Effective and timely communication is arguably the most important aspect of an effective property manager.

In this post, we explain our thinking behind why you may interact with multiple different points of contact throughout your experience with Poplar Homes

If you're just looking for the list of teams and contact info, go here.

We looked at homeowner-resident communication from a fresh perspective and asked ourselves, why is communication so important to these customers?

In facing numerous scenarios in which communication breaks down between our customers (both renters and owners), our team is also very eager to improve and crack the code.

We asked hundreds of our homeowners and residents for feedback.

Why is communication important? What is the benefit of a single point of contact? Is it absolutely necessary to have that single contact?

It seems like a basic question—but it turns out there are deeper roots.

Communication is so vital in property management because it is the primary mechanism that resolves problems and accomplishes tasks.

Many of our customers would tell us:

"I care #1 about getting the job done well, however, you can get the job done well and on time, I am satisfied."

So an even more important aspect of a good property manager is to—on a more macro level—resolve problems and accomplish tasks quickly and to a high degree of quality.

Now, we know there are over 200,000 property managers in the US, they typically spend 50% on labor costs and less than 5% on technology or business growth--super fragmented.

We want to be so much more than just a property manager so we're investing heavily in technology and growth.

What if we flipped the model on its head?

What if we focused first and foremost on building something that resolves problems and accomplishes tasks. And why restrict ourselves to just relying on a single-contact model that has dragged down this industry for far too long.

By refocusing on the right goal, our team has carried the fresh perspective forward, and now we've designed our Customer Support into specialized teams.

Each crucial piece of the rental process is handled by a specialized team. This ensures that communication does not become bottle-necked on a single point of contact and we can have teams simultaneously working to ensure quick transitions of your rental throughout each stage of the lifecycle.

In order to find the right ways to communicate with Poplar Homes, here's our vision:

Our product and technology should be designed to answer the question proactively first and foremost

If a customer can't glean the necessary information to answer a question or make a decision from our product, then they should have immediate access to the right team at the right time.

The human touch must remain consistent.

In order to do a job well done, our team must embrace local market knowledge, negotiation techniques, and strong compassion for both residents and owners.

With various teams all working together, technology plays a role in connecting all of our systems and employees together in one centralized communication engine.

We've made massive strides towards that effort and the results speak for themselves:

Poplar Homes has: