There is a right way and a wrong way to handle customer complaints, and one chef in Sydney, Australia, certainly chose the wrong way. Smart Company reports that a cook at a local restaurant was arrested for stabbing a patron after he complained about the quality of the food.

Obviously, you’ve never been running around your building to the brink of madness and wanting to stab a tenant (literally or figuratively). Wink, wink.  But many of the same strategies that other businesses use to maintain loyalty among consumers will work in keeping tenants happy.

tenant satisfaction

Empower staff
One of the secrets to generating strong repeat sales in retail is to have highly-engaged staff members. Workers who feel a sense of pride in their jobs and are enthusiastic about their jobs deliver better service than those who don’t have the same level of engagement. These employees are encouraged to be creative when it comes to solving customer problems, which allows situations to be fixed the first time and greatly reduces the chances that the same complications will occur in the future.

By empowering maintenance staff to address issues directly, property managers can reduce the need to handle each case personally. Many problems in buildings don’t need long approval processes to reach a resolution – when a pipe is leaking it is pretty clear what the solution will be. New Mobile Apps allow maintenance staff in the field to make decisions on the spot and improve response times.  However, there are times when the fix is not so straightforward. During these periods, it is vital that companies take the time to understand situations.

Learn from the problem
Struggling businesses are often faced with the same situation repeatedly. Customers are unhappy and management is not addressing these issues properly. When problems occur more than once, particularly if they are complex and expensive, building managers need the ability to adjust their approach.

Tracking repairs and damages can help companies identify the cause of their most common problems. Taking care of the root issue could save property managers thousands of dollars in expensive repairs in addition to saving time. Property and tenant management systems make it easier to analyze data from a variety of source. These software systems help property management teams answer questions like: Which tenant has submitted the most service requests?  What is our average response times for different issue types? Which of my buildings is underperforming?

By learning from past situations, capturing service data and empowering maintenance staff, building managers can improve tenant relationships. These strong ties keep facilities occupied and reduce financial strain.