There are lots of thoughts about the best way to contact your customers.
However, when it comes down to it, the most important thing is to reach them in a way they are receptive to. Luke Westbrooks of Ziff Real Estate Partners knows this very well, and he's got some great insights on how to handle it.
Watch this Gabfocus Spotlight to listen to Luke's opinions on the best way to contact your customers. It's an important part of the customer experience!
Question: "What’s the best way to communicate with tenants?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Increasing Occupancy with a Great Experience, Luke Westbrooks (Ziff Real Estate Partners) spoke with Tommy and Melissa about customer experience. How it's changed, how to improve it, and how to use it to your advantage.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Luke had to say:
What I loved about the leasing software we used at the time was there was just a question, like on the lease that you read and said, "How do you prefer to be contacted?"
Would you rather I call you? Do you check your email every day, or do you prefer text messages because you're busy and don't necessarily have time to talk?
And I loved that, just asking them like, "Hey, if I need to get in touch with you, what do I need to do?"
So if you don't have that option, I think it really depends on the event or the reason why you're contacting the tenant.
Obviously in the case of an emergency or somebody left their unit door open or didn't lock it correctly, a phone call is really going to personalize that experience.
Like, hey, like, this happened. I'm not just sending you a text message to let you know that it happened. I'm calling you personally to say like, hey, I just wanted you to know this is what's going on, and this is how we're addressing it or this is what we need you to do.
On the flip side, I don't want to call every tenant when I'm providing them a rate increase, so we can have that conversation. So, you know, a lot of that with lease changes or contract changes regarding rate or some different rules that you might have. You may want to send it certified just to track it, just so you can say like, "No, I did send that to you."
But ultimately, you know, it's just then letting them know, and it feels very formal.
Emails, I've always been a little back and forth on. I just don't, you know, everybody has an email, but I know that my wife has a 100,000 unread emails.
We all have them. Some of us have multiple email boxes. And so your communication can get bogged down under some other things. And, you know, once they log in, say, like, I'm not going to go through all of those, it's probably not going to happen.
But, you know, for casual conversations, just like, "Hey, gates down," send an email.
But for me, I've always appreciated the personalized approach of just, you know, me or a manager reaching out, continuing to build that rapport with my tenant base."
—Luke Westbrooks
