property management

Property Management Answering Service: Tenant Calls Handled Before They Escalate

AI agents and multilingual specialists in 65+ languages manage maintenance requests, lease inquiries, and tenant communications day and night.

The short version: AI voice is US$0.15 a minute and live agents start at US$650 a month for 1,500 minutes. AI takes routine maintenance, listing and rent questions; a person takes no-heat, no-water and anything with police or fire involved. English and Spanish share one queue, and every call is logged with a timestamp.

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Multi-storey residential apartment buildings with balconies

how it plays out

A tenant, an owner, and one phone line.

Phone Spanish

"My kitchen sink is leaking and water is on the floor"

Emergency maintenance call after hours

AI triages severity — identifies active water leak as urgent
Dispatches emergency plumber from approved vendor list
Instructs tenant on shutoff valve location to minimize damage
Notifies property manager and logs work order in system

Emergency dispatched Damage Minimized

Tenant Portal Chat Mandarin

"When does my lease expire and can I renew early?"

Lease renewal inquiry from current tenant

AI pulls lease details and expiration date from property system
Confirms early renewal eligibility and any rate changes
Sends digital renewal documents for e-signature
Schedules follow-up reminder if tenant needs time to decide

Renewal initiated Retention

Email English

"I want to apply for the 2-bedroom unit on Maple Ave"

Prospective tenant application inquiry

AI confirms unit availability and monthly rent details
Sends application link with required documents checklist
Explains screening process timeline and move-in costs
Schedules property tour before application if requested

Application started Vacancy Filled

SMS Vietnamese

"The hallway light on the 3rd floor has been out for two days"

Non-urgent maintenance request via text

AI creates maintenance ticket with location and issue details
Assigns to building maintenance staff with standard priority
Sends tenant confirmation with expected resolution window
Follows up automatically when work order is marked complete

Ticket created Tenant Satisfied

the team behind it

Who follows your escalation list at midnight.

real members of the global team

Property Management-Trained Specialists

Maintenance request triage with emergency vs routine priority classification
Lease administration support including renewals, move-ins, and move-outs
Tenant communication management across multiple properties and unit types

65+ Languages

Human agents providing support in 65+ languages
Real-time AI translation for rare language pairs
Cultural context training for every market we serve

Follow-the-Sun Coverage

Operation centres in Canada, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Philippines and China
Smooth handoff between time zones with shared context
Holiday and weekend coverage without overtime costs

the part nobody prices in

Two people call your office and only one of them is your customer.

A property manager answers two completely different phones on the same line. Owners are the customer. Tenants are the obligation — and the ones who actually call, at volume, about things that are urgent to them and routine to you.

Most answering services treat both the same way, which is how a manager ends up with a message log full of "tenant called about the dishwasher" and no idea that a landlord tried to reach them twice about a renewal.

The split we recommend follows that reality. AI absorbs the tenant volume that has a right answer — rent dates, portal resets, parking, when the plumber is coming — while a person handles habitability, safety and anything an owner says. That is not an efficiency trade. It is making sure the phone reflects who actually pays you.

Keep the maintenance request and the repair status separate. A message sent to an on-call vendor is a handoff; the repair stays open until the responsible person confirms the next state. Record the unit, reported issue, escalation contact, acknowledgment and next follow-up.

Where HeroDash is used, custom fields can distinguish the request type, current status and responsible person. Agree which updates your team authorizes and test the handoff before using the workflow for live tenant requests. Connection to a property system is assessed separately.

If the work continues beyond answering the call, review our real estate and property management virtual assistant services. That page covers recurring communication, authorized record updates and maintenance coordination under a dedicated staffing arrangement.

where AI should not be

The calls we will not put a bot on.

Anything on the habitability list

No heat, no water, no power, sewage backup, gas smell. These have legal clocks attached in most jurisdictions. A person confirms the details, follows your escalation list, and keeps calling until somebody picks up.

An owner on the line

Owners are the customer. A frustrated owner asking why a unit is still vacant, or why an invoice looks wrong, is a management contract deciding whether to renew. It reaches a person, every time.

Police, fire, or a break-in

Anything with emergency services already involved needs judgment, not a script. A person establishes whether anyone is hurt, what has been secured, and who at your company needs to know tonight rather than Monday.

Evictions and disputes

Notices, non-payment conversations and anything a lawyer might later read a transcript of. We take a message and a careful record; we do not improvise on your behalf.

what comes off the call

A maintenance ticket you can act on without calling back.

Half of property maintenance delay is a vague ticket. We work your intake questions so the vendor you dispatch has enough to bring the right parts on the first visit:

Building, unit number, and the tenant name on the lease
What is failing, in the tenant's own words, plus when it started
Whether it is affecting heat, water, power, or a working stove — the habitability list
Appliance make and model where there is a plate to read
Whether the tenant has tried the breaker, the reset button or the shutoff valve

Photos where the tenant can send them, attached to the ticket
Pets, entry permission, and whether the tenant needs to be home
Whether this is a repeat of a ticket you already closed — the single most useful field on this list
Who has received and acknowledged the handoff
Who may approve vendor spending, and when the next follow-up is due

It goes into Jobber, ServiceTitan or your own system as a job, and every call keeps a timestamped record. If a tenant later claims they reported a leak three weeks ago, you can check rather than argue.

what it costs

Published rates, so you can do the arithmetic first.

Most vendors in this category quote by form. These are our published packages — not a quote, since language mix, hours and volume all move the number. The per-minute figures are simply the monthly price divided by the included minutes.

Option	Published price	Per minute	What it's for
Dedicated agent	from US$5.80	per hour, per agent	One team that knows your buildings, your vendors and your escalation rules
AI voice	US$0.15	per minute	Routine maintenance requests, rent questions, showing enquiries
Web chat	US$0.15	per session	Prospective tenants asking about listings at 11pm
Live shared team	from US$650 / month	includes 1,500 min → ≈ US$0.43/min	After-hours cover so emergencies reach a person, not a machine

Anything involving a person is a starting price. Two things move it: which languages you need, and how senior an agent the work actually requires — a bilingual agent handling refund authority is not the same hire as one taking bookings. AI voice and web chat are flat, because there is no hiring in them. And every model above is open to every business on this page: which one fits is a question about the shape of your volume, not about your industry.

Minimum engagement is half a seat — not a five-seat block. We also bill per resolved issue, from US$1, where you pay nothing if it is not resolved; that model fits businesses where a customer problem actually gets solved on the call, not businesses where the call is intake.

who takes which call

Route by the cost of getting it wrong.

Most vendors sell you either an AI receptionist or a live answering service and leave the allocation to you. Since we run both, here is the split we would actually recommend — including the calls we think should never touch automation.

The call	Route to	Cost of getting it wrong
Non-urgent maintenance request	AI	A slower fix
"Is the two-bedroom still available?"	AI	A lost applicant
Rent due dates, portal resets, parking rules	AI	An annoyed tenant
No heat, no water, flooding, gas smell	Human	A habitability claim, and a tenant who calls the city instead of you
Lockout, break-in, anything involving police or fire	Human	A situation no script covers
Eviction, dispute, or an owner who is unhappy	Human	A legal exposure or a lost management contract

setup

Five days to put the right person on it.

Five days is our normal window to staff a live account — that is five days to find and place an agent who fits your business, not five days of software setup. AI voice can go live sooner because there is no hiring step.

your existing software

It goes into your system, with a record of who said what.

We work inside the CRM, practice system or case tool you already run, rather than handing you a second inbox to check. Every contact leaves a timestamped record — who called, what was asked, what was said back, what was promised — because in your line of work the question six months later is not "did someone call" but "what exactly did we tell them". Tell us what you run and we will say straight whether we connect to it today.

when we're the wrong choice

Three cases where you should hire someone else.

You need someone licensed to give leasing advice. We answer, qualify and book. We do not quote lease terms, negotiate concessions or say anything that could be read as a leasing decision. If you want licensed leasing agents on the phone, that is a different hire.
You want the same person every time, in your office. A shared team means a named group who know your buildings, not one individual at a desk down the hall. A dedicated agent from US$5.80 an hour gets closer, but if what you want is an employee, hire an employee.
You manage under about twenty units. Honestly, your mobile and a decent voicemail greeting will do. The maths starts working when the volume is enough that missed calls turn into vacancy days or habitability complaints.

questions

What buyers ask before they sign.

How much does it cost?

AI voice is US$0.15 per minute and web chat is US$0.15 per session. Live agents start at US$650 per month including 1,500 minutes — about US$0.43 per minute — or from US$5.80 per hour for a dedicated agent working only your account. The minimum engagement is half a seat, not a five-seat block.

How fast can you start answering our phones?

Do you answer in Spanish?

Yes, on the same number, with agents in our Bolivia and Nicaragua operation centres — native Spanish, not machine translation. English and Spanish share one queue, and we cover 60+ more languages if you need them.

Can I mix AI and live agents on one number?

That is the normal setup. You decide which call types go to AI and which reach a person, and you can change the split as your volume changes. Nothing about that decision is locked in at signup.

Can you follow our emergency escalation rules?

Yes — you tell us what counts as an emergency in your buildings, who gets called first, and what happens if they do not answer. We work your list, not a generic one, and every call is logged with a timestamp so there is a record if a tenant later disputes it.

Can you handle tenants who do not speak English?

Spanish shares the same queue with native speakers in our Bolivia and Nicaragua centres, and we cover 60+ more languages. For a portfolio with a mixed tenant base this usually matters more than anything else on this page.

Do I need answering coverage or a dedicated property assistant?

Answering coverage handles incoming requests and routes them under your rules. A dedicated property assistant can be scoped for ongoing communication, authorized record updates and maintenance coordination. Define the recurring tasks and working hours; the property manager retains approvals, spending and on-site decisions.

also worth reading

start

Plan your tenant-call and maintenance handoff

Bring a redacted request, coverage hours and your escalation contacts. We will review what is received, who acts next and how open work is tracked.

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