It’s that time again isn’t it? Time for your residents to pay their rent! Of course, you should LOVE it when residents pay rent, because their rent checks create your pay check. And yet, I know that rent paying time often means a increase in complaints from residents, or an increase in residents coming into the office to drop off their rent checks-many of whom will want to stop and chat with you for a few minutes while they wait for their coffee to brew, and this also means more work for you and your team members, which can lead to stress and frustration!
Are you prepared?
The first thing you can do is simply accept that this time is busy and while you can’t control the amount of residents that walk-in, or that want to complain, or give you their life-story, you CAN control your response to it. A wise mentor of mine once reminded me that one of the most effective things I could do in life is to accept life on life’s terms. In other words, I could spend a lot of energy upset at all of these things that I had no control over, or I could channel that energy into the things I had control over.
Second: Be emotionally prepared for more complaints. The fact is your residents pay good money to live in your community-and they’re reminded of how much they’re spending every time they make a rent payment. Since housing costs comprise so much of the average household budget, residents want to make sure they’re milking every bit of value from their home. During rent time their radar for what is wrong goes up and they’re much more likely to want things fixed, especially when they’re paying for it. So listen to what they have to say, and do your best to find “win-win” solutions.
Key point: Avoid the tendency to sound irritated or overwhelmed when a customer has a complaint. They don’t know you might have already listened to multiple complaints before they stepped into your office.
Third: Create healthy boundaries. I have been drawn into many long conversations with residents in my career and while I often enjoyed them, when I had a stack of things to do, I used to feel the tension of not wanting to be mean, and also wanting to get things done. So, if a resident starts to have (what sounds like a long) conversation with you and you have a lot of things to do, one effective way you can create connection with your residents, and still honor your need to get work done is to simply let the customer know that you’d love to talk to him, but you only have about five minutes before you have to get back to the grind. So if the story is longer than a few minutes, let them know that you’d love to talk about it later…and then be sure that when you see the resident again that you do re-engage and not just leave it hanging.
Fourth: Take care of yourself first! Take your breaks. Get away from the office for lunch. If you feel yourself starting to get irritated take a quick break for a minute or two and walk around the office to reset. The main thing is to listen to what your body and mind are telling you and then doing what you can to take care of yourself. You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself … and you’re worth taking care of!
Until next time!
