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Text, Phone, or Email – How Should You Contact Tenants?

Text, Phone, or Email – How Should You Contact Tenants?The way you get in touch with your tenants insures your success as a Roswell rental property owner. But with so many options to choose from, how do you know if it’s the right method of communication? Landlords can now text, email, and call their tenants with so much convenience, but which of these is the best? The answer does not solely depend on which platform keeps your tenants up to date and comfortable. There are financial and legal factors that come to play.
Texting
Many tenants and property owners love the ease and convenience of texting. If you just want to touch base, texting is a perfect way to keep your lines of communication open with your tenant. What’s more, messaging platforms offer other services aside from text. Tenants can send photos that help you schedule repairs, and you can reply to them with links and attachments.
There are drawbacks to texting. It’s the question of how to track and save your conversations. As a property owner, you need to document your conversations with your tenant just in case there are disagreements or, worse, legal issues. This means that not a single message should be deleted the moment you start texting.
Aside from saving messages, not all tenants are considerate and they could just text you anytime. If you use a personal or business cellphone, some tenants would expect you to reply to them right away to a text they sent even beyond office hours. Think about these considerations before you decide to use texting as your medium of communication with your tenants.
Phone Calls
Calling tenants using the phone gives it a personal touch. Nothing can replace the charm of verbal conversation in real-time. By talking to your tenants over the phone, you establish a good working relationship with them and you can be able to communicate clearly your care over their comfort and well-being. This would result in tenants staying longer in your rental.
As with texting, your phone conversations with your tenants are difficult to document. You will need documentation especially when disputes happen such as when liability issues or sensitive information is discussed. It would be quite stressful for you to be always ready to answer phone calls from your tenants. But then, if tenants get directed to their landlord’s voicemail all the time, they might get discouraged and stop using the phone to call you in the future.
Email
Email offers a compromise between texting and phone calls. It is a relatively convenient method of communication, as most people use and are comfortable with email. Email can document all your conversations with your tenants with ease. Another strength of email is that it gives you enough time to process a tenant’s question or complaint before hitting send. Plus, you can send documents and attachments through email that are date-and-time stamped. All of these bits of information are crucial for record-keeping.
But the disadvantage to email is that it’s slow and inconvenient compared to texting, and tenants may not prefer it as much. Most people simply do not like writing through email so your message just gets dumped in their inboxes leaving you without a response. Email also makes it difficult to achieve a warm and friendly tone.
It doesn’t matter what methods you choose but you have to remember that tenant communications should be frequent, friendly, secure, and properly documented. Lastly, sit down with your tenants and agree on which communication method is best for both of you.
Tenant communication can be a challenging aspect of owning rental properties in Roswell. But Real Property Management Greenway can help! We can do the heavy lifting for you. We can contact tenants on your behalf knowing that your tenants can rely on our expertise so you can free up your schedule and get that good night’s sleep. For more information, contact us online or call us at 770-364-9668.

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