Design Tenets: Communication Using Ender

utilizing ender communication

We built Ender with a number of design tenets. Ender prioritizes the owner and structures as much data as possible. Equally as important, Ender serves as the hub for all asynchronous communication. All texts, phone calls, and emails go through Ender. This simplifies the lives of management and tenants.

Let’s say you’re responsible for managing a property. You see a message in your inbox with the following conversation:

Bob (Tenant) @ 11:00 AM: There is water leaking out of the sink and getting all over the floor. It keeps leaking even when I try to shut it off.

Elizabeth (PM) @ 11:02 AM: I’m sending someone out there right away. He should be there in about 5-10 minutes!

Bob (Tenant) @ 11:38 AM: Thanks for taking care of that.

Bob (Tenant) @ 12:42 PM:  Where is he?????? What is going on??

As the property manager, looking at this conversation, you would probably be very confused. It looks like Bob (the tenant) had an issue, the issue was taken care of, and now Bob is upset about something. But Bob is rightfully upset, you just don’t have all the information.  

Bob had the personal phone line of one of the other maintenance people. Bob phoned your colleague, Richard, and told him that the fix for the sink had inadvertently caused a leak in the wall of the unit. On the phone, Richard had apologized and told the tenant that he was going to send a maintenance person back to fix it right away. But Richard got distracted by an urgent phone call from another tenant and completely forgot to send a maintenance person back in.

When there is incomplete communication data, the gaps cause major issues over time, especially at scale. This is why we designed Ender to ingest all communication channels: SMS, email, and voice. Voice calls are transcribed to easily search. All three channels are brought together into a unified interface. 

Some operators are used to giving out their personal phone numbers and email addresses. Switching to Ender for all your communication, makes it so your team has a complete picture of what’s going on. To realize the added benefits, Ender needs to collect the communications of everyone involved in property operations.

There are other upsides of a unified system– accountants can view communication and have full context on the work done and thus how it should be classified in the books. No more accountants messaging property operations for details about work orders. Additionally, if you’re unfortunate enough to go through a legal dispute with a tenant or vendor, having all information in one system makes discovery a breeze. 

To streamline and automate workflows, minor changes in process are necessary. We document every aspect of Ender in walkthroughs that are searchable through the help section when logged in.

As always, if you have any questions, contact us.