5 Reasons Why You Should Automate Your Collection Process
Past due rent can quickly become a self storage operator’s achilles heel. Consider that the average facility manager with 75 overdue tenants:
Makes 50 phone calls
Leaves 31 voicemails
Finds 5 disconnected numbers
Speaks to 14 people live
Receives 4 promises to pay
Spends on average 3.5 hours a week “dialing for dollars” in collection calls
The only thing worse than spending all day calling your tenants to remind them they owe you money, is not calling them and taking up valuable units that are costing you money rather than generating it.
Luckily it’s 2017 and there’s technology available to automate your self storage collections, like CallPotential’s Collection Manager. Read on to learn 5 reasons you should automate your collection’s process.
Tenant Convenience
If your loyal tenant misses their rent payment – it’s generally due to one of two circumstances; their current financial situation does not allow them to make a payment on time or they just plain forgot. Either way, a well designed reminder campaign using a variety of texts, emails, live and recorded calls will help remind them and keep you top of mind come pay day. The squeaky wheel gets the grease after all. Using their preferred communication channel with easy access to payment options is the ultimate in tenant convenience.
Less Units Go to Auction
Getting payments on time and continuing to be visible during past due status can remarkably lower the amount of units sitting unprofitable for 90 days before going to auction. In the first month of implementation alone, one of our Collection Manager clients saw a reduction of units going to auction from 20 to 7. That’s 13 more units that continued to drive revenue and 13 less upset tenants.
Increase of Autopay Enrollment
Customization of messaging allows you to communicate whatever message you want. An automated past due messaging campaign can prompt tenants to sign up for autopay by an easy check of a box. More autopays = consistent and predictable cash flow as well as providing another tenant convenience….win-win.
Free Up Staff & Keep Them Happy
An obvious benefit that can not be dismissed is freeing up your manager. Remember that 3.5 hours a week in our earlier example? That equates to 14 hours a month your manager can spend on other important tasks like following up on leads, spending more time with in store customers and ultimately renting more units. A recent industry article found that making Collection related calls ranked highest in tasks that facility managers dread in day to day operations. Have a rockstar manager? Increase their on the job satisfaction by using an automated collection tool and watch them glow with gratitude.
Peace of Mind for Operations
75 past due tenants and only 50 were manually called? Collection Manager can hit all 75 automatically without someone on your team ever having to push a button. No matter how busy of a day it gets, Collection Manager will always be working in the background ensuring that every past due tenant gets a reminder. Easy analytics and dashboards report on the results you are looking for with true data. Gone are the self reported “Left Message” notes that you can’t be 100% confident actually happened.
As you can see, automating your collections process using a product like Collection Manager can save you time, reduce your past due rents, and make life much more convenient for your tenants. Receiving one extra payment a month can more than pay for the cost of the service. Want to see more? Request a demo of CallPotential’s Collection Manager and receive the first two months free.*
*Offer for new customers only. Free offer limited to first 10 locations. No minimum purchase. Must enroll by 8.15.17