If I am looking at any software or service then this is one of the first questions I look to get an answer for, and I look for the following answers:
1) Email and Ticketing: This is the standard way that most support services operate nowadays and, therefore, it is important to understand how and when your emails will be responded to.
Your property software supplier should have a ticket management system in place for all your software queries to be logged and tracked. You will be able to log into the ticket management system and see the status of your support query at any time.
2) Telephone Support: It is always important to be able to speak to somebody. Although emailing has become more and more popular there are some people who just want to hear the voice of friendly customer services personnel on the other end of the phone.
So firstly look for a telephone number and make sure that it is not a premium rate telephone number or even worse, a mobile number.
If it is a mobile number then it will mean you are likely to find it difficult to get hold of the sole person providing the support.
If it is a premium rate number then be wary. Is this a sign that the company doesn't want to be contacted and is only interested in making the sale?
Now I do understand that some landlord software businesses are internet based only and don't offer any telephone number at all. If this is the case then I would definitely want to see what their response times are before I departed with any money.
3) On-line chat: Last but not least we should be able to chat with the company we are looking to buy our landlord software from or have already purchased it from.
Now we use communication technologies such as MSN, Yahoo Messenger or Skype to communicate with our friends and colleagues all over the world so I would also expect to be able to chat to someone on-line.
In short, make sure your property management software supplier offers a good combination of the above after-sales software support services.
Spreadsheets tend to work well in the early stages, but as the portfolio grows then a dedicated landlords software solution is required.
Therefore the question most landlords ask is, 'when is it the best time to go for a dedicated property software solution'.
It is a question that frequently gets asked and I personally feel there are two answers:
1) If you are serious about being a long-term landlord and are going to continue to grow your property portfolio then the sooner you buy a software solution the better. This is because as you continue to grow your portfolio you will also become more and more familiar with the software package you are using, so in effect it will be helping you to grow your portfolio and will become one of the vita parts of your business.
This means that as soon as you buy your first property then you should consider choosing a landlord software package at the same time.
2) If you haven't invested in a solution when you first became a landlord (most cases) then you should definitely do so when you start to feel that you are becoming disorganised and are no longer on top of you portfolio.
For some people they can start to feel like this after they have bought maybe two or three properties and for others it can be when they have upwards of five or even ten properties.
Once you start to feel that your existing paper system or spreadsheet system is not giving you all the information that you need then you should decide to make the investment.