Neighbors love to chat… well, at least they used to! In today’s busy world, we are often in too much of a rush to stop and catch up with the person who lives next door. That’s why so many people feel disconnected from their neighborhood. But even on the go, there are ways to communicate and stay in touch, so residents in your area always know what’s going on – whether it’s an emergency water shutoff, a street closure for a parade or the next round of pickle ball league starting up, people do want to know what’s going on. So whether you are an apartment complex manager, a city parks and rec director or an HOA president, you need to communicate with the residents in your area.
Communicating with Homeowners and Residents
There are going to be good and bad things you need to communicate with your neighbors. If you work for the city, you will want to alert people to an altered schedule for garbage pickup, important local elections updates and parks and recreation news. If you are an apartment complex manager, you may want to send out messages about meet and greets, yoga classes or rent reminders.
It can be a challenge to communicate when people hibernate at home, run off to work, delete their emails without reading it or miss HOA meetings. But you can communicate with the residents you’re responsible for in a way that they are already used to communicating every day: texting.
3 Benefits of Using Texting for HOAs, Cities and Resident Groups
Texting can be one of the best ways to increase engagement in your neighborhood because the majority of people always have their phone on them. TxtSquad gives you a way to connect with your residents and homeowners and gives them a chance to interact with you as well.
Save time: One of the biggest issues we deal with is a lack of time. As a community manager of a neighborhood, apartment or city, you are busy handling the questions and concerns of residents, in addition to your own life. But with texting, you can send a text message to a large number of people at once, so your entire community can get the message at the same time. The features of the majority of texting platforms, like TxtSquad, are set up so that you can communicate with your audience quickly and effectively. Drip texts, mass texts, and reminder texts can all be sent automatically.
Increase engagement: Give residents and homeowners information they can use to plan their weekends and change their schedules. This will get them more involved. They can feel more aware, involved, and engaged in their community by receiving updates via text, having a place where they can ask questions and get a prompt response, and receiving important reminders via text. They will know about the updates so they aren’t blindsided by a closed road, no hot water or miss a payment of HOA fees or rent, but they will also feel more connected and can find new ways to get involved in the neighborhood or town.
Communicate better: Save time and communicate more effectively: We've all had instances where we didn't have enough time. Most people have a lot of competing priorities, so you need to find any way you can to streamline communication and simplify residents’ lives. You won't need to notify everyone individually or leave dozens of voicemails to ensure the message is received by using automated reminders and scheduling mass messages with key updates.
Solve Community Awareness Challenges with TxtSquad
You can take on these communication challenges head-on with the help of texting services like TxtSquad. Leverage AI to improve the communication, engagement and awareness within your community. With TxtSquad, you can schedule messages, have two-way conversations with your staff in all hotel departments and teams, and send automated reminders.
Schedule messages: Schedule customized messages to ensure that everyone is informed of any key updates without delay. As soon as you know of something that will affect the residents, you can let them know – no matter if that’s a road closure, fee increase or holiday celebration they can attend. This will help them feel informed of what’s happening so they can be more engaged in everything that’s going on.
Two way conversations: Your residents and homeowners will have a number where they can send questions, and you can monitor and have conversations in a way that is easy for everyone. If you send out a past due text, they can respond with any questions or concerns they have! This will help to eliminate the back and forth you often have to do to get in touch with people in more traditional formats like calling or even email.
Automated reminders: Schedule the monthly or quarterly fee reminder or monthly rent reminder so that all residents receive a text before the due date. This can help cut down on missed payments and chasing down those late fees.
Send updates: If you have something that is changing in your community – whether it’s a temporary change like recycling day is being moved due to Christmas or a permanent change like HOA fees are increasing beginning in July – your residents should know so they can plan and prepare for these changes. Use text messaging to send the notice out, and then schedule a reminder closer to the date when the change is going to occur.
Implementing TxtSquad in Your Community
If your community is missing that sense of familiarity and home, engage residents and connect them to the latest updates and news with a short text. SMS provides a quick and simple way to push your message in front of many people's eyes with just one button click.
The ideal business texting solution combines all the features you'll need to achieve your goals, including drip campaigns, tracking, analytics, auto responses, scheduled or automated messages and contact management. TxtSquad brings all of this so you can re-engage your community. Book a demo today to see why you need texting for your HOA, city or neighborhood!