Good communication with your tenants is a vital factor in being a successful Winston-Salem rental property owner. But on the other hand, with too many options available out there, which is the best method of communication? Landlords are looking for and finding new convenience in the ability to text email, and call their tenants, but are all of these options really the appropriate way to go about staying in touch? It’s the right question given that the method you contact tenants isn’t just about keeping them comfortable and properly briefed. There are, in fact, real financial and legal issues involved with your chosen method.
Texting
Several tenants and property owners appreciate the ease and convenience of texting. And for little things or just for keeping in touch, texting can be an excellent way to keep the lines of communication with your tenant open. Dependent on what messaging platform you use, it is likewise possible to send more than just text messages back and forth. Tenants can send photos to help you schedule repairs, and you can send links and attachments back.
There are disadvantages to texting on the other hand. One is the ability to track and save your conversations. As a property owner, it’s vital to document your interactions with your tenant in the event of disagreements or especially when legal issues come about. You’ll need to ensure that you save the entire history of your messages back and forth while texting.
Apart from saving messages, certain tenants may moreover abuse the privilege of texting you whenever they want. If you use a personal or business cellphone for your conversations, tenants may anticipate that you will immediately respond to them at all hours and get upset if you don’t. These issues or dilemmas should encourage you to think and plan carefully before applying texting to contact tenants.
Phone Calls
Calling tenants on the phone is a suitable approach to be more direct and personable with them. There is no substitute for hearing someone’s voice and fulfilling a verbal conversation in real-time. By speaking with your tenants on the phone on a regular basis, you can help promote a positive working relationship with them and more often communicate your care and concern for their comfort and safety. This, in turn, could lead to tenants staying longer in your rental.
Much the same as texting, the biggest trouble to employing the phone to contact tenants is the hassle in documenting your conversations. In particular, if you discuss liability issues or sensitive information, you will have to find a way to record your discussions if a dispute arises. You will, moreover, have to bear in mind to answer your phone whenever your tenants call. Getting a landlord’s voicemail at any time they call will discourage your tenants from contacting you in the future, thereby making phone calls a less useful communication mode.
Email presents a middle ground between texting and phone calls. It is a fairly convenient method of communication, as several people already use and are comfortable with email. Though it equally endows you a trouble-free manner to document your entire conversation with your tenants because majority of email programs enable you to save email chains for months or even years. One terrific benefit of email is that it easily allows you the time to think and write carefully before responding to a tenant’s question or complaint. You can send documents and other attachments really easily with email, all of which are date-and-time stamped, so you know what was sent to whom and when. This can all be very handy if you need records of your messages, eventually.
But on the other hand, email isn’t as swift or convenient as texting, and tenants may not want to write out every message in email. Some people just aren’t fond of using email or may not check their inboxes quite often, resulting in delayed responses. Email is additionally more impersonal, and it can be stressful to manage your tone so that you sound warm and friendly.
Conclusively, you may put into service various methods to always remember that your tenant communications are frequent, friendly, secure, and excellently documented. What it boils down to, it’s appropriate to work with your and your tenant’s communication preferences to search for a way to stay in touch that you both actually like and will make use of.
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