I am looking for 24hr answering service, mostly for after hours maintenance calls. I want to be sure that an emergency is dealt with right away and a non-emergency is handled appropriately.
I'm looking at Answer First, it seems decent because you pay by the minute and I'm not sure how many calls we will be receiving. But we haven't signed up yet! Any suggestions?
I'm not quite sure you want to use Answer First --> if it's a tenant with an emergency and you are looking to send out a technician asap, you need someone who is more than just an expensive online request form. And, you also need someone who understands the liability with tenant/landlord interactions.
I'm not quite sure you want to use Answer First --> if it's a tenant with an emergency and you are looking to send out a technician asap, you need someone who is more than just an expensive online request form. And, you also need someone who understands the liability with tenant/landlord interactions.
@Jordan Sand So it looks like these are both property management software systems. We are already using Rentec Direct to handle the majority of our maintenance requests but it's just the after hour phone calls that I'm not sure what to do with!
Allison Barker we are happy with the service we are getting from MAP Communications. The key to success with all answering services is to be very detailed and deliberate in writing the criteria that the service will use in processing your calls.
Yes, you need to be specific about everything! Not being sarcastic, it’s just that you’ll want to anticipate every possible scenario, and write into your protocol how the call taker should handle it.
Should they page your on call staff for a noise complaint, or just take a message? How about a smoke alarm chirping? A spill in the lobby? Leasing inquiry? Parking complaint? Ants in an apartment? Etc., etc.
And one of the biggest questions to resolve is what should they do when a call does not fit one of the directives you’ve crafted? Should they pass it through to your on call staff for them to make a decision, or would you prefer for staff not to be bothered until the next business day?
@Allison Barker Answerforce. The tenant calls the #, and AF shoots the message details out to your email (and/or text), and can connect "emergency" calls based upon criteria you set, as well as routing calls to the appropriate person. Part of my emergency call criteria is:
Is there an active leak?
Is the heat out (during winter)?
Have the police/fire/medical responded?
Most anything else isn't an emergency. If they INSIST that someone be called, they are warned that after-hours rates will be charged if it is determined to not be a true emergency. At that point, if its a maintenance issue, my maintenance man is called every 5 minutes 3x, then cycles between me an him until someone picks up. Email is sent once the emergency message is relayed/call is connected.
Unless you have a HUGE amount of properties, true emergencies after-hours are very limited. I put true in bold because many times tenants believe any request is an emergency to them, so its important to set limits and HIGH fees for abuse. If the property isn't flooded, frozen, burning, or housing someone dead, we usually don't need to know about it until business hours the next day. So an answering service might not be economically feasible.
I'm also a little confused by your last statement. Because there are not a lot of true emergencies you're saying the answering service is not economically feasible? We were thinking that because there are not many emergencies we want a service to filter through these. Answer First has a low monthly cost and then is just charged based on how many calls they receive. We're hoping to use it as a safety net. Just to have listed in our maintenance line voicemail so there is an option for speaking to someone if they feel they need to. Do you recommend this? I'm new to the game :)