News August 9, 2021

How SMS has improved property manager communications for Property Brokers

Property management is the furthest from a piece of cake. Managers are often faced with unresponsive tenants and an increasing portfolio of properties to manage. And business owners want to support their managers while ensuring operational costs are minimised and tenant-driven revenue continues to grow.

There are various features, processes, and workflows that can help with the day-to-day management of properties and tenancies – many already included in Palace’s system. One feature that can support you on this journey is text communications.

SMS has long been a channel of choice in the property management business. It has allowed many of our property managers to scale their communications, lighten workloads while ensuring prompt responses and effective results across the board.

We spoke with Property Brokers, one of the biggest names in real New Zealand real estate, about their varied use of text messaging. It has helped them solve operational and communication issues across their tenants and business.

How does SMS help?
For Will Alexander, GM of Property Brokers, SMS is a “no-brainer.” Property Brokers has long used text messaging and considers it a default channel for the industry. It has enabled them to consolidate engagement and create efficiencies at the same time.

Text messaging has a 98% open rate, with 90% opened within 90 seconds of receipt. The majority of consumers now own a mobile phone and are already familiar with the technology. It’s a medium known and universally accessible for most. Unlike email, which has a slower open and response rate, the near-instant delivery of SMS means tenants are notified quickly and encouraged to reply just as fast.

Service businesses such as salons, car dealerships, health clinics, use simple text reminders to help reduce no-shows by up to 50%. It makes sense that text communications can therefore serve a similar purpose throughout the tenancy lifecycle. Luckily, with Palace, it is very easy to start sending SMS or bulk texts to many tenants.

What types of property communications does SMS support?
Property Brokers uses text in conjunction with email, but also has singular use cases for text messaging such as:

  • Rent arrears – Send quick reminders to pay late or unpaid rent,
  • Inspections – Alert tenants about scheduled inspections,
  • Notice to vacate – Let tenants know their obligations when it comes to moving out and important deadlines such as returning keys.

There are limitless communication opportunities to use text messaging so don’t feel limited by these three simple use cases. Make it work for you!

What results are Property Brokers seeing from text messaging

For Property Brokers, text messaging has directly impacted their business positively:

SMS has also contributed to their overall business success:

 

“Granted there are policies and procedures that guide people, but tools like SMS in Palace have enabled us to execute all these strategies in the results. You look at any part of the business and the results have improved.”
Will Alexander, General Manager, Property Brokers

Get started with SMS in Palace
If you want to improve the property experience for tenants and streamline operations for property managers, text messaging can help! Start using SMS through Palace now: Contact Support to sign up. It’s easy to set up and send messages straight away.

Palace’s text messaging services are powered by MessageMedia, the global experts in mobile engagement.

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