How excellent customer service can elevate your service offering

Providing excellent customer service is one of the main ways that your lettings agency can stand out from the competition and expand your property portfolio. It is therefore important for letting agents understand how to deliver outstanding customer service in a climate where customers’ needs are constantly evolving.

By providing high-level customer service, both landlords and tenants will feel valued and heard, leading to a variety of benefits for your business including higher satisfaction rates.

Additionally, customers are likely to pay higher prices for better services, which further cements the importance of a customer-centric approach as an effective way to grow your business.

Through the use of proptech, letting agents can provide world-class customer service to elevate their service offering.

How can you improve your customer service?

Effective communication

One of the main ways that excellent customer service can be offered by letting agents is through clear communication with landlords and tenants. Having their feelings valued and heard is important to both landlords and tenants.

Establishing one effective channel of communication for stakeholders can help boost efficiency, speed up response times and reduce the number of missed messages. This will also make it easier to keep track of previous and current communications with stakeholders. 

Using automation

Digital solutions can help streamline your communications and improve overall customer service. These solutions allow for automation which is ideal for improving and streamlining communication with both parties.

A critical tool that can be introduced to strengthen communication are auto-responses to common tenant issues. This will ensure that your response times are quicker which will please your tenants and also save you valuable time by not having to waste time with easily solved issues.

Another way to improve communication is through the use of automated reminders. These will allow tenants to plan ahead and reduce late payments.

Digital solutions can increase transparency with your property owners with tools such as owner specific dashboards and apps where they can view critical business info, boosting their confidence in your management of their portfolio and reducing the time spent communicating.

Simplifying the onboarding process

Simplifying the onboarding process will greatly improve your standing with both your tenants and landlords as it eliminates confusion and frustration for all involved. 

Outdated platforms and legacy systems complicate the process and make it unnecessarily long. A timely and difficult onboarding causes an increase in drop-offs and cancellations, resulting in a waste of valuable resources.

By making it as simple and seamless as possible, you are likely to boost the number of tenants you onboard, in turn making all stakeholders happy.

The benefits of providing excellent customer service

Fewer void periods

Increased tenant satisfaction can result in fewer and shorter void periods as they are less likely to move properties or agencies, which is extremely beneficial when managing a portfolio. Longer void periods are costly for the business as they will have less rental income, but utilities will still need to be paid for.

Retain your landlords

Satisfying your landlords can result in your agency retaining more portfolios and giving your landlords the confidence to expand their portfolios with your help. Becoming an essential asset to your landlords’ businesses will increase the likelihood of retention.

Positive word of mouth 

When building a property portfolio, your clients must regard your services highly. As a letting agent, many of your clients will be referred to your services by either previous or existing landlords or tenants. Positive word of mouth is invaluable to letting agents as it will help to build and expand property portfolios. 

Furthermore, excellent customer service will also improve public perceptions of the letting agency. As landlords or tenants spread positive messages or reviews, more clients will be attracted to the agency. These reviews can be used to the letting agent’s advantage as positive reviews can be used to advertise and market the brand.

Reduction of overall problems 

High stakeholder satisfaction from excellent customer service typically results in fewer issues arising. Consequently freeing up valuable time for you to complete vital tasks and lucrative objectives such as securing new deals.

 Through streamlining your processes, excellent customer service will result in increased landlord and tenant satisfaction. higher productivity levels will be achieved, thus increasing efficiency.