Learn more about how Inventory Hive is improving the tenant inventory experience at Inventory Hive.
Sign up for your free 30-day trial (no card details required) or book in for a chat here.
Tenancy management and the many forms, checks, inspections and regulations have historically made it too complicated and time-consuming to personalise the process for tenants. However, with today’s proptech, data, analytics and automated features now streamlining many manual tasks for letting agents and property managers, we are now in a much better position to customise tenancy. But is it worth it?
There are many boxes to tick in tenancy management – and they only ever seem to increase with mounting legislation and guidelines. It’s therefore no surprise that personalising aspects of that process to suit the tenant has never really taken off. Property managers, agents and landlords simply don’t have the time – especially those
with large portfolios – and time is money.
But, what if personalisation could improve relationships, extend tenancies and minimise void periods, reduce disputes and help to protect properties from damage? The idea of customisation starts to look a lot more appealing and cost effective then.
Is standardisation hindering tenancy success?
Yes, standardisation speeds up workflow but so does proptech. In fact, in the light of today’s digital transformation in the property industry, is standardisation now hindering tenancy success?
For example, how much time is added into the workflow when dealing with tenants who don’t speak English as their first language? How much translation is required to explain agreements and responsibilities, or when dealing with issues, disputes and communications?
How well do younger student tenants understand what’s required of them to keep a property in good condition? And, at the other end of the spectrum, how easy is it for elderly tenants to understand or remember what’s required of them in rented accommodation? How comfortable are they with reporting issues via digital channels?
When you delve beyond the obvious deposit disputes, how many issues probably occur much earlier because of misunderstanding or poor communication?
How to personalise tenancy communications and property inspections
- Start with the basics. Split your tenants into segments where you can tailor your processes and documents to suit different audience. For example, translate your emails at check-in and check-out into the language of your tenants to prevent avoidable issues with visits, keys, cleaning, decoration, etc.
- Clarify the wording in your tenancy agreements for student tenants and those who are unfamiliar with the complexities of tenancy. Use plain English in these documents and your communications.
- Consult your analytics to identify where the problem areas are in tenancies within specific tenant groups. Are their patterns? How can you clarify instruction and responsibilities for these groups?
- Consider the channels used by each tenant group for reporting problems and communicating. Do they prefer phone, email, app or platform? What will make the process easier?
Whilst proptech isn’t quite there yet with offering a fully automated and targeted personal experience for tenants, it’s not far off. What it can do right now is give users more time to devote to understanding more about specific segment needs.
Richard Abbots of Inventory Hive commented, “Feedback from our users of digital inventory reporting has highlighted a need to help property managers personalise their communications, which is why have a multilingual feature for the emails generated on our platform for tenants. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tenancy customisation. The advantages are clear for those who take the time to tailor their processes to their tenants and the more we can help achieve that with digital solutions, the closer we can get to that being the norm.”
Learn more about how Inventory Hive is improving the tenant inventory experience at Inventory Hive.
Sign up for your free 30-day trial (no card details required) or book in for a chat here.
BLOG DISCLAIMER
This article is intended for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have any questions related to issues in this article, we strongly advise contacting a legal professional.
These blog posts are the work of Fixflo and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. In summary, you are welcome to re-publish any of these blog posts but are asked to attribute Fixflo with an appropriate link to www.fixflo.com. Access to this blog is allowed only subject to the acceptance of these terms.