How to Outsource your Property Administration
This is a guest article written by Richard Walton.
The one thing we all want is more hours in a day, but literally speaking, that’s impossible to attain. So how do you get more done in a day? The answer is to outsource unimportant and time-consuming tasks, freeing up time and head space for you to concentrate on key responsibilities. In almost every profession, administration is the biggest block to productivity, especially in industries, like property, which operate at an urgent pace and demand immediate customer service.
It’s not just about making money though. It’s about work life balance and job satisfaction. Spending your time updating your property listings, dealing with requests from rental guests or booking a cleaner can be demotivating if your skills lie elsewhere. Research conducted by the Harvard Business Review indicates that knowledge workers spend an average of 41% on tasks that they find dissatisfying and that others could handle just as, if not more competently. Here’s how you can shift the balance of your work and free up your time by outsourcing your property administration:
Customer Experience
Whether you’re selling a property, leasing or renting it short-term through sites like Airbnb, you’re providing a service, which will be rated by your customers. A survey conducted by American Express revealed that 78% of consumers have bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of a poor service experience. That could be an unpleasant or unhelpful phone conversation or simply, delayed responses. The saying “the customer is always right” is all the more prevalent now that everyone has the capability of making their opinions public to a mass audience via Twitter, Facebook or Tripadvisor. In other words, reviews are everything.
By outsourcing your customer service, such as email correspondence, phone calls, reservations, check-in processes and live support, you can guarantee a consistent and reliable service that will increase the chances of guests re-booking and recommending you to their friends or tenants extending their lease. But don’t just choose the cheapest option. Often professionals view outsourcing simply as a way of cutting costs, which of course, it can be, but outsourcing to the wrong individual or company could seriously damage the quality of your output and your company’s reputation. Culture, language and personality are key considerations. If you’re dealing with English customers, it doesn’t make sense to outsource to someone who speaks a low level of English, has a strong accent or an unfriendly phone manner. Likewise, it’s probably not wise to outsource to AI software as a good customer experience relies on empathy and personal connection. Do your research and interview just as you would for an in-house employee; you need to test the experience before your clients do.
Digital Marketing
Effective marketing takes a lot of time and requires in-depth digital marketing knowledge. You need to list your property on multiple sites to maximise your customer reach and also utilise social media as a sales tool, using a variety of platforms to attract potential customers through imagery, videos or interesting content. Forbes reported that in 2014, 64% of sales professionals closed at least one deal as a direct result of using social media.
When it comes to listings there are a range of apps tailored specifically to landlords and property professionals that you can use to streamline your processes, such as ReaLync which gives your clients a real-time virtual experience of a property thus saving you the hassle of having to organise a viewing and making the whole experience more exciting for potential guests, tenants or buyers. Yet even the management of those accounts can be time consuming and if they’re not handled or monitored properly, you risk ending up with double bookings etc. When you outsource to a marketing professional, they can develop a strategy that works for your business, handle the day to day communication and updates, send you progress reports and generally help you to feel more in control of the situation. Again, it’s important to consider the experience of who you’re hiring. They might be social media gurus, but that’s not much use if they don’t have industry knowledge. They need to understand where your clients are browsing, what they’re looking for, when they’re online and what’s happening in the property industry more generally and how that could impact on your sales or rentals.
General Maintenance
Property maintenance could include everything from arranging cleaners, getting locks changed, booking a plumber, or preparing the home with extras that will really impress guests such as flowers, teabags, or providing restaurant recommendations in the area. It’s easy stuff, but it all takes time and adds stress and responsibility that you don’t need. A lot of people assume that you can only outsource “online jobs” to remote workers, in other words, nothing physical and whilst it’s true that a virtual employee can’t buy the flowers, arrange them in a vase and put them on the table of your flat, thanks to technology, they can now easily arrange for someone else to do that. For example, they can research locksmiths and coordinate a time for them to visit the property, which works with your schedule and then they can make sure the work is paid for. Perhaps you give your Airbnb guests the option of pre-ordering groceries, a virtual employee can manage this process, put in the order and arrange an appropriate delivery time.
A lot of the time it comes down to response time. If your tenant reports that there’s a leak, you need to be there not to just answer their email or call, but to solve the issue as quickly and efficiently as possible. Of course, for a lot of landlords who may have other jobs or responsibilities, that’s not always possible, but that’s where outsourcing to a long-term property manager can be so useful. Whilst it can be tempting to look for help on a project basis, working with someone in the longer term can often be more effective as they learn the ins and outs of your business, your expectations and your clients’ needs. For example, whilst you might be solving a problem, it can make tenants anxious if you don’t update them on the process.
Expenses and Invoicing
Book keeping is another key area of property management that can be outsourced to increase efficiency, boost productivity and save time. Think about it like this: if your skills lie in property, you’re probably not going to have the same level of proficiency in accounting as a trained accountant and whilst you might not have the budget to employ a full-time accountant, you can certainly look to outsource some of the processes to a highly, skilled professional who works remotely; it reduces errors and usually speeds up processes, which positively contributes to client satisfaction and the success of your business. For example, if your client makes a complaint or there’s some kind of error and they require a refund, a remote accountant can ensure this is processed as swiftly as possible. They can also chase the payment of deposits on your behalf and issue professional invoices.
Of course, the main concern when outsourcing finance is security and confidentiality as whoever you outsource to will be handling sensitive data. I’d recommend ensuring whoever you hire has a background check and that you work with an application like LastPass that saves passwords and information securely, and ensures that the developers of the app don’t even have the key to your account so you have to remember your master password.
Outsourcing property management can be a highly effective way of boosting productivity and freeing up your time, but it won’t be if you don’t use the right person or services company. Cutting costs is an important part of outsourcing, but the quality of the output is always the priority. Do your research, sign up for trial and make sure you really know what you’re looking for before you commit.
Richard Walton is the Founder of AVirtual, a company that provides virtual personal assistants to small business, entrepreneurs and property companies. He is regularly featured in the press talking about topics such as work life balance, productivity and how to work with a virtual team.