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Comparing the cost-effectiveness of outsourcing versus in-house customer service in property management.
June 6, 2024

7 Benefits of Property Management Customer Service Outsourcing

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Investing in rental properties can generate cash flow and long-term returns, but it may be challenging to manage your properties. Over time, you may decide to acquire more properties, move out of town, or find that you’re tired of spending time at your rental.

If you can relate to these situations, then you might find this article helpful. Property Management Customer Service Outsourcing can provide time savings, reduce stress, and potentially save money. This strategy can help grow a portfolio and increase returns. It allows business owners like you to focus on high-level tasks, such as finding new rental properties or developing your investment and upscaling strategies.

Reduced operational expenses

1. Cost Efficiency and Savings

Property Management Customer Service Outsourcing can significantly reduce costs for property management companies by reducing the need for in-house staff, technology, and infrastructure. It can also help lessen overhead costs like workspace rent, equipment, and office supplies.

Hiring a new employee incurs expenses like healthcare, insurance, and training. Outsourcing property management helps save money by eliminating overhead costs associated with hiring and retaining employees. Overhead here also includes employee training to ensure the employee’s skills are up-to-date.

Turnover costs businesses $4.5 trillion annually, according to recent estimates. When you outsource hiring and managing, you don’t have to worry about retention — that lands on the outsourcing company’s plate.

2. Access to Specialized Talent

Outsourcing allows businesses to access specialized experts from around the world, enabling you to find the perfect fit for your needs. This approach helps ensure the best possible talent with the right skills and experience.

For example, the Philippines is renowned for its wide pool of highly qualified talents, especially in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. Here’s why: Customer support is a leading industry in the Philippines. Aside from that, English is one of the official languages of the country, which boasts high English proficiency. 

BPOs help companies maximize efficiency and increase productivity. A BPO company protects and expands brands, improves customer retention, and allows high-level business leadership to focus on big-picture advancements. 

3. Scalability and Flexibility

Outsourcing property management services offers scalability and flexibility for businesses. This allows them to adjust their operations and resources to seasonal changes, market dynamics, or project demands. Outsourcing abroad protects US-based companies from significant infrastructure investments, financial losses, or onboarding and training challenges.

Outsourcing providers offer quick, well-trained, and skilled property management staff, which makes it beneficial for urgent needs. Compare this to hiring in-house staff: In-house personnel require a thorough (read: often expensive) training period to fully understand the company’s processes and procedures. 

4. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a major factor when it comes to business growth and continuity. Improved maintenance, efficient rent collection, and faster response times can enhance customer satisfaction, increase retention, and attract new business opportunities.

Outsourcing property management can enhance service quality. You get access to experts in managing properties to provide high-quality service to your clients, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and enhancing the business’s reputation.

Additionally, outsourcing provides support for emergencies outside of office hours. Having a customer experience team 24/7 helps with business continuity and helps you address your clients’ concerns and queries more quickly. When it comes to property management, consistent customer service availability is critical for a variety of needs. 

Maintenance repair requests are some of the top demands put on property managers. After all, your property management team worked all day, and now they have to be available all night, too? With outsourcing, there’s someone else available to answer calls about broken faucets at 2 AM.

Most outsourcing providers nowadays offer 24/7 customer support, which can be a powerful edge against competitors.

5. Focus on Core Business Activities

Property management companies usually have a bunch of tedious tasks that need to be taken care of. If not, these pile up and can take a lot more of your time. 

So, instead of using this time to create business strategies to help with upscaling and expansion, you get stuck with these time-consuming tasks. Luckily, outsourcing can help you with this dilemma. Increased efficiency can lead to better productivity.

Outsourcing property management allows companies to focus on their core competencies. Some of these are property acquisition, investment analysis, market research, and client relationship management. Assistance here helps take the burden of non-core functions like administrative tasks, maintenance coordination, accounting, and tenant support off of your shoulders. 

Here’s an example breakdown of the numbers: Accounting is a significant cost for American companies, with US-based accounts earning nearly $80,000 a year. An offshore accounting team is much less pricey, and they’re trained in US law and compliance, too. As a result, your internal teams can concentrate on tasks that can add value to your company.

6. Advanced Technology and Infrastructure

Outsourcing providers prioritize meeting customer expectations, as over 60% of dialers won’t wait more than two minutes on hold. In order to lower the average wait time, they put procedures in place, such as assigning QA auditors to coach agents on cutting down on or minimizing dead time between calls.

To increase operational efficiency, they also take advantage of cutting-edge technology, such as user-friendly data collection tools. When you outsource this role, you also don’t need to purchase any in-house phone equipment or call-handling software, making it another incredible cost-cutting measure. 

7. Risk Mitigation and Compliance

Property management involves its fair share of risks. Outsourcing can mitigate these risks, including legal liabilities, compliance issues, and safety concerns. This protects the company from financial liabilities and reputational damage. This is one of the best benefits you can get from outsourcing customer service for your property management business.

If it seems like you’re often at a legal impasse or trying to find the answer to some obscure state law, you’re not alone. Property managers must adhere to seemingly endless state and federal laws. 

Property laws involve sensitive matters like tenant screening, eviction proceedings, maintenance repair timelines, and more. It can be a lot to keep track of and possible consequences for errors can be severe. Legal outsourcing helps keep certain stressors — and certain liabilities  — out of your life. 

Outsourcing reduces overall risk to a company due to the specialized skills of outsourcing providers. They have the knowledge to avoid potential risks, which makes it easier to prevent them. Outsourcing creates stability in the business structure, making it a safer investment and encouraging investors to support growth. (Outsourcing organizations can also handle your company’s legal processes, as well.)

Talking about Property Management Customer Service Outsourcing

Let’s Talk Property Management Customer Service Outsourcing Today

Outsourcing customer service allows you to focus on core activities and deliver superior customer service. It eliminates the need for in-house employee training and salaries. Outsourcing also improves customer support workloads. 

It’s one of the quickest ways to grow your business and maximize your investment. Being a well-rounded property management company leads to higher profits and opportunities for expansion rather than focusing on everything in-house.

STAFFVIRTUAL can help you get the most out of outsourcing. We aim for a 90-day success plan to make sure we’re both working towards the same goal — to drive your business forward into growth. 

With our wide pool of top talents in the Philippines, paired with cutting-edge technology and infrastructure, we can help you establish your customer support team. Not only can you save costs, but you can also deliver top-notch customer service to your clients consistently. 

If you want to gain access to these benefits, partner with us today and schedule a call. Let us help you take your business to greater heights!


Sources:

Why Better Onboarding Is Key To Improved Productivity In 2023 | Forbes

Core Competencies for Business | BusinessNewsDaily

Accountants and Auditors: Occupational Outlook Handbook | BLS