Is Your Team Drowning in Tenant Requests? An Insight from London
Last month, on May 15th, I had the pleasure of attending the Tenant & Resident Engagement Conference 2025. The energy at Convene on 155 Bishopsgate in London was palpable. Landlords, property managers, and tech innovators from across the UK and beyond gathered with a shared mission: to forge stronger, more meaningful connections between landlords and their residents. The day was packed with insightful keynotes and panels, all centered on elevating the resident experience.
However, for me, the most revealing moments happened during the networking breaks. Over coffee, I fell into conversation with several landlords and property portfolio managers. While they came from different backgrounds—some managing sprawling apartment complexes, others overseeing boutique residential buildings—a common, almost universal, thread of frustration quickly emerged.
One manager from a mid-sized firm in Manchester put it bluntly: "We're drowning. My team is brilliant, they're dedicated, but they're spending half their day answering the same five questions from prospective tenants and the other half chasing down maintenance updates. There's no time left for the 'engagement' we're here to talk about".
His sentiment was echoed around our small circle. Another landlord from Birmingham chimed in, "It's the domino effect. A slow response to a simple query about bin collection days makes us look unresponsive. A delayed answer to a viewing request might lose us a great tenant. We're constantly in reactive mode, putting out fires instead of building relationships".
This wasn't just a simple complaint about being busy. It was a deep-seated strategic problem. Their teams were being stretched thin by the sheer volume of routine communications, and it was impacting everything from staff morale to tenant retention and the speed of new leases.
The core issue wasn't a lack of will, but a lack of bandwidth. The very people hired to create a quality resident experience were too bogged down in low-impact, high-volume tasks to do so effectively.
The Anatomy of an Overwhelmed Team
As we delved deeper into the conversation, we began to map out the precise pain points. It became clear that the problem is a multi-headed beast, affecting operations, tenant relations, and business growth simultaneously.
The Endless Cycle of Routine Inquiries
The first and most obvious issue is the relentless stream of communications. Property management is a communication-heavy industry. On any given day, a team is tasked with handling routine questions from two distinct groups:
- Prospective Tenants: "Do you allow pets?" "What are the lease terms?" "Is parking included?" "When can I view the property?" These are vital questions for lead conversion, but they are also incredibly repetitive. Answering them one by one via email or phone consumes an enormous amount of time.
- Current Residents: Alongside this, teams are constantly addressing maintenance requests. A leaky tap, a broken boiler, a faulty light in the hallway—each report needs to be acknowledged, categorized, assigned, and tracked through to completion. Add to this general administrative questions about rent payments, community rules, or booking amenities, and the inbox quickly becomes unmanageable.
This constant barrage creates a state of "communication fatigue", where staff members feel more like call center operators than community managers.
The Consequence: A Cascade of Inefficiency
This operational bottleneck triggers a series of negative consequences that ripple throughout the business.
- Inefficient Resource Allocation: This was the most immediate pain point for the managers I spoke with. Their best people—skilled professionals who should be focused on complex lease negotiations, strategic resident retention programs, or financial planning—were instead spending their hours on administrative tasks. This is a classic case of
inefficient resource allocation. It’s not just about wasted time; it’s about wasted talent and missed opportunities for strategic growth. - Delayed Issue Resolution: When a team is overwhelmed, response times inevitably suffer. A maintenance request that could be a quick fix gets buried in an inbox for 48 hours. A simple question goes unanswered over a weekend. For a resident, this translates into frustration and a feeling of being ignored. This
delayed issue resolutionis one of the fastest ways to erode trust and goodwill, directly impactingtenant satisfaction. A resident who feels unheard is a resident who will not renew their lease. - A Slower, Leaky Leasing Process: The impact on prospective tenants is just as severe. In today's competitive market, speed is everything. A potential renter who has to wait a day or two for a response to a basic question is likely to have already booked a viewing with a more responsive competitor. This friction creates a
slower leasing process. You not only risk losing individual tenants but also develop a reputation for being slow and unresponsive, which can harm your brand in the long run.
The collective sigh of agreement in our group was telling. They were all living this reality. The traditional solution—hiring more staff—was often mentioned, but quickly dismissed. Hiring another person to answer the same repetitive questions is a costly, linear solution. It doesn't fix the underlying process; it just adds more resources to a broken one.
Shifting the Mindset: From More People to Smarter Systems
This is where our conversation pivoted. "So", I posed to the group, "if adding more people isn't the answer, what is? What if we could build a filter? A system that could handle 80% of the noise, so your team can focus on the 20% that truly requires their expertise and human touch?"
I explained that what we were describing was no longer science fiction, but a tangible reality. "We are talking about a purpose-built AI-powered resident concierge", I said. "A platform like Maika, for instance, is designed specifically to solve this exact problem".
The idea began to resonate. Instead of an abstract concept, we now had a concrete example. Maika acts as that intelligent first line of defense, providing 24/7 support so that no query ever goes into a void, whether it's sent at 2 PM on a Tuesday or 2 AM on a Sunday.
We discussed how it would work in practice:
- For prospective tenants, Maika would provide instant answers through its
FAQ automation. It would handle all the repetitive questions about pet policies, amenities, and application procedures, ensuring leads get the information they need immediately. - For current residents, Maika would streamline maintenance reporting. Instead of an email, a resident would interact with the AI, which could ask clarifying questions and then use intelligent
issue routingto send the ticket directly to the right person. - For the leasing team, Maika would act as a powerful qualification tool. Its automated
tenant screeningfeature asks pre-qualifying questions, ensuring that the human team only engages with the most promising and serious leads.
By framing the solution around a specific, named platform like Maika, the landlords in our group could visualize a clear path forward. It wasn’t about a vague promise of "AI"; it was about a specific tool designed for their industry.
The Real-World Impact: How Maika Creates a Win-Win-Win
The tangible benefits of implementing a dedicated tool like Maika quickly became the focus of our discussion. The impact is felt across the entire organization.
A Renewed Staff Focus
The most celebrated benefit is freeing up your team. When Maika handles the deluge of routine inquiries, your skilled staff are empowered to shift their staff focus to high-value, human-centric tasks:
- Proactively building relationships with residents.
- Organizing community events that foster loyalty.
- Negotiating complex lease renewals.
- Analyzing resident feedback to drive strategic property improvements.
This doesn't just improve productivity; it boosts morale and turns your team into a strategic asset.
An Elevated Tenant Experience with Maika
From the resident's point of view, the experience is transformed. The implementation of Maika leads directly to:
- For Existing Tenants:
Quicker communicationand demonstrablyfaster problem resolution. An instant acknowledgment and clear next steps for a maintenance request builds immense trust and dramatically increasestenant satisfaction. - For Future Tenants: A frictionless, professional, and immediate response to their first inquiry. This seamless interaction, powered by Maika, sets a high standard from the outset and can significantly
accelerate the leasing process, making your property the clear favorite.
This is precisely how you elevate tenant experience—by being responsive, reliable, and respectful of their time from the very first interaction.
The Bottom Line: Enhanced Brand and Profitability
Ultimately, all of these improvements translate into tangible business results. A platform like Maika isn't a cost center; it's an investment in efficiency and satisfaction. Happy tenants stay longer, reducing turnover. A faster leasing process maximizes rental income.
Your brand becomes synonymous with modern, efficient, and resident-focused management. In a competitive market, that reputation is invaluable.
Conclusion: It's Time for a Smarter Approach
Leaving the conference that evening, the conversations from the coffee break stuck with me. The challenges facing landlords are significant, but they are not insurmountable. The solution isn't to simply work harder or hire more people to run on the same hamster wheel.
The solution is to work smarter.
By embracing technology like the Maika AI-powered resident concierge, property managers can fundamentally redesign their communication workflows. They can move from a reactive, overwhelmed state to a proactive, strategic one. They can finally free up their teams to do the deeply human work of building communities—the very mission that brought us all to London.
If your team is feeling the strain of being constantly connected yet perpetually behind, the path forward is clear. It's time to explore how a dedicated, intelligent solution like Maika can not only solve your biggest communication challenges but also unlock a new level of resident engagement and operational excellence.