their messages more frequently than emails.
 
Texting is manageable - It is easier for tenants to text landlords if they need to contact you quickly.  This service leads to a better tenant experience because they can receive instant responses.  In turn, it reflects positively on your reputation as a great landlord, reducing tenant turnover and making it easier to fill vacant units.
 
Attach files, pictures, and more - You can spend a great deal of time talking to a tenant as they attempt to describe an issue and the extent of any damage.  Texting gives the ability to send photos and videos.  It is an invaluable resource when resolving maintenance issues.  With the help of visuals, you quickly have a clearer idea of what has occurred and what needs fixing.  You can also provide a solution much faster as you have seen the problem without visiting the property.  Texting tenants to resolve maintenance issues saves you and your tenant time and money.
 
Satisfies tenant needs - Studies show that 75% of millennials would rather lose the ability to talk than the ability to text.  The statistics are the same for Gen Z.  So, it is better to jump on the trend now to prepare yourself for the next wave of young tenants.  Aside from making it more convenient, younger generations are not used to or even comfortable talking on the phone.  So, a messaging service is what they want.
 
Stop wasting time - When checking voice mail messages, 19% of millennials do not bother.  It may not sound like much, but if you are in the habit of leaving voice messages, chances are that 1 in 5 of your tenants will never hear them.
 
Enhanced engagement - Receiving a text message can be more personal than an email.  It allows tenants to feel closer to you and improves engagement.  
 
You have a permanent record - Unless you delete them, your messages are retained for the long term.  It is essential if there are disputes between you and the tenant.  Text messages are written proof; it is much easier to authenticate a text message than a conversation that is not recorded (legally, you cannot do).  As an electronic record of dialogue, you can enter it as evidence in court if you need to file an eviction.
 
Text messages can refresh your memory - We have all had that bugging feeling of forgetting something.  The upside of having a permanent record of your text communications is that you can always go back and see what you might be overlooking.
 
You can resolve issues 24/7 - Having text communication with your tenants helps you to fix problems fast.  Although there may be a question about maintaining a work-life balance, having access to text messages allows you to sort out emergencies when they occur.  
 
Texting is a cost-effective solution - Typically, you want to find the most cost-effective method to communicate with your tenants.  Plans may include free text messaging and free photos and videos.  Even if there is a cost to the service, the advantages will far outweigh the small fee you may incur from a text service.  Many mobile apps allow you to send videos and images for free.