Peter Lohmann's Newsletter - Issue #133

Your Owner Clients Have a Message For You: Phone Now

I’ve been joking with a few property management buddies that the entire PM Trends Report can be summarized in two words: Phone Now. That is to say, so much of what we found in talking with rental owners could be boiled down to:

1. They prefer the phone over all other modes of communication.

2. If they can’t reach you immediately (ie, you pick up when they call the first time), they want to hear back from you within a few business hours at most.

Frankly, I’ve been fighting this for years. We’ve used phone trees, shared inboxes, self-help knowledgebases, videos, and everything in between—all in an effort to reduce the amount of time we spend communicating with property owners. I even had a “one-touch” rule at the office: If a client emails you and you email them back, if they email you back again, don’t reply until the next day even if you have the time. I viewed communication as the enemy of work and productivity.

We also modeled our customer service function after SaaS concepts such as tickets, conversations, email support, multiple levels, etc. All digital in nature.

All of my thinking here has been completely turned on its head this year (see above conclusions). It’s now clear to me that property owners want a single point of contact who is reachable by phone. When they have a question about their rental, they want to call their property manager (not their property management company) and hear “Hey Jeff, what’s up?”, not “Thank you for calling ABC Management, how can I direct your call?” It’s a subtle difference but the experience is world’s apart. It’s the same experience you want to have when you call your realtor, your financial advisor, or your banker. Owner clients want to talk to the person actually doing the things, not a level-1 customer support person who has to log in to 3 different apps to tell you the status of a lease renewal.

To achieve this at RL Property Management, here’s what I’m thinking will be required:

• Moving from an email-first orientation with clients, to a phone-first orientation, and setting up our systems and culture to support this change. This will mean discarding our SaaS-inherited approach to customer support.

• Potentially changing our company’s organizational structure from departmental to pod.

I’m looking forward to digging into this with our leadership team!

If you manage over 500 doors: what organizational structure does your PM company use?

Will report results in the next issue!

Repair Quality vs the Likelihood to Impact Lease renewals

Ray Hespen shared some very interesting data on LinkedIn and in The Maintenance Minute newsletter:

I think this is only the beginning of a revolution in our understanding of what drives lease renewals in SFR.

And, I believe lease turnover (aka vacancies) are highly correlated with owner churn (we’ve seen that in our own data — further validation would be nice, ahem). Anything that’s going to increase average lease length has my full attention right now. I love all this data that Ray is digging into and sharing!

New Property Management Companies For Sale This Week

Generously sponsored by Live Oak Bank’s property management lending team! Let them help you finance your next PM acquisition.

• Here is a book of long term rentals for sale in Polk County, FL (asking $300k, 35 units)

• Here is an HOA management company for sale in San Antonio, TX (asking $50k)

• Here is a commercial real estate & property management company for sale in Utah (asking $1.5M)

• Here is a property management company for sale in Minnesota (asking $75k).

Industry News & Events

• Kristen Lopez and Ben Smith have launched a podcast all about outbound prospecting for property managers, Outbound On Air.

• A NYC landlord upset at a tenant for not paying rent bolted massive signs to her unit, calling her out. Interesting approach.

• I’ll be at NARPM’s broker/owner conference all next week. Say hi!

• Only 20 days left to join the waiting list for Crane!

Closing Thought

~ ~ ~

P.S. Did someone forward you this email?

Stats from last week’s issue:

Valid Recipients: 15,165

Open Rate: 67.1%

Clickthrough Rate: 3.5%

Most Popular Link (57 clicks): Level 10 Meeting

The content of this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. I may have consulting agreements with, or financial interests in, companies mentioned in this newsletter. Additionally, some of the links included in this newsletter are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through these links. Always perform your own due diligence before making any financial or business decisions.