Hi All,
Thank you Ashley and Terri for a great webinar today. I found lots of useful ideas in it.
One question that came to me during the webinar was how often do Property Managers call their tenants and landlords?
Do Property Managers only call owners when Maintenance is needed, or do Property Manager contact owners on a regular basis to touch base?
My business partner and I have been talking about this a lot and wonder what the right balance is.
Would love to get other peoples thoughts.
Such a good question @kimberley.yeeles 
One way to know I guess is to ask them. It sounds silly, but if you were using an Investor Needs Analysis, this might be one of the questions you might have. An owner who has several properties with you might want to have a scheduled catch-up every two months. Another owners expectation might be to talk to their PM at least once per month, someone else, maybe twice per year.
Personally, I am not a huge advocate of the scheduling of âHappy Callsâ to owners, mainly because they are usually the first thing that gets dropped when there is a little bit of pressure on the team. Lots of people really struggle to think of something to say as well which is why there is so much resistance. Also, our owners are busy people, we want to provide some value when we call.
I prefer utilizing a situation such as Routine Inspections as a prompt. These happen on a regular basis and will give the PM a purpose for the call. Sometime the call will include maintenance, sometimes it might go like this âHi Mr Owner, itâs Terri from Lean PM, I am calling to let you know we conducted an inspection of your property yesterday and the garden looks amazing. The tenants have such green thumbs and all your Jacarandas are out in flower - it looks so pretty. We took some photos for you and have included these in our inspection report - Iâll send that through shortly. Everything else is going really well, how are things with you?â
Iâm not an advocate for âNo Reasonâ calls also. To me, if you are doing as @terrihandydescribes and regularly contact owners at key events, then there should be âno reasonâ to pick up the phone and ring them for âno reasonâ. Ok that was a bit confusing 
I am pleased to hear these comments as we donât do âHappy Callsâ either.
I think it is a great idea to contact owners after a routine inspection has been carried out just to let them know how it went before they receive the report.
Yea I aggree, the âGood News Callâ is what we like to call it, something like âGood news, your tenants would like to stay on another 12 months with a $30 rent increase!â or âGood News, the unit beside yours is up for sale, i thought you might like to expand the portfolio?â
As an investor, I would be annoyed if my PM called me up, and said⊠âHeeyyy just calling to say Hi!â my response would be, âshouldnât you be doing your job and taking care of my investments? were not friends donât call me unless you have something to say!â 
I have to respectfully disagree, to a certain degree anyway because we find an annual call to our landlords that is not to do with repairs, rent increases, lease renewals etc is a good opportunity to talk about the not so every day items and is a good way to build relationships and get to know your clients - its amazing how many we have found recently got married, had babies, lost a family member so we jot these down for future calls (especially great when you need to soften the blow for something bigger). I think it comes down to training your staff how to correctly make the calls so its not just a âhey, just ringing to say hi and make sure your happy with thingsâ.
The thing that strikes me is that a lot of people that I talk to donât want to hear anything from their PM Team. They just want it all taken care of. I think the thing that we must start to understand is that people want us to be at the end of the phone when they call but otherwise want to see their information when they want. I liken it to my banking app. I donât want to hear from the banking manager - I want to see all my stuff online and only want to talk to them when I really need to or when it benefits me.
We need to be using the Investor Needs Analysis, coupled with the portals to give much richer information. I donât know that I believe in happy/good news calls, as I would think it weird from the bank teller, hairdresser, nail technician, cleaner (I pay my nail person and cleaner more than I pay the property manager and I donât expect happy/good news calls from them - I just want them to do a great job!) But I do think we could be showing the information as it happens and giving better reviews of the property. Like Terri said, doing a detailed quarterly review of the performance of the property based on the trigger of the routine, I think, would be so much more valuable than a routine inspection but could include the routine, weeks paid on time, P&L, maintenance completed, maintenance outstanding, dollars saved by current length of lease, current sales appraisal, overview of whatâs happening in the suburb. Basically a rating of the investment against the ownerâs needs. Iâm sure thereâs plenty more. I could be wrong but I canât think of any other indurstry that calls their clients just to say hi without a real benefit. Having a relationship of trust is deeply important and developing that relationship is critical but I donât think it comes from forced calls that donât provide value. And if we do want to do that; I would think getting a âghost callingâ service (twillio) that sends a VMail directly to their phone would sufffice - âjust thinking of you, all is well at your property.â Far more efficient way of doing it.
Hi @nicole.horne If you are finding this is working well for your clients, then that is great. I totally agree about the training side of things - I donât feel that we, as an industry, pay enough attention to helping our team with scripts around different situations.
How do you monitor this? Do you have this on a spreadsheet, or is it a recurring alert within your software?
When something works well within an agency, I am always keen to find out the process behind this 
Wow this is super interesting!!
I know a few agents will do a profile on their LLs to see how often they should be contacted or left alone! We are starting to do this but on a general note we call our LLs:
Some hate hearing from us because yes they want it all sorted but I dont think that should be used as an excuse for an entire PF & I do hear that sometimes.
The Ghost Calling service that @jodie.stainton mentioned is an amazing idea because you can send bulk to your LLs wishing them a merry xmas etc!
