AI Phone Agents for the Real Estate World
"I bet you won't be smiling when your tenants call at 3AM with flooding!"
Every single real estate professional has heard some variation of this snide remark early in their careers. And to some degree it's true. No one wants to receive an urgent phone call at an inconvenient time.
So the savvy investor hires a property management company, or starts hiring folks to manage their growing portfolio. Head-ache's effectively outsourced. Problem solved, right?
If budgets were unlimited and profit margins were soaring, this would be the end of it.
However, anyone in the real estate sector (especially property management companies) know that paying a call-center or employees to monitor the influx of calls incoming from their tenants eats into their already thin profit margins. Many property managers simply resort to automated voicemail and a team (or single) assistant to monitor it throughout the week.
This comes with a significant drop in service, and the inevitable frantic tenant that can't get through to support they need.
Until recently, missing tenant inquiries was just considered the cost of doing business. Nobody can pick up every call in real-time and do something useful.
AI Phone Agents - The Unexpected Solution
When most property managers think of an automated phone system, they envision the touchtone and robotic endless menus that frustrate even the clearest speaking caller.
When they think of a call center, images of foreign employees packed into cubicle farms come to mind.
Both are costly, and neither invokes feelings of "trust" or "customer service".
Artificial intelligence is the buzzword of 2024; But where is it for the property owners, and the salt of the earth property managers getting their hands dirty every day? ChatGPT won't show up at 2AM and fix a leak (though it may be able to write you some funny poems about the entire experience).
Companies like Bland are trying to connect the pieces between AI technology and the property management industry. Through the creation of AI phone agents, it's not impossible to completely revamp a property manager's ability to answer, respond to and direct their tenant's calls.
Before we dive into the specifics of AI phone agents and their impact on the real estate world, here are a few advantages of AI phone agents:
- Built to sound and respond like real human operators
- Available 24x7 and can handle any number of concurrent callers
- Exponentially cheaper to set up, and maintain when compared to call centers and on-site employees
Sound too good to be true? In this article we'll introduce AI Phone agents, their use case in the property management industry, and show you just how serious we are when we say "revolutionize".
Understanding AI Phone Agents
If you're a senior figure in the real estate industry and trying to grasp how AI phone agents and call centers may be useful for your company, we've got just the introduction for you. Our complete Introduction to AI Phone Agents was written with decision makers in mind. Give it a read to learn the fundamentals of AI phone agents and what they're capable of.
Key Applications in Property Management
24x7 Availability at a Fraction of the Cost
Your own personal call center available day in and day out. And not a generic, disorganized mess of an offshore call center (with untrained and careless operators to anger your tenants). With Bland's AI phone agent technology, you can create a virtual "call center" staffed with artificial intelligence agents that respond and perform exactly how you tell them.
Handle Every Caller
Almost all small and medium sized property management companies employ just a handful of assistants to "cover the phones" for tenant inquiries. This works, but can lead to overwhelming your staff at peak times when multiple issues are happening at once. AI phone agents are infinitely expandable to handle the callers you have right now. No wait times on hold, no voicemails to sift through.
Consistency Across Your Support
What is our policy on that again? Especially larger property managers (but everyone sees this to some degree) struggle with uniformity when it comes to the treatment of all of their tenants. The ideal scenario is to dictate the policy of something once, and have all of your employees abide by it. In reality there's training gaps, employee turnover and a constant state of flux.
An AI based phone agent architecture solves this for you. Define your policies and procedures in a single place, and all of your AI phone agents will use them the right way every single time. Need to make updates? Update your operating procedures and guidelines in a single place and instantly all your ai agents are trained on the update.
Tenant inquiries and support
How often are the most frequently asked questions by tenants answered by property owners? Over and over again. AI phone agents offer a way to get your FAQs answered for tenants that refuse to read their welcome emails and brochures. Agents can be dynamic enough to take all of your property information and understand it, answering questions that may be unique to specific tenants.
Property showings and scheduling
Real estate agents spend most of the day on the phone. Speaking to current clients, introducing themselves to prospective clients, and of course scheduling and managing showings. In the commercial real estate industry where potentially thousands of units and spaces are managed by a single firm this is even more pronounced.
A well programmed AI phone agent is a master at scheduling and follow-up. They can talk directly to scheduling systems and CRMs via API access, and keep your company calendars packed full of prospective tenants and buyers.
Maintenance Request Handling
Operationally the coordination of maintenance can be a laborious and mistake riddled process for managers. Times need to be scheduled with tenants, and then simultaneously coordinated with the contractor or service provider. All this needs to be tracked in the property manager's CRM down to the last change.
You AI phone agent can sit at the epicenter of your real estate operations. Coordinating on the phone with your tenants, programmatic ally scheduling in your CRM for reminders, and even contacting your service providers to remind them of the schedule or confirm they completed the work without issue.
Rent Collection and Payment Reminders
Rent day is the lifeblood of any property management company. Reminders need to be sent, payment errors need to be follow-up, and a multitude of operational tasks must all hum along efficiently to keep cash flows strong.
Emergency Response Coordination
The nightmare of any property manager is missing a call from a tenant in desperate need. With an AI phone agent always listening and always available, you can be certain that emergency situations are understood and escalated to the proper authority.
Did We Mention it’s Cheaper?
By structuring your phone support systems to use Bland's AI agents, you not only can benefit from all the above, but you can slash your support costs at the same time. AI phone agents bill you for minutes connected to your tenants solving their problems, not hours and days sitting waiting for a call.
Challenges and Considerations
- Integration with existing property management systems
- Data privacy and security concerns
- Balancing AI automation with human touch
- Training and adaptation period for staff and tenants
How Complex Are Property Management AI Agents to Setup?
AI phone agents may sound great on paper, but can you really be expected to program them yourself without a software engineer/artificial intelligence expert? The property management industry is nuanced, and most property managers will need far more sophistication in their call systems than basic support. Can AI phone agents still deliver without months or years of setup time?
In short, yes they can. Bland has designed their Conversational Pathways visual interface to make creating a useful phone agent an intuitive and straightforward process. If you can set up a blog, you can learn how to build phone agents that work for your company.
Future Trends and Developments
- Advanced natural language processing and understanding
- Integration with IoT devices and smart home technologies
- Predictive maintenance and proactive property management
- Personalization of tenant experiences
Conclusion
Property management is a game of people and operational efficiency. The happier you keep the people (your tenants), and the more streamlined your operational systems are the more profit stays in your company month after month when rent rolls are run. AI phone agents help you improve both factors.
At Bland, we believe that the real estate sector is in for a wave of changes rippling off of the artificial intelligence page. It's why we've invested so much time, effort and care into building solutions for property management services and commercial real estate.
If any of the above resonated, let's talk. Our engineering team works directly with property managers and property owners alike to craft AI phone agent solutions to fit their unique business needs and technology stacks. Drop us a line here, and get on the phone with one of our best and brightest.
