Do your customers, those people who make their homes in your rental properties—and pay you a lot of rent every month—know that they matter to you? Your mistake can show them. “Big mistakes are big opportunities,” declares Harry Beckwith in his stellar book Selling the Invisible.
We all make mistakes. Well, maybe you don’t, but all those other people do. So pretend for a minute that you make a mistake in managing your rental property. It isn’t just your common, garden-variety, itsy-bitsy mistake, such as forgetting to get the grass cut. It is a whopper. It’s a mistake that seriously inconveniences one or more of your customers. It’s something that gets tenants talking about moving out.
Most people’s first reaction is “who can I blame?” Beckwith says we should take the hit ourselves and fix the problem. And fix the problem in a way that says “You really matter to us, and we will get this right for you.”
Everybody except the most self-righteous or sociopathic jerks will admit that everybody makes a mistake now and again. It’s what you do afterwards that tells the person affected if you care and how much you value them as a customer.
Look at an example. The central air conditioning went out in your building and it’s July. The weatherman promises the temperature that day will be 95 and the humidity about the same. First thing in the morning you call the repair guy. He actually shows up on time and chinks, banks, wrenches and swears a lot. When he leaves he says it is fixed. Sure enough, the air comes on like it is supposed to.
Two hours later a tenant calls to say that not only has the air stopped working again, but there was “this kind of explosion sound” right before it stopped. It turns out the repairman has a history of sloppy, even dangerous work. This case was an example of it. You wondered why he was able to get there so fast during hot weather.
Here is where you look good or look like a complete bozo. Do it right, and your tenants will sing your praises. Do it wrong and they will just chalk it up to another money-grubbing landlord. The latter does you now good whatsoever. Doing it right, though, makes you stand head and shoulders above the competition.Should you blame it on the repair guy? Sure you should, but not to your tenants. That comes later with the complaint to the Builders’ Board and the letter from your attorney. Your tenants need help right now.
Since this is a three-unit building, it’s an easy fix. You run to the nearest discount store and buy three window units big enough to cool a couple of rooms. Then you deliver and install them in your tenants’ homes. It’s not a permanent fix, but your tenants will be moderately comfortable that evening until a real repairman can show up the next day and do the job right.
Will your tenants remember that you made an error in hiring the wrong repairman? Probably not. But they will certainly remember how you cared enough to make sure their homes were comfortable when the central air went out.
To err is human, and what an opportunity.