How to work with Message Requests

When prospective tenants are interested in your property or have questions, they will send you a message request. Learn how to work efficiently with message requests.

Jale

2 minute read

·

Updated on 2 Sep 2024

When prospective tenants are interested in your property or have questions, they will send you a message request.

Once you receive a message request from a tenant, you can go to your HousingAnywhere inbox and conveniently interact with prospective tenants. The feature allows you to address concerns, ask questions, exchange documents, send tenants a booking request, or ask for payments.

Find out all the ways you can utilize the Message Requests to the fullest.

The Message Request feature offers Quick Replies. This feature allows landlords to save custom responses for commonly asked questions about their properties, which can be quickly sent with just a few clicks. You can also personalise your Quick Replies by adding dynamic texts. When you send Quick Replies with dynamic text, the dynamic text will be automatically replaced with real data.

To create a new Quick Reply:

1. Go to your inbox
2. Click on the Quick Reply settings on the top right of your screen.
3. Click on the New Quick Reply button on the Quick Replies window.
4. Enter the title and your answer in the text box.
5. Save the new Quick Reply.

To add a dynamic text:

1. Click the dropdown called Add Dynamic Text.
2. Add as many of the following dynamic texts in your quick replies:

• Tenant’s name
• City Street
• Move-in date
• Move-out date
• Cancellation policy

To answer a message with a Quick Reply:

1. Go to a conversation with a tenant.
2. Click on the Quick Replies button below the chatbox.
3. Choose from your pre-saved Quick Reply answers.

For details on Quick Replies, see How do Quick Replies work?

Your response time and response rate on the platform directly influences your property's visibility and the chance of receiving booking requests. So replying to Message Requests on time is important, even if you have too many requests or the tenant doesn’t fit your criteria.

Here’s how you can boost your response time and response rate:

1. Ensure you’ve enabled your SMS and email notifications not to miss messages.
2. Regularly check your inbox
3. When you receive a message request or inquiry, respond as soon as possible. Ideally, within 24 hours or even sooner.
4. Use the Quick Replies feature to save time.

To learn more about response time and response rate, see Why your Response Time and Response Rate are so important?

Managing multiple conversations with tenants can become overwhelming and disorganised, especially if you're receiving a high volume of Message Requests. But by utilising the Filter feature in your Inbox, you can easily organise and display only the relevant conversations.

To use the Filter feature:

1. Click on the search bar on your Inbox page's top right.
2. Select from the people, listing, or message filter.
3. Type in the tenant's name, listing, or keywords.
4. The system will dynamically update the conversation list based on the entered search query.

You can find the Shortlist and Archive icon on the right-hand side of each conversation. This feature helps you make a pre-selection of the requests you receive. This way, you can track messages from preferred tenants and prevent them from getting lost in a list of unread messages.

To Shortlist or Archive a message:

1. Click on the Shortlist icon for your preferred tenants. It’ll move the conversation into 'Shortlist' folder.
2. Click on the Archive icon if the tenant isn’t a good fit for you. This action will move the conversation to the Archive folder.

Overall, using the message request feature effectively can increase the number of bookings landlords make on HousingAnywhere. So, if you're a landlord or property manager on HousingAnywhere, make sure to make the most of this powerful feature to increase your bookings and grow your business. Just make sure you enable your SMS and email notifications.

If you have any questions about using the inbox, feel free to contact us at support@housinganywhere.com.