The days are long gone when complaining about a company meant spending hours on hold waiting to talk to a customer service rep. In our digital world, all it takes is a few keystrokes for a customer’s less-than-satisfactory experience to go public—or even viral.
With businesses growing more transparent and bending over backwards to cater to their clients’ needs, is there still a place for the old-time customer survey?
As a property owner, do you really need to ask your tenants to rate your building and your service? When renters are so eager to post their reviews online, do you still need to go fishing for feedback?
The answer is a resounding, yes! You might get all sorts of comments and reviews on your website and social media pages, but a tenant survey is an invaluable way to keep your finger on the pulse of your tenants’ needs. You need to know what your tenants think of your building. You want to determine how happy they are with their units. You’d like to verify the competence and cordiality of your management staff. And the best way to get an honest look at this information is by using tenant surveys.
A tenant survey is a simple, efficient way to gather crucial information and to let your tenants’ voices be heard.
Here are 4 reasons you should be using tenants surveys:
- Gain Focus
Getting feedback from your tenants is the perfect way for you to identify the areas you need to focus on and improve. Are your tenants frustrated by the lengthy response time of the maintenance team? Do your tenants think the rent collection process is inefficient? Is there a major safety or compliance concern you are not aware of? The survey’s results will tell you where you should be spending your time, energy and resources.
A tenant survey will ultimately help you keep your building running in top form.
- Hold onto Your Good Tenants
Every property owner wants their units filled with respectable, long-term tenants. A high turnover rate can be expensive to fund and absorbing the cost of an empty unit isn’t cheap either. Also, when trying to fill vacant units, you run the risk of ending up with undesirable new tenants who can drag down the appeal of your entire building.
Hold onto the valuable tenants you have by using surveys to keep them satisfied.
- Improve Your Reputation
People like to share good tidings. Keeping your tenants happy with their units will prompt them to share these pleasant feelings with their family and friends. They’ll yap about their incredible building on the phone and they’ll brag about their awesome apartment on their social media pages. Best of all, tenants who see their concerns taken seriously are more likely to recommend their building to their friends.
Use surveys to keep your renters happy and let your tenants be your best marketing gimmick.
- Show Appreciation
Everyone wants to be heard and understood. By providing your tenants with a medium to share their impressions of your building, you are showing them how much you value and appreciate them. It’s your way of saying thank you for choosing your building as their home.
Using tenant surveys is a great way to strengthen your relationship with your tenants.
How to Create a Tenant Survey
Are you convinced that you need to use tenant surveys? We’ll show you how! Simply follow these five steps:
Create a questionnaire. Ask about your tenants’ satisfaction with various aspects of your property, including management responsiveness, payment policies, the appearance of the interior and exterior of the property, safety concerns and more.
Use an online survey tool like Survey Monkey to help you create a digital survey. Email the survey directly to your tenants.
Let your tenants know about the survey and offer an incentive for timely participation.
Collect the responses and run a statistical analysis on the results to identify the key areas that need improvement.
Notify your tenants about the changes you will be making because of their survey responses and be sure to follow through with your pledges.
Lots of property managers ask exiting tenants to complete a survey, but the best way to conduct tenant surveys is to send them out annually to all current tenants. This will enable you to make the changes necessary to keep your tenants happy.
If any of your tenants use the survey to alert you about a safety or compliance issue, be sure to give us a call. At Jack Jaffa & Associates we’re all about helping you keep your buildings safe!