7 Reasons Why You Need a Self-service Tenant Portal

Data: 2016.04.06

Author Donatas Kazakauskas

What is a self-service tenant portal? It is a website that enables tenants to get and provide data. Portal users can perform some activities like submitting relevant data to property managers, changing their account information or even paying bills. In this blog, I will list the reasons why the self-service portal can improve your property-management business efficiency. Here are 7 advantages of a self-service tenant portal for both property managers and tenants.

  1. 24/7 accessibility. Tenants will not have to wait for an answer from the real-estate manager if the data is available online anytime. Checking invoices, rent charges or CAM fees can be done in a minute! It works wherever you have an internet connection. Self-service portals are linked to the property-management company’s core system and display data in real time. So tenants can be sure they get the latest info.
  2. Time saving. Both tenants and property managers save time when a self-service tenant portal is in use. Tenants don’t need to wait for answers, while property managers don’t even get any requests! This reduces service costs because it is much cheaper maintaining a self-service portal than spending time answering requests from tenants. Time is money.
  3. Increased property manager efficiency. Time saving leads to increased efficiency for property managers. Getting fewer emails and phone calls sounds great! Property managers can now concentrate on their other daily activities rather than dealing with repetitive customer questions through phone or email.
  4. Easy deployment and usage. This is not an ERP system that may take a lot of time to implement. Usually web portals are quite simple and easy to use, so no user training or data migration process is needed. Just setting up a new instance of a server and linking it to your database is enough. You will not find many buttons or functions in a tenant portal. There is only basic functionality which is easy understandable.
  5. Track progress of maintenance work. The possibility of entering maintenance work requests or checking the status of existing work orders will increase tenant satisfaction. Tenants will be aware of the current situation and can plan their activities. Tenants will get the feeling they control the maintenance work situation .
  6. Online payments. Customers prefer to complete transactions themselves through the internet rather than going somewhere or meeting other people. This also reduces the possibility of late payments. Mobile banking is everywhere; a tenant self-service portal should not be an exception.
  7. Another communication channel. Property or marketing managers can deliver special offers to tenants through a portal. Maybe there are some portal users who don’t read or don’t have access to the company email box, so you can access them through the web portal. The tenant self-service portal may become not only a cost-cutting, but also a profit-making, system.

Investing in a self-service tenant portal can be a tough decision for any business, especially for fast-growing companies with limited time and resources. However, self-service technologies offer benefits to customers and companies alike, so the investment definitely pays off. Customers get what they want faster, which increases their satisfaction, and companies decrease their service costs and do not waste time on unnecessary visits or calls.

Do you have any experience with self-service tenant portals? Share with us.

Together with the property management software solution, Soft4RealEstate offers a self-service tenant portal for our customers who want to improve the communication process with their tenants, increase customer satisfaction level and save time. Would you like to get more details? Contact us.

SOFT4, as a provider of a software solution for commercial property management, is constantly releasing blog articles about how to meet and cope with  trends, tendencies, and challenges, and giving suggestions as to how to react to the changing environment in order to stay competitive.

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