24/7 Maintenance Call Centre

Welcome to Canada's Property Management Podcast, your number one resource for investing, managing and maximizing the value of your real estate assets.

And now here's your hosts, Carla Browne and Adrian Schulz, Canada's rental property experts.

Carla Browne:

How does that song go?

Adrian Schulz:

I'm not sure. Yeah. Let's not test it. But this episode is called For a Good Time Call.

Carla Browne:

No, we're talking about 24/7 lines, Adrian. When we talked to investors, I will say this is one... Can I get your head back in the game?

Adrian Schulz:

Yeah, I know. I was just like, "Do those even exist anymore?" But anyway, neither do I.

Carla Browne:

I have no idea. Okay. I have to tell this story. When I was growing up, my parents got a phone bill and the phone bill had a bunch of weird charges on it. And I don't know how old we were, but I have a twin brother. And doing a little research. It was found out that actually my brother and some of his friends were calling this number.

Adrian Schulz:

For a good time call.

Carla Browne:

So totally unrelated to property management. But to answer your question, I have no idea if they still exist. I have a feeling somehow, somewhere they do.

Adrian Schulz:

But it's a great segue into 24/7 support resident call centers, right?

Carla Browne:

Right. And the call centers in the property management industry have been around forever. What isn't super common in Canada is 24/7 call centers that are specific to the property management industry. So after our call centers is what normally property managers would engage with. Somebody does answer the call, and then they call the owner of the company or one of the employees. Where we've taken it is that we have dedicated people working for our company that are answering those calls, and they will actually dispatch out to emergency services if an emergency does happen in the middle of the night. So we're not relying on somebody picking up a phone call and dealing with it. I feel this is such an important feature for both investors, but also for tenants, for our tenants to know that they can report because they don't know what's happening. When the water's spewing from the hot water heater at 3:00 in the morning, they don't know what to do. We can help them through that.

Adrian Schulz:

Their workflows, right? "Hi, my name is whatever. Here's my situation." And it's all spelled out on how to handle the call.

Carla Browne:

Right. And we make sure that if it is not an emergency, that it does not get handled like an emergency. It gets logged into the software program for the company to then deal with the next morning. So we have been working on our own 24/7 line for real property management offices and getting very close now in the next few months to be launching it right across Canada. So I'm super excited about it because I think it just adds another level of protection to our investors.

Adrian Schulz:

And they'll be directly connected into the property management software, logging the incidents and seeing the history of what's happened in the past at that property. Right?

Carla Browne:

Right.

Adrian Schulz:

I think it's going to be magical. I think it's going to be game changing, but I think also it's going to be a serious competitive edge, both from a property manager perspective when they're talking to a rental property owner investor, but also when you can say to a resident, "Hey, we don't have your typical after hours where people are on call and it's a merry-go-round of phone calls to try to reach somebody. We actually provide you 24/7 resident services by phone." That's pretty special.

Carla Browne:

Biggest pain point for tenants and for investors, maintenance is the biggest. Well, and property managers. It is the biggest pain point that we have and that we hear is that communication. So investors want to know what's happening with their property. They want to know why we didn't act faster possibly when something happened. And a tenant, when they have something to report, they want to report it. They want someone to listen to them. It's a human need to be seen, heard and understood. Let these tenants talk to us.

Adrian Schulz:

And it solves the endless email back and forth if you can just call and actually have a conversation about something. Because I think it is understood much better when you can tell the story versus a few words in a text or in an email. I think it's extremely exciting. Will this be available to all our PMM offices in Canada?

Carla Browne:

Yes. As we're testing right now and finalizing how we're onboarding the new office, because each office is going to have different vendors, they might have a few different things how they want to be dealt with. So we want to add a little bit of flexibility there and make sure that the staff understands that. So creating a manual that's kind of plug and play for each office to put in these pieces is going to be key in order to keep that straight. But then we will be launching it right across Canada.

Adrian Schulz:

That's very exciting. The existing call centers that property management companies use, in my experience, they're just sufficient. None of them are great because they're providing that after hour service to all industries, right? Actually, this is funny. There's one that we've used in the past and a resident would call them and then the on-call would get called and then the on-call would call the plumber and then they call the plumber, and the plumber used the same call center and it was like a merry-go-round.

Carla Browne:

Oh, of course.

Adrian Schulz:

Of after hour call center usage, right? I think it's going to be amazing. And I think that as more real property management offices continue to open across Canada, I think that if you're considering getting into the property management business, there's still a few ground floor opportunities available across Canada that if you want to be part of a company that has these industry changing initiatives, the time is now. I think that people who want to have that conversation about getting into the business and being on the cutting edge of not just technology, but also resident and investor experience to go to realpm.ca and check out the opportunities that exist. This is amazing stuff. And I can tell you from being in this real estate rental business for almost 20 years, there's nobody moving at our pace. And it's hard to, because you've got a lot of one man shops or local offices, whereas we are a power. You've got power of the network and then of course power of the CPG family of companies. That wasn't meant to be a sales pitch, but I think it has to be.

Carla Browne:

It kind of sounded like one, but it's true. I mean, we want to help companies who are maybe smaller in nature, but want to get bigger, but don't understand how you can without adding all of these complex problems to their plate. And property management doesn't have to be complex. It is actually quite simple, but it's all process driven. So as soon as you put in these systems and processes, you can scale without adding extra pain. And this is one way that we can do it. The 24/7 maintenance line is one way that we can offer to our offices. So I encourage people to check it out and learn more about us. Go to the website. You said it, Adrian. And there's a big red button that says opportunities on there. And just feel it out. If you want to speak more, let us know.

Adrian Schulz:

For a good time, call.

Carla Browne:

Now that's Real Property Management.

Thanks for listening to Canada's Property Management podcast. If you liked this episode, please subscribe and give us a rating which will help us reach more listeners. Until next time, connect with us on social media and online at www.realpm.ca.