Industries / Property & lettings
Property & lettingsTenants reporting faults, landlords chasing updates, applicants asking about a listing. They want different things, they are worth different amounts, and today they all wait in the same queue behind whoever rang first.
Most agencies run a single line into a single team, which guarantees the wrong call gets priority.
Someone calling about a listing is comparing three agencies this afternoon. They will not wait, and they will not call back. Every one that rings off is a viewing you did not book.
Repairs, rent queries, contract questions, keys. High volume and largely repetitive, but containing the occasional genuine emergency that must not be buried.
Your client. They want an update on a property and they are the least tolerant of a queue — because they are the ones paying you to manage it.
Branching on the first question separates these three in seconds, and each goes to a different queue with its own service-level target and its own team.
The reason most agencies pay for an answering service, and usually the first thing this replaces.
A leak at 2am is both the call you most need to take and the one nobody is awake for.
An answering service takes a message and charges per call, which means somebody still reads it in the morning — by which time the ceiling is down. What is actually needed is triage: decide in the first thirty seconds whether this is a genuine emergency, and if it is, reach a person who can send someone.
The AI takes the property address, the fault and the access details, tells the tenant what to do in the meantime from your own instructions, and rings your on-call number. Everything that is not an emergency is logged with the details for the morning, so nobody is woken for a dripping tap.
Closed → out-of-hours branch
"Is anyone in danger? Is there water or gas escaping? Is the property secure?"
Address + fault + access → ring on-call → read out your safety instructions
Details logged, tenant told when they will be contacted, ticket waiting at 9am
The routine majority, on whichever channel the tenant used.
Logs a repair with the property, the fault and access arrangements. Answers rent dates, notice periods and contract questions from your own documents. Books contractor access slots. Handles it on the phone, by text or on WhatsApp — whichever they used.
Answers availability, rent, deposit, whether pets are allowed and what the referencing requirements are — then books the viewing rather than promising a callback.
Recognised and routed to their property manager, with priority over the general queue. They are your client, and they should never queue behind a keys enquiry.
A conversation that goes quiet becomes a ticket with an owner. Someone who replies three days later lands on the same thread rather than starting again.
Most agencies are already paying for some of this. The comparison is usually against an answering service rather than against nothing.
| Today | What it costs | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Out-of-hours answering service | Typically a per-call fee whether or not the call mattered | Triage rather than message-taking, charged per minute spoken — and a genuine emergency reaches your on-call person, not an inbox |
| Everything into one queue | Applicants ring off while tenants ask about bin days | Three queues with their own targets, separated on the first question |
| A shared inbox for repairs | Two people reply, or nobody does | Tickets with a sticky owner, response targets, and a banner when someone else is already viewing it |
| No record of missed calls | You cannot manage what you cannot see | Reporting by queue and by hour, so the Monday-morning peak is a fact rather than a feeling |
Most branches run on Small Business at $199 a month for up to fifty people — negotiators, property managers, maintenance coordinators and weekend cover all get logins without a per-seat charge. A one-person letting agent can start on Pro at $69. Full rate card
It is the clearest before-and-after, and it is the line item you are already paying for.
Google or Microsoft · 30-day free trial · $15 credit · no card required