Tenant inquiry response automation for property managers, so no request waits for Monday.
Tenant inquiry response automation for property managers, built and run by us: an agent reads every email, text and portal message, works out who wrote and what they need, and replies under rules you wrote. A Kijiji prospect gets a showing, a leaking dishwasher becomes a work order in Buildium, AppFolio, Yardi or Rentvine, and money and notices go to a named person.
Every channel lands on one coordinator.
In the Toronto property management operation we work with, Monday's inbox holds the weekend: Kijiji and Marketplace replies, tenant texts with photos, an owner email from Friday. A coordinator reads each one, decides what it is, and retypes it.
- A Kijiji reply asking if the unit is still available, answered Tuesday, after the prospect signed elsewhere
- A tenant's text and photo of the leak, retyped into the platform without the photo
- The same is-my-payment-posted question answered three different ways
- An auto-reply saying we received your message, and nothing about what happens next
What we build on the written channels.
Four steps, and a person sees only what needs them.
- Read and sorted. Each message is matched on arrival to a tenant, unit, prospect or owner, then categorised: showing, maintenance, rent, owner update, vendor, junk. Anything it cannot place goes to a person marked unsorted.
- Replied by your rules. Each category is set to send, draft or hand over: a prospect asking if the two bedroom is still available gets your answer, a payment question gets a draft your bookkeeper sends. Outbound texts and emails carry CASL consent and a working unsubscribe.
- Showing booked, work order opened. The prospect picks a showing slot. A maintenance request becomes a work order against the unit, photos and follow-up answers attached, for your coordinator to approve. The Buildium side runs on the Open API, see Buildium automation.
- Handed to a named person. Money beyond the due date, a notice, an eviction, a dispute, a complaint about staff: the thread goes to the person you named, with what was asked and what the agent said.
Plugs into what you already run
The marks are where the written channels land: the work order in Buildium, AppFolio or Rentvine, the inbox in Gmail, the text line on Twilio, the log in Slack.
Why the first reply matters.
Automation cannot make a plumber faster. It can end the silence before someone competent has the request.
Every tenant request runs four clocks: acknowledgement, triage, dispatch and resolution. The first is the largest and least measured, and overnight it is the entire night. Automation moves the first three; the fourth belongs to your vendor bench. More in our post on tenant response time.
On the Toronto property management line we run, 27 of 110 callers over ten days were upset when they rang, flooding in a unit and no idea whether to call a plumber or wait. What they wanted first was confirmation that a competent party had the problem; a reply naming the unit and who does what next is exactly that.
We have no inbox agent in production. What runs today is the voice agent on that tenant line and the Buildium Open API wiring behind it; the written build uses the same rulebook. The first step is scoping against your platform's API; we say which fields it cannot reach.
Who this is for.
- Leasing seasons that bury the inbox. Turnover months on Kijiji, Marketplace and Rentals.ca, when is-it-available outruns the desk and showings go to whoever is free.
- The coordinator is the routing layer. A hundred units to two thousand, and a coordinator whose day is reading and retyping what tenants and owners wrote.
- Who we are wrong for. An inbox one person clears by ten, an owner who wants the agent deciding on money, or anyone after a smaller office. We say so on the free call.
Questions, answered straight
What does tenant inquiry response automation cost? The number comes on the free call: a fixed-fee audit, a build quoted against it, a monthly fee to run it; bands on the pricing page. Two weeks for the audit, weeks for the build.
Will it reply to a tenant without a person seeing it? Only where your rule says send: a showing time, whether the unit is still available, the rent due date. Everything else is drafted for a person, and every category starts in draft.
What happens on a rent dispute or an eviction question? It replies once that a named person has it and when they will hear back, then hands the thread over with what was asked. It never explains the law or says what you will do.
We run AppFolio. Does this fit? Scoped first. Realm-X Messages and Performers cover messaging that stays inside AppFolio; we say turn them on, and build what crosses the edge. Buildium's Open API takes the work order, Yardi gates its interfaces by licence, Rentvine is scoped against your account.
How does it handle Kijiji and Marketplace inquiries? Where a portal forwards inquiries to your email, the agent answers there with showing slots. Where one keeps the conversation in its app, we check whether a tool may read it for you; if not, a person pastes the draft.
Part of AI for property management; the phone window on its own is after-hours maintenance calls for property managers, the AppFolio wiring AppFolio automation.