How to Protect Your Reputation as a Property Management Company

Some businesses are more prone to negative feedback, like your property management company, so learn how to protect your reputation.

How to Protect Your Reputation

Photo by DocuSign on Unsplash

Property management can be an incredibly lucrative business to get into, but it does come with many responsibilities. While other businesses might lease office space in your buildings, or residents might rent out apartments, you have a duty of care to these people to make sure your buildings are safe and comfortable for them at all times. Like any business, making sure you have an excellent reputation and exceed these standards is key to attracting tenants and being able to build your property management empire. Below are some essential considerations you must make if you want to protect your reputation as a property management company. 

Insurance

All businesses are legally required to have the correct insurance, and it’s important to make sure that you have the right policy for your company. The basics of business insurance include professional indemnity, employer’s liability, public liability, and protecting your buildings and business equipment from theft and damage. You should make sure that your cover includes protection for data breaches as this is a real threat in the digital age, and data hacks could leave your business in a very compromising position. All of these issues can pose a threat to your company’s reputation, which is why having the correct insurance in place should always be a top priority, and you should review your policy each year.

An Expert Legal Team

As well as having the appropriate insurance in place, you will need to have an expert legal team to work with should any issues arise. They can also assist with writing contracts between you and your tenants, as well as reviewing any other agreements you might have with contractors and other businesses that you use for your daily operations. 

Online Presence and Promotion

In the digital age, all businesses must have an online presence if they want to reach their target demographic and build their brand. The property management company you choose is no different, but there are certain things you need to be aware of when promoting your business online. There are a lot of digital marketing tactics that can help to increase traffic to your site and place it higher in search engine results. These SEO tactics include link building, the use of keywords in your content, producing quality content, etc. 

The type of content that you put on your website, social media platforms, and other marketing materials matters. Everything you are sharing represents your brand, and this is why content needs to be relevant to what you do and shared in places where it will be seen by your target audience. This is why it’s always worth paying for a professional marketing company, both traditional and digital, to manage your online presence and promotion. They will help you to keep your reputation intact across these platforms, and you will see the best results as well. 

Health and Safety

You will be legally obligated to follow all the correct health and safety regulations in every property you manage, and if you are in charge of more than one, this can quickly get overwhelming. This is why hiring the expertise of businesses that can assist you with your compliance checks and maintenance is so important. For example, if there are elevators or escalators in your building, this company for elevator certificate management will be an essential help for your business. Schedule regular checks for all areas of your buildings that will need important maintenance work and monitoring to make sure you’re keeping everyone safe. Otherwise, you could end up making a bad reputation for putting your tenants and visitors at risk.

Construction

If you are getting a property built or any construction work done on a property you already own, think about the kind of materials you’re using and how this work will fit into the surrounding areas. The impact your business has on the environment and local community matters, and if you are considered to be disregarding these issues, you will be damaging your reputation as a business. You should show the community how you are making positive changes and that the health and safety of everyone in that building and the surrounding area are more important to you than profit. 

Customer Service

If your tenants or clients are not impressed by the service you provide, they will share their negative views with others. While this might not make a huge difference to you immediately, over time, you will risk losing business because you are not providing the standard of service your clients expect from you. Customer service is imperative to your business’s success and will help you gain a glowing reputation as a brand. Always review your customer service to make sure you are delivering and ask for feedback from your clients to see where you can improve. 

Public Relations

All of the above are essential to maintaining a positive reputation as a property management company, but there might be times when you get it wrong and find that your business is in hot water. If this ever does happen, it’s wise to hire a public relations firm to help you manage the issue effectively and avoid making things worse. This can be better than trying to tackle the problem yourself because it’s easy to get overwhelmed under pressure and saying something that might be taken out of context or perhaps making a statement that wasn’t well thought out can be even more damaging. If in doubt, hire a PR firm to assist you in finding a resolution to the problem and helping to rebuild confidence in your brand with the public and other industry professionals.

Running any business can be stressful, but when you’re starting a property management company, there are very unique challenges that you will have to face. To make sure your company’s reputation is protected, consider the points above and make sure you have the correct tools in place to boost your image and become a trusted brand within your field.