After-hours answering for leasing offices that books the tour
Prospects look at apartments in the evening and on weekends, when the office is closed. Here is what those calls cost, who can answer them, and how a resident’s “the sink is flooding” is handled differently from a prospect’s “do you have a two-bedroom?”
No card needed. Keep your number. One code undoes it.
The problem
Renters often call two or three buildings and tour the first that answers. After the office closes, your phone goes to voicemail, and a prospect with a move date in six weeks has no reason to wait for a call back on Monday.
Two kinds of caller reach a closed leasing office, and they need different answers.
The calls you’re missing
- A prospect at 8pm: “Do you have any two-bedrooms for March?”
- A prospect on Saturday: “Can I see it tomorrow? What are the pet rules?”
- A prospect: “What’s the rent, and is parking included?”
- A resident at midnight: “There’s water coming through my ceiling.”
- A resident: “I’m locked out.”
What a missed call may cost
About $1,373 a month in missed revenue
An estimate, using the missed-call calculator’s sum with example numbers: 8 missed calls a week, 80% who never call back, 33% of them who would have booked, 150 dollars for the average booked tour, times 52 weeks, divided by 12 months.
Leasing isn’t in the calculator’s trade list, so $150 here is a placeholder for what one booked tour is worth to you: the chance it becomes a lease times what a lease is worth. Put in your own number. Eight calls is an example of evening and weekend calls in a week. These are not your numbers and not a promise of what any service wins back. GotItDesk is $99 a month ($79 for our first 100 customers): at that average, 1 booking a month brings in revenue equal to the subscription price, before your own costs.
Your four options, side by side
| Voicemail | Answering service | GotItDesk | Front-desk hire | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers after hours | Records only | Yes, if the plan covers nights | Yes, 24/7 | Only if someone is on call |
| Knows what’s available | No | Only what’s in the script | Only from the list you give it | Yes |
| Books the tour | No | Some do | Yes: its own calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook | Yes, in hours |
| Resident emergencies | Waits in a mailbox | Passes it to on-call, if scripted | Put through to your on-call numbers, or a message | Only if on call |
| Typical cost | Free | Per call or per minute: ask each provider | $99 a month, 1,000 minutes | Wages, plus on-call pay |
Answering-service prices vary a lot by provider and plan; check each one.
When another option is the better pick
- Voicemail is fine if you are staffed late and the missed calls are few.
- An answering service is the better pick if you want a person to take every resident emergency call and log it for maintenance.
- A second leasing agent is the better pick if tours themselves, not the calls, are where you are short.
How GotItDesk handles the call
- Greets the callersays it’s the office’s virtual assistant
- Prospect or resident?listens for what the caller needs
- Says what’s availableunit types, rent and pet or parking rules, from your list only
- Offers tour timesfrom the calendar you connect
- Books the tourspells the name back and emails the leasing team
- Resident emergency“flooding”, “no heat”, “gas smell” go to your on-call numbers
Listen to the sample call: a recorded, scripted ceramic-coating call in the live voice. Your own business is one click away, below.
What’s particular to this trade
- Your list, not a guess. It says what’s available, the rent and the pet and parking rules only from what you gave it, and takes a message for anything else.
- Residents’ urgent calls. “Flooding”, “no heat”, “gas smell”, “locked out” and “fire” are put through to your on-call numbers, or become a message if nobody picks up. For a fire or a gas smell, callers should dial 911 first.
- Every caller treated the same. Add the rule in setup and it is built not to ask who will live there: no questions about children, age, faith, origin or disability.
- Your team still answers first. You forward only the calls nobody picks up: after hours, busy or no answer. Your office phone still rings first in hours.
Set up in about ten minutes, and the price
Paste your website and it suggests your hours, services and prices. You choose a voice, call your new GotItDesk number to hear it answer, and only then dial one code to forward the calls you miss. It says it’s a virtual assistant in its first sentence.
The free trial is your first 10 bookings, up to 14 days or 59 minutes, no card. Then $99 a month with 1,000 minutes ($79 for our first 100 customers). No overage bills. See pricing.
What it doesn’t do yet
Property-management and listing software (Yardi, Entrata, AppFolio and the like) is not connected, so it can’t check live availability: it uses the list you give it. Texts to prospects, applications and maintenance tickets are not live. Bookings go to GotItDesk’s own calendar or your Google Calendar or Outlook, with an email for every tour and message. We’d rather you know now.