Call Center Service is Invaluable for Pelican Realty

Providing 24/7 quality service for residents can be difficult—as well as a financial and operational challenge—for most businesses. Pelican Realty of Louisiana was no exception. As a real estate and property management company, Pelican Realty strongly believes in listening to the needs of its clients and residents. However, the company found it challenging to manage after hours. That is, until they incorporated the Call Center, powered by Anequim—into their operation.

Call Center Service 24/7

“No one wants to work 24/7,” says Stephen Leonard, Owner of Pelican Realty. “The Call Center took on that role and filled the gaps for evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations.” One major benefit to having the Call Center available and ready for any emergencies and maintenance requests is the retention of staff. “People just want their time off and being able to give it to them is so important.”

Prior to the Call Center, Stephen was the first person to receive any after-hours calls for the company. At that time, he could only hope to rectify the issue before reaching out to another member of his team. The process is much different now. “Removing after-hours calls gives everyone the freedom to work normal hours. We no longer work many nights or weekends—the Call Center takes care of it all for us.”

Quality Onboarding Process

According to Stephen, the Call Center onboarding process was quite easy. “The Call Center team helps you along the way—in some cases giving you the answers necessary to start. However, this is still your company. They want to work with you and take the burden away.” The service’s integration with Rent Manager was a huge selling point for Pelican Realty. “The Call Center can see our database in real time, which saves us time,” explains Stephen. “You don’t have to export any data to them. You just provide their team with parameters regarding emergencies—when they should call you or just take a message. Once your protocols are in place, the process runs very smoothly.”

An example of a situation where parameters—or decision trees—are used to determine an emergency or non-emergency is a resident who calls after hours with a plumbing issue. Depending on the problem, it could be an emergency that requires the company to immediately address it, or a non-emergency where the Call Center creates a service ticket in Rent Manager. If it’s just a leaky kitchen faucet, a Call Center agent could create a service ticket or instruct the resident to do so. However, if the resident’s second-floor unit is flooding the first floor, then a Call Center agent would either dispatch a plumber or call a maintenance manager contingent on the decision trees set in place by the business. “If it’s a true emergency, we always want to know what’s going on,” says Stephen.

Top Notch Call Center Service  

When it comes to the level of customer service that the Call Center provides, Stephen believes they are top-notch. “Everyone that I’ve dealt with knows exactly what they are doing.” Stephen and his team conducted tests early on to see how the Call Center would handle certain inquiries and the results were excellent. “Using the rmVoIP integrated phone system, we recorded our calls and listened to them. Call Center agents were always very nice and polite, and handled everything we needed them to do.”

The types of calls received on behalf of Pelican Realty vary. “Let’s say the whole team is in a 30-minute meeting during the day,” says Stephen. “We can request that the Call Center take the overflow of calls during the time we’re not available.” Then, there are more serious occasions. “As far as weekends are concerned, I’d say the worst call we received was a kitchen fire. The fire was caused by a tenant leaving something on the stove. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The unit next door was not affected but the neighbor called the fire department, and they called our office. The Call Center alerted the manager on duty, who was able to handle the situation.”

If there are any non-emergency service issues taken over the weekend, Stephen’s team receives text and email messages through Rent Manager. “On Monday, my maintenance staff is able to hit the ground running because the service tickets are already there thanks to the Call Center.”

“I wouldn’t want to imagine life without the Call Center,” shares Stephen. “They’ve taken on a role that is invaluable—it’s a great resource and team member for my company.”