IndustryProperty Management
A leasing call and a broken water heater should not ring the same way.
One of those calls makes money and one of them costs money, and too often both get answered on the same line in the same order. We build the routing that separates them, and we price by simultaneous calls, not seats, so taking on more doors does not automatically mean a bigger phone bill.
§What usually starts this
Common Communication Challenges Solved by SPARK VoIP
Which one brought you here?
A lease walked away
A prospect calling about a vacancy waited behind a tenant reporting a dishwasher, and called the next listing instead.
The 2am call hit a mailbox
A tenant with no heat or no water left a message that nobody heard until morning.
An owner waited in line
The person whose asset you manage sat in the tenant queue to reach you, and mentioned it.
Tenants have personal cells
Tenants call your maintenance techs on their own phones, and those calls never show up anywhere.
You took on another building
More doors brought more calls to the same few people, and the phones got worse, not better.
§Three kinds of caller
Separate the money from the maintenance.
A prospective tenant calling about a vacancy is revenue with a short shelf life. They are calling three listings and taking the first one that answers. If they queue behind a tenant reporting a dishwasher, you lost a lease.
So each kind of caller gets its own path.
Leasing. Its own number if you want it, its own people, its own priority, and reporting on whether those calls get answered. That is the number that tells you whether leases are walking away.
Maintenance. Held, logged, routed and handled properly, but not in front of the call that fills a unit.
Owners. A third path. An owner should never sit in a tenant queue to reach the person managing their asset.
§The 2am call
Emergency maintenance is an obligation, not a feature.
Your leases and your state say something about what happens when there is no heat, no water, or water where it should not be. Whatever that obligation is in your market, the phone system is how it gets met at two in the morning.
The recorded message matters more here than almost anywhere, because it is doing the triage. It should tell a tenant with a real emergency exactly what to press, and tell everybody else when they will hear back.
Its own path. After hours routing that is actually different from the daytime one.
Emergencies reach a person. An emergency option that reaches a person or an on call rotation, not a mailbox.
Routine calls wait. A routine option that takes a message and does not wake anybody up.
Your rules, not ours. We will not tell you what your obligation is. That is your lease, your attorney and your state. We build the system to whatever you tell us it needs to be.
§Property numbers
A building can have its own number without having its own office.
Larger properties, HOAs and commercial buildings often need a number that is theirs, on the sign and in the lease packet, that still rings your office.
Each one can carry its own greeting, its own hours and its own routing. A tenant at that property hears the property, not a management company switchboard that makes them feel like a ticket.
Behind it, it is one system and one pool of simultaneous calls. Each number is its own line on the quote.
§Doors, not employees
You grow by taking on property. Your headcount barely moves.
That is why per seat pricing is the wrong shape for a management company.
Take on another building and you add units, tenants and calls. You do not add eight employees. Under per user billing your phone cost tracks the number that is not growing, while the thing that is actually straining, your call volume, tracks the number that is.
We charge for simultaneous calls instead, so the question becomes the right one: has your call traffic outgrown your size? After an acquisition the answer is often not yet. When it is yes, you add simultaneous calls at $30 a month each. If you add people or phones and that pushes the license up a tier, the license costs more too, and we tell you before it happens.
§The price
Your monthly bill follows your calls. Your license follows your calls and your phones.
The monthly bill is $30 per simultaneous call, which is the same as $30 per SIP trunk. The 3CX license is annual and sold separately. We sell it and invoice it. It has to cover both your simultaneous calls and your extension count, and every tech or site manager on the app is an extension, so adding people or phones can move you to a bigger license tier, and that tier costs more.
Taking on a building adds doors and calls, not desks, so it moves the monthly bill only if it moves your calls. You tell us your headcount, your phones, your offices and the numbers you need to keep. We do the sizing.
Standard remote install is free. Custom work is $125 an hour, quoted before we start. Month to month on our side.
§Field staff and vendors
Your maintenance techs are not at a desk either.
Techs and site managers answer their office extension on the 3CX app on their mobile, with the business number showing. Dispatch can reach them, and they call a tenant back from the company number rather than a personal cell.
Vendor coordination runs through the same system, so a call to a plumber is logged like everything else instead of living in somebody’s call history.
§Questions
What people ask before they call.
Can tenants stop calling our techs on their personal mobiles?
That is mostly what the 3CX app fixes. Techs answer their office extension on their own phone, and calls they make show the business number.
Can we see whether leasing calls are being answered?
Yes, separately from everything else, which is the point of splitting them.
Can we record maintenance calls?
Yes, and it is set per path. You can record maintenance and not leasing, or the reverse. How callers are told about recording is a decision for you and your attorney. We set it up the way you specify and put what the system does in writing.
What about our answering service?
It can stay in the path after hours or on overflow if you want it. You can keep it or drop it later. That is your call, not ours.
Does it integrate with our property management software?
Depends which one. Tell us the name on the call and we will give you a straight answer.
What happens if the office loses internet or power?
The phone system is not in your building, so it keeps running. Your staff keep working on their mobile phones with the 3CX app.
Who answers when something breaks?
A real person. If they can fix it on the call, they do. If not, they open a ticket and tell you what happens next. Tickets by phone, email or text. After hours, call (918) 608-8888 for 24 hour emergency support.
Are we locked in?
Month to month on our side. The 3CX license is annual.
Twenty minutes. Bring your portfolio.
Tell us how many people you have, how many phones, how many offices and properties, which numbers you need to keep, and what should happen at five o’clock and at two in the morning. You will get your size, your rate and your license line on that call.
Or call (888) 223-1094