Effective tenant management is key in cost reduction. Yet, most of the current processes are repetitive and involve individual phone calls or letters. Dealing with tenants 1:1 is time consuming and leaves less room to address topics that offer long-term value to them. At the same time, it’s the personal contact between property managers and tenants that results in happy tenants – and happy tenants are one of the main factors in keeping vacancies low.
The key question is: How can you navigate between increasing process efficiency in order to reduce costs while keeping a personal relationship with your tenants?
According to a study from Deloitte, digital tenant apps can help increase process efficiency of housing companies by up to 70%. The study concludes that if the communication between a tenant and a property manager takes place via the service center of the tenant app, the processing time of an incident involving a craftsman can be reduced by two-thirds of the normal required time. Speaking in numbers: instead of an average of 94 minutes, the partly automated process only takes an average of 30 minutes when using the tenant app. This translates to around 83 working days for a housing company with 1,000 units.
At the same time the needs and expectations of tenants are changing. Speaking to somebody on the phone and receiving documents via mail is increasingly regarded as ‘outdated’. Tenants are nowadays used to instant communication, 24/7 availability and swift responses – all accessible via their smartphone. As with other aspects of their lives, they want and expect a modern interface to interact with their property managers.
In the following, we’ll be looking at four ways how tenant apps can help increase the efficiency in tenant management.
Streamline your tenant communication without losing direct connection to your tenants. Using the tenant app’s pinboard, you can now reach all tenants within a building with one message. No letters are needed. You can post status updates on inquiries or important information that concerns the whole building. Tenants can reply or ask follow-up questions in real time. This way, they’ll feel more closely connected to you than ever before.
Store important documents for your tenants online on the tenant app. Thus, your tenants always have access to all relevant documents, such as care instructions or their floor plan. At the same, you can save time and money by uploading new documents on the app, such as operating cost invoices, instead of sending them by post.
Tenants can report inquiries around the clock via the digital service center of the tenant app. The property manager automatically receives a notification when a new message arrives. The associated ticketing system provides property managers with the perfect overview for processing and answering each enquiry.
In addition to the basic digital functionalities, such as a pinboard, digital documentation and a service center, using a tenant app allows you to gain further insights into what’s happening in your buildings. By revising the inquiries that your tenants commonly have in each building, you gain a deeper understanding of how you can further improve efficiency and tenant satisfaction.
Even though the digitization of the housing industry has started somewhat hesitantly, more and more companies are taking the topic seriously. Some of the big players in the industry are already rolling-out their digital tenant management solution.
Increased efficiency, a more direct relationship to their tenants, improved communication as well as added transparency are some of the core benefits they’re seeing after implementing a digital tenant platform. While it won’t happen overnight, the time will come when a more digital approach will be the new standard.
At Allthings we accompany our clients to take the first steps into digital tenant management. Our approach is to first focus on integrating the basics – such as communication, documentation and a digital service center – into your existing processes. The implementation of our tenant management platform has helped our clients, including some of the leading medium-sized and big housing companies in the industry, to increase efficiency.
Would you like to find out how this can help your company? Take the first steps into digitization and test our tenant management platform Allthings Essential for free. Learn more about our solution here.