Communication Guidelines for Working with Your Tenants

Communication is an underappreciated art form.  Good communication can help you to have a happy tenant for many years.  Poor communication can have you constantly in the tenant turnover cycle wondering “why don’t people enjoy my property?”.  While we can’t say that we have communication mastered we can share that after helping 1,000’s of tenants over the years we have learned key methods to communicate that help our property owners enjoy great tenants.

We find that communication techniques aren’t truly appreciated until the most stressful moments of property management occur.  For a tenant, and if you are managing a property yourself, the most stressful moments generally occur when there is a challenge.  The most common challenge we deal with that adds stress is that of a repair request.  While some individuals might not think a broken dishwasher is a big deal, other people find it a very big deal and that is why we believe in a strong communication framework that works regardless of how someone interprets a challenge. 

When managing a property it is essential to understand that as a property owner (or if you outsource to a property management company) that proper communication can also help you down the road should a more serious incident, for example a lawsuit, occur.  Proper documentation and clear rules on how you communicate should be part of your daily operation. Consider the following communication guideline of how to handle a repair request:

When did you receive the notice of the repair request?

Make sure to document the time and method of how you received the repair request.  Text messages aren’t always the easiest to retrieve (when you don’t have a system that logs them) which means if a tenant texts you, make sure to log that message for future reference.

Response Time and Your Next Steps

Having a consistent response time is essential.  For emergency repairs (i.e. something flooding) you truly need to respond as immediately as possible.  When you onboard your tenants set the standard on how fast you will respond.  For example if there is a problem at night do you have a set of emergency numbers they can call to get the help they need with a repair such as flooding?

A response doesn’t solve their problem though.  When you respond, provide clear direction on what you are doing to resolve the issue.  For example “thank you for your text regarding the dishwasher leaking, I have called my plumber and he will be there tomorrow, Thursday, between 8-9am, will that work for me to have them resolve it at that time?”.

Resolution Communication

When you are both landlord and the property management company it is your responsibility to communicate even the completion of the work.  For example, “My plumber shared that the dishwasher line had a clog and then ruptured so he was able to replace this line which should prevent this from happening again in the future.”

Whether a challenge is big or small, a great dialogue with your tenants is an excellent way to keep them happy for many years in your property.  When you would like to find out more about how we communicate with tenants and organize any necessary repairs we invite you to request our Free Rental Analysis to see how we can help with your property.