We are in 2020, and we need to start acting like it. Process Offshore, there are so many ways to process an application that are way more efficient than the traditional way. When tenants visit a property, and they are potentially interested in making it their next home, of course they will have to apply. And how do most property managers handle this application process? With good old-fashioned pen and paper.
Let me repeat – it’s 2020.
I know why property managers still do this. You know that you’re handing out an application to someone who has come to the property. It’s physical proof that they’ve inspected the place. But it’s a waste of time, it’s inefficient, and it just generates more work.
If the viewer fills out the form, then and there, they will waste 20 minutes of the agent’s time. If they do it later in the office, they’ll waste somebody’s time there. If they send in a scanned copy, half the time it’s not even legible and they’ll have to send it again.
If they’ve managed to fill it out and you can read it, half the time they haven’t filled it out correctly and you waste time chasing up supporting documents.
Then and only then it’s time to process the entire application, not to mention the time it takes to case up the other agent for the rental reference.
Yeah, all in all, it’s a prolonged process.
Some time ago, my agency committed to taking the whole process online. We documented it and then trained our offshore team to take care of the task. Welcome to the future.
The key to making this process work is to control the data that’s coming in. So, we banned all entry points that were not our online form.
No matter how they tried to apply, all roads lead back to the online form.
This made the process much more consistent and that allowed us to train our Real Estate Virtual Assistants to complete the entire process.
The point of this article is to talk about reducing overheads. If you can move 90% of the application process offshore, it will save the property manager a considerable amount of their valuable time. They can now be doing more important tasks and only step in where they are required.
There are a couple of other things you may want to set up to make this work. Connect your VA to a VoIP phone line so they can call tenants to chase them up. They can also chase other agencies for references. It is not difficult to do; we have an excellent relationship with TelAir for Australian VoIP systems and FreshCaller to service the whole world.
When looking at your current processes, there are always opportunities to find automations to save you time and money. Take a look at an app from inspectRE called apptracker. This links up with OneForm and has some crazy automation that can help you could start to streamline your processes.
If you want to talk about how, you can save time and money by getting a VA to process your property management applications, just reach out to me.
