How do you handle too much internal emails?...Help!

Question

Hello,

I am helping my family property management company get a bit more efficient in how we reply to and manage a few different email streams. We run a handful of STR for vacationers, as well as several urban properties for business trip customers, primarily. We get a ton of emails/messages from various platforms from potential patrons, as well as coordinating with just as many house cleaners, repair folks, etc.

Our business has 6 FT employees handling all sorts of tasks, but we are becoming overwhelmed with managing emails, primarily making sure they 1) don't get lost and 2) they get assigned properly to whoever is in charge.

With that, please share any tips, tools, or similar challenges you all face in this space. What do you do? What works? Any insight would be much appreciated! Thank you.

Ed

Shawn Ward · Answer

Listen to the audiobook 'The 4 Hour Work Week'. It will handle all of this.

Onward.

sjw

Paul Sandhu · Answer

I use my personal email, nothing else.  24 furnished houses, 84 beds.  Keep it simple.

Shawn Ward · Answer

@Peter R. this is what I've implemented strategies from the 4 Hour Work Week:

1. I do not check emails until after 12noon most days (unless there is a pending deal); if its urgent, I'll get a call or text

2. I've empowered my interns to take on a lot of my own projects so they learn from real world experience, and it opens up my schedule

3. I avoid conference calls as much as possible and handle as much as I can via email

4. I make sure I make time for my hobbies and my family  in the evenings instead of working late

5, I am doing what I love (REI) and I smell the roses every chance I get

6. I TOTALLY STOPPED watching the news and twitter feed 3 months ago and I am much more zen

All the best!

sjw

Edward Silva · Answer

I gotta say, this thread has really made me appreciate having such a forum to bounce ideas off of. Truly, thank you @Bruno C., @Mike McCarthy, @Paul Sandhu, @Shawn Ward, and @Lucas Carl. I will circle back if any other q's arise, but this really gets the wheels turning.

Take care and good luck out there!

Bruno C. · Answer

@Edward Silva to piggyback off of @Lucas Carl it what you care about is scaling quickly, you should outsource it. Unless you want the function of customer service to be a core competency of your business (your biggest value add) then it’s worth it to look into it.

When I’ve used a service like Guesty they charged 3% of revenue, which probably comes out to more than other services, but as I grow, the cost of the customer service reps, plus any fringe if you need to hire someone with benefits, will outweigh the good in my opinion.

Ultimately it’s a business decision about how you want to manage your business.

Peter R. · Answer

I'd be very interested if you would expand your thoughts on how the 4 Hour Work Week is helping you cut down on your daily tasks @Shawn Ward

I've not found outsourcing helpful in the long run, thus far anyway, looking for insight.

Paul Sandhu · Answer

@Edward Silva

My full time job is only 2-3 hours a day, 15 minutes here and there doing drug screens whenever people show up needing them.  My wife keeps our 24 STRs cleaned  and stocked.  She quit her day job managing a law office to clean houses.  I do most of the repairs and maintenance.  I have a handyman in a rental of mine through HUD.  He bought a riding mower last year.  I make his $67 monthly payment on the mower and he keeps the properties mowed.  I have to call a plumber about once a month, and a heat/air guy once a month.  It helps having a welder, skid steer, 16' trailer, dump truck, and 2 agricultural tractors.

Luke Carl · Answer

@Edward Silva I own and manage 5 vacation rentals in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg market. I get about 400 5 star reviews per year and I am a super host with @Avery Carl

Any more than 5 and I’d have two choices: start outsourcing or lose my ability to scale. We have since decided to move back to LTR and have 3 new ones going right now. Keeping in mind I also have a full time day job that I’m at 15 hours per week.

Avery teaches countless clients our management systems and in turn is number 1 in her market. She will close over 6 million this month. And she’s very pregnant.

@Paul Sandhu is my hero.

Thanks for the kind words. Happy to help any way I can!

Mike McCarthy · Answer

I come from a background of a customer service team answering hundreds if not low thousands of emails a day.  You need processes to ensure emails don't get lost, someone can monitor responses, etc.

At 20 emails a day, I would make sure you have a good process to receive them and respond.  Gmail (and most email systems) have "canned responses" that you can easily respond the same way to all the duplicate type emails you get  "Our screening criteria is xxx, please submit your applications..."  Instead of a 3-minute email response, it's a 10 second response.

Edward Silva · Answer

This is incredibly helpful. So many suggestions. Thank you very much @Bruno C., @Peter R., @Lucas Carl, @Paul Sandhu, and @Mike McCarthy!!

Has anyone in this chain done any thinking on the amount of time/money saved by setting up one of these systems vs. I guess the traditional style of getting emails, forwarding them along, etc.?

For example, we figured out that when we get an email to our generic info@ account, that takes about 1 minute to process and send to someone else, who then say spends on average 3 minutes on it. So 4 minutes per one of these emails (liberal estimation) at $16 an hour (~$.25 per minute) so a $1 per one of these emails. At about 20 emails a week, we spend roughly $80 a month just managing info@ emails. And so if we can cut that in half, we'd be willing to pay for a better solution.

Anyone else have a chain of thought like the above or am I over thinking it? :) I tend to do that, but in the spirit of efficiency in order to scale, we may as well think about it now...

How do you handle too much internal emails?...Help!

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