Before you sign anything
Twelve questions worth asking before you hand your phone to anybody, ours included. We have answered each one for Winston Ops underneath. Ask the same twelve of whoever else you are talking to and compare the answers yourself.
01
When a tenant says they were told something different, a summary written by the system is not much use to you.
Winston OpsWord for word transcript on every call, sitting on the tenant's record, and where there is a recording you press play and listen to it. Every call opens by telling the caller it may be recorded.
02
The vacancy call is the one with money attached. Taking a message and calling back tomorrow is how that caller becomes somebody else's tenant.
Winston OpsIt reads what is actually available at the moment the phone rings, answers the questions, asks your screening questions, emails the application, and logs a lead. It never quotes a unit that is already gone.
03
Answering in Spanish and writing in Spanish are two different features. Ask about both.
Winston OpsTwelve languages on the call, switched on the caller's first word, no menu and no transfer. Messages go out in the tenant's own language with the English underneath, in the same message.
04
An AI that invents a payment portal or a deadline creates a problem your office then has to clean up, usually after a tenant has already acted on it.
Winston OpsIt says the office will follow up rather than inventing an answer. It reads an email address back to the caller before it sends anything to it.
05
Almost nobody asks this one, and it is the question that decides whether a tenant with a flood reaches a human.
Winston OpsCalls to your Winston Ops line ring the backup number you set in the console instead of failing. You set it under Emergencies.
06
A system that fails silently is worse than no system, because you stop checking.
Winston OpsAnything Winston Ops could not send or finish appears in your daily summary, marked as needing a person.
07
Anything that can write into your system of record can also corrupt it, and you will be the one reconciling it.
Winston OpsNever. You give read only access and it only ever reads. If you would rather connect nothing at all, uploading a spreadsheet works just as well.
08
Your tenants' names, addresses, phone numbers and balances are in there. A vague answer is itself an answer.
Winston OpsA managed Postgres database on Amazon Web Services in the United States, encrypted in transit and where it is stored. Every record is tied to your company and your logins only ever see your own. At REIGN only our admin login can open your console.
09
Find this out before you sign rather than on the day you leave.
Winston OpsLogins are switched off the day you cancel. Ask within thirty days and we send you a full export. Ninety days after you cancel it is deleted.
10
Per minute pricing means your busiest month is your most expensive month, which is backwards for a business trying to answer more calls.
Winston OpsNo. Three dollars per unit per month, two hundred dollars monthly minimum, billed quarterly. A month where the phone never stops costs exactly what a quiet one costs.
11
Seat pricing quietly punishes you for putting your whole office on the thing you just bought.
Winston OpsNo. Logins are free. Put as many of your people in as you like.
12
Free software with a large onboarding fee attached is a common shape. Ask for the number before you are sold.
Winston OpsWe do it, and there is no setup fee. No software to install, and you keep your phone number.
The thirteenth question
Ours is a real number and it answers the way a client's does. Report a leak, ask about a vacancy, ask it something it cannot know and listen to what it says. Then ask whoever else you are considering for a number you can do the same thing with.