Investor · Southern, NH · Member since 2015 · 99 posts · 28 votes
Does anyone use an after hours answering service? What are the basics of what they offer? Do they field calls and decide when to call the 24 hour maintenance guy? I imagine they dont have to be local- maybe they need a 1 800 number. Any company recommendations? What should I use to compare one company to another?
@Eric Hathway While I don't have specific companies to recommend to you I have used call centers in the past for my New England properties. You should be able to give them a list of criteria and who to call for what.
For example, I had them take messages and email them to me for pretty much everything except no heat calls or active plumbing leaks. Those two items would trigger a direct call either to me or to the plumbing/heating company. That helped filter out all of the non-emergency calls....but when I saw the Call Center's number pop up on my caller ID I knew it was a legitimate issue.
You should be able to set the call center criteria to whatever fits your situation using a combination of Google Voice numbers, call forwarding from your normal phone, and/or ring through apps that silence all calls except select numbers.
I imagine that anyone with lots of rentals has a property manager. I don't get that many calls from my tenants and most will email me if they have a question.
Your tenants shouldn't need to call you that often and if they do call at an odd hour, it is probably an emergency.
I have 30 rentals that I manage the day to day things, but the maintenance guy gets calls during dinner and before 8am (despite multiple notices to tenants regarding appropriate times to call for non-emergencies). I would like if he could transfer calls after hours to a service who can field them and react appropriately.
I also have a 30 plus property and manage myself. All calls go to my home phone answering machine. It is not necessary to have any over night emergency call line. There simply are not enough actual emergencies to warrant the need. To be honest in 10 years I have not had a single call that could not wait till the next day.
I have often though about this too. Basically everyone texts me. If it is an emergency I get right on it. If it’s what they perceive to be an emergency, I respond during normal business hours.
@Eric Hathway While I don't have specific companies to recommend to you I have used call centers in the past for my New England properties. You should be able to give them a list of criteria and who to call for what.
For example, I had them take messages and email them to me for pretty much everything except no heat calls or active plumbing leaks. Those two items would trigger a direct call either to me or to the plumbing/heating company. That helped filter out all of the non-emergency calls....but when I saw the Call Center's number pop up on my caller ID I knew it was a legitimate issue.
You should be able to set the call center criteria to whatever fits your situation using a combination of Google Voice numbers, call forwarding from your normal phone, and/or ring through apps that silence all calls except select numbers.