Association management companies differ widely in many ways. From service offerings to localized specialities, management services come in all shapes and sizes. But we all share at least one common struggle: communication.

Every HOA, condominium community, or other community association has different expectations when it comes to effective board communication. But there are several areas of overlap that boards generally prioritize in their communications: speed, clarity, and empathy. 

At Morris Management, we’ve done a lot of work to ensure that our communication techniques consider these three focus points so we can build lasting connections with our communities, and we encourage all associations to do the same.

Communicate Like the Pros

Don’t worry–you don’t need a snappy catchphrase like, “Just Do It” or “Have It Your Way.” What you need is a guide. Major corporations operate on communications playbooks. These are documents that tell them how and when to speak to people. Defining the rules does a few things: 

• It helps set expectations for clients and consumers through consistency. 
• It alleviates the stress that comes with generating new responses to questions by giving templates for common communications.
• It reduces time spent deciding what the proper response should be by dictating how to reply to most situations. 

Of course, creating this kind of comprehensive tool is too time consuming for your average management company. It certainly was for us! Instead, we took a few pages from those playbooks to create a strong foundation of communication. 

Facilitate Transparency

Transparency doesn’t have to mean sharing every explicit or negative detail with every single homeowner and board member. While every person should be informed of what is happening in their community, transparency is most valuable when it’s given freely, consistently, and, well, clearly. 

For example, some companies have recently started to set response time expectations in a way that can cause confusion by stating that there is a 24 – 72 business hour turnaround time on email and phone call replies. 

Do you see the trick there?

Business hours are NOT standard hours–that time frame sets a 3 – 9 working day wait time instead of the expected 1 – 3 day time frame. So despite clearly stating the policy, homeowners may still expect a different response time and feel misled. 

Similarly, being upfront and clear when sending emails is important, too. If an email recipient can’t quickly find the point, they may miss it entirely. Here at Morris Management, a helpful strategy we’ve discovered is leveraging informative subject lines for all emails we send. We also work to make the important points in the email obvious–whether that means a bulleted list for easy reading, or bold, italic, or underlined formatting to stand out, we want our goals to be clear so less client time is spent searching for key information.

Small changes like these are how large corporations go above and beyond for their clients, and the association management industry can easily do the same!

Encourage Expediency

Most homeowners share a common gripe: their association manager communications are never speedy enough. Now whether or not a response time is “too slow” can be pretty subjective. For some homeowners, waiting even an hour for a call back is too long, and we respect that. 

That said, managers have a lot on their plate. Finding ways to consistently ensure response times is tricky, but always worth the work. Going back to Communication Playbooks, using templatized or automated response emails is a great way to at least give the homeowner peace of mind that their message went to the right place. 

At Morris Management, our standard policy is that we acknowledge every voicemail or email by the end of the next business day after receipt. That means we may not always have an answer, but we try our hardest not to leave you hanging. 

Of course, we are human, and we cannot always meet that expectation (something we try to be transparent about!) But our obligation to our clients is to be vigilant and as responsive as possible within reason. Giving our managers the freedom to simply respond in this time frame helps them start a conversation quickly and efficiently.

Cultivate Empathy

At the end of the day, communications with board members or homeowners often center around a need. Sometimes that need is incredibly simple, like asking about account status. Other times, that need is urgent and your resident needs reassurance. No matter what the circumstance might be, changing just a few words in your language can bridge the gap between a cold-but-honest answer and a true communication.

Intro and outro greetings like “hello” and “have a great day” are incredibly easy to pre-build into your email communications through templates and signatures. Words of encouragement like, “we appreciate your email,” or “thank you for reaching out to us,” can go a long way in conveying gratitude. Templatizing them doesn’t make them disingenuous, instead it gives the responder more time to dedicate to the most important information in the email.

But of course, it’s more than just platitudes that make the real difference. When communicating with disgruntled, or flat-out angry, clients, the best thing a manager can do is remember that half of communicating is listening. Jumping to defensiveness or explanations will never resolve frustration, even if you’re right. Giving your homeowners the space to feel heard and respected can go a very long way in resolving an issue.

Simplifying Association Manager Communication

The fact of the matter is that association manager communication skills are challenging to cultivate. Managers have so much going on in their day to day that sometimes the simplest tasks, like saying ‘thank you’ often get overlooked. But gratitude, clarity and efficiency make a huge difference in the lives of homeowners.

If you’re a board member or homeowner struggling to communicate with your managers, feel free to share these helpful tips! Or, reach out to us directly. Our top priority is giving every board member and future board member (aka homeowners) the kind of quality communication you deserve.