If you’re in the property rental and management business, keeping in touch with – and on track of – your tenants can be one of the most challenging parts of the job. So when Oak Estates of Sheffield discovered the TextMagic suite of business SMS services, it dramatically changed the way the business operates for the better.

‘I wouldn’t know what to do without TextMagic’, said Diana Maratty of Oak Estates. ‘The text messaging service has brought amazing changes to the way we work. I estimate that TextMagic directly saves our business at least 15 man hours per week, so it saves us the cost of employing a part-time member of staff.’

So how exactly has the TextMagic business SMS service become such an integral part of how this successful Sheffield-based letting and property management agency operates  – and how can this huge increase in efficiency be replicated in other property management businesses?

Text Messaging Increases Response to Late Payment Requests

Diana Maratty explains, ‘We started using TextMagic business SMS in conjunction with our Total Letting Solutions software about eighteen months ago. At first, we used the service to chase up late rental payments from our tenants. As we manage over 250 different properties, chasing overdue rent was taking a lot of our staffing resource – and it’s vital to our business and to the owners of the properties we manage that rents are collected on time. Changing rental reminders from postal letter or emails to text messaging immediately decreased the amount of outstanding debt owing to us.’

So what’s the secret behind why TextMagic business SMS is so much more efficient at chasing late payments than email or letter? ‘Most of our tenants are young professionals or students and always have their phones at hand. Text messaging gets a far better response than other methods of communication. Immediately after sending a late payment text alert, tenants would be on the phone to sort out their outstanding rental payment. Not only has it improved our cashflow,  it’s significantly reduced the amount of time we have to spend chasing late payments.’

Property Maintenance Management is simplified via business SMS services

As soon as Oak Estates realised the value of TextMagic business SMS services in communicating with their tenants, they expanded its usage to include alerts for regular house inspections. ‘We’re legally bound to give tenants 24 hours’ notice before entering their properties to carry out maintenance or inspections. By using TextMagic text messaging to communicate with our tenants, we can not only gain access to the properties faster to carry out general maintenance and checks, but also respond quickly to urgent issues.’

The letting agency now uses TextMagic business SMS to keep in contact with key contacts in every part of their business – including maintenance contractors and landlords. ‘By text messaging job alerts, we can get contractors to our properties to carry out maintenances and repairs much more quickly – and that’s appreciated by our tenants and our landlords. We also keep our landlords up to date with essential information about their property via TextMagic, making communication much quicker and more streamlined.’

Business SMS saves letting agencies time, effort and money

Diana Marratty is adamant that the TextMagic business SMS system has revolutionised the way Oak Estates operates as a business. ‘Every letting agency, property management business and landlord needs TextMagic. It’s entirely changed the way we operate for the better – and knowing how TextMagic text messaging has improved our business efficiency, we could never go back.’

For more information on Oak Estates and its range of properties available in the Sheffield area for professional and student lets, visit www.oakestates.net or call 0114 258 5981.

Like many business owners these days, Mr. Alan Hopgood, the Southend-On-Sea franchisee of the Kendlebell Personal Telephone Answering Service, is constantly seeking new ways to streamline day-to-day operations in order to save time and money. With over 200 clients using his Kendlebell answering service, Mr. Hopgood needed a way to simplify and secure the process by which clients were notified about their incoming calls and messages.

"The majority of our customers like to receive both an email and a text message to ensure that they aren't missing any crucial communication coming through the Kendlebell answering service," states Mr. Hopgood. "We needed a belt and braces approach that would allow us to send SMS texts and emails simultaneously."

Mr. Hopgood discovered TextMagic while researching his options on the Internet.

"Prior to using TextMagic's Email to SMS service, we had to manually send an email and then re-send the same message by SMS text using 2SMS or BlueSMS. TextMagic has simplified this greatly as we can now relay both types of messages with just one click from our screens. We simply added clients' TextMagic to their list of email addresses."

What surprised you about utilizing SMS messaging as a business tool?

"How easy it was to integrate into our business process. TextMagic also allows clients to reply to our text messages which was not possible using conventional web-based text messaging systems. We have been using the TextMagic service for over 18 months now and we are very pleased with its advantages."

Kendlebell (Southend) Ltd. has been the leader in the telephone answering services field for over 12 years, delivering a level of highly personal service to each and every customer. With over 20 locations, Kendlebell is the single largest provider of Personal Telephone Answering Services in the UK and Ireland. For more information on the Southend-On-Sea location, please visit http://www.take-your-message.co.uk.

With cell phone subscriptions expected to hit 5 billion this year, the mobile phone has become the most common form of global communication.Whether or not mobile users take advantage of SMS, IM or wildly-popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are able to connect with colleagues, friends and family at any given moment throughout the day.

But what if you worked in a place that prohibited devices like cell phones, Skype and tools like IM or Twitter?

By this, I don't mean an executive management memo warning employees about wasting valuable time on social networking sites. But rather, a protocol set in place to protect the security of the company.

Meet Bruce Daly. Mr. Daly is an IT consultant for a security agency in Canada and despite being 12 timezones a part from his family in Southeast Asia, he is prohibited from using his cell phone during work hours.

"My work is in a locked down environment that does not allow me to get IM, Skype, mobile service or access to any type of social networking sites that I would typically use."

Why choose TextMagic for your solution?

"TextMagic is allowed through the enterprise firewalls. I have the ability to send text messages via the Email to SMS service as well as receive replies with the SMS Messenger. For the locked down situation I find myself in during the day, TextMagic is a good fit for what I suspect is a rare situation."

Like many small business today, Global Hair Limited, t/a Headrush Hair Salon considered using a texting service as a way to streamline customer communications and save money. With approximately 4,700 clients in their roster, the percentage of missed hair appointments was creating an increasing amount of spare time and costing the business hours of missed revenue. Headrush Hair Salon Global Hair Directors, Phil Saunders and Emma Fulgoney, began to look at different SMS services online and came across TextMagic which seemed the ideal choice due to ease and cost.

How has SMS messaging improved your hair salon business?

"TextMagic has improved our amount of no-show clients who may have forgotten the date and time of their appointment, therefore leaving a stylist in the salon with sometimes up to 2 1/2 hours of down time, which is clearly bad for business and profits.We calculate that our number of no-shows has been reduced by approximately 70% since we've been using TextMagic and we expect this number to improve further as we obtain more clients' mobile numbers."

SMS messaging takes customer service to the next level.

"TextMagic has also benefited our customers. Clients don't want to miss their appointments either and text messaging helps them stay in touch and keep us updated. We also use the Email to SMS service to send our clients special messages on their birthdays as well as unique salon promotions."

Acquired by Global Hair Ltd.in January 2009, Headrush Hair Salon is a high quality salon where customer satisfaction comes first. Their team of well-trained and experienced stylists cater to over 4,700 clients in the East Sussex area. For more information, please visit their website at www.headrushhair.co.uk.