Six emails for one lock change
The property manager emails: tenant has moved out, please change the front door lock at 14 Maple Road, keys to the office. That is all. So your office replies. Which door, front only or back too? Is the property empty? Where are the current keys? How many new keys does the agent want? Is there a purchase order? Two days later the answers arrive, some of them.
The engineer goes out. The keys that were supposed to be in the key safe are not there, because the tenant handed them to a different branch. Rebook. When the job is finally done, the new keys go through the agent's letterbox after hours, and a week later a different property manager says they never received them.
Multiply that by every agent you work with, and a steady source of work becomes a steady source of admin.
Why agent work produces so much back and forth
Letting agents send work the way their own day runs: in quick emails between viewings, from whichever property manager has the property. Each agent has its own habits. Your business has to turn that into a job an engineer can actually do.
- Instructions arrive by email, phone and text, from many different people at the same agency.
- Access details (key safe codes, tenant contact, keys at branch) are missing or out of date.
- The number of keys required and who receives them is rarely stated.
- There is no single place where the agent can see the status, so they ring your office.
- Key handover is informal, so disputes about lost keys have no record to settle them.
The cost of every wasted trip
A failed access visit is an engineer's slot gone, and agents rarely expect to pay for it. Office staff spend hours on clarifying emails and status calls. And when keys go missing between your engineer and the agent's branch, you are often the one who gets blamed, and sometimes the one who pays for another lock change.
Letting agent work is valuable because it repeats. That value leaks away when each job costs twice the admin it should.
A request portal built around the questions you always ask
We build a small web portal for your agent clients, or a structured request form that feeds your existing job system, so each job arrives complete.
- Agents log in or use a link and choose the property from their own list, or add a new one.
- The request asks what your office always asks: which doors, the job type, whether the property is occupied, how access works, how many keys, and who receives them.
- Access details and tenant contacts are captured with the request, and the tenant can be sent a booking link to confirm a time that suits them.
- A purchase order number is requested where the agent uses them, and the agent's approval limit is checked before booking.
- The engineer sees all of it on the job. At completion they record the keys handed over, to whom, and take a photo of the keys and the signed or photographed receipt.
- Agents see each job's status in the portal: received, booked, done, keys returned, invoiced. Their questions go there, not to your phone.
| Step | Captured in the portal | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Request | Property, doors, job type, occupancy | Agent |
| Access | Key safe, branch keys or tenant booking | Agent and tenant |
| Authorisation | Purchase order and limit | Agent and your office |
| Completion | Photos, parts, keys issued | Engineer |
| Key handover | Recipient, time, count | Engineer and agent |
Where you already use job management software such as a field service system with a customer portal, we check whether it can do this with configuration before building anything new.
Agents get answers without ringing you
Jobs arrive complete, so engineers go out once. Agents check status themselves. When a property manager says they never received the keys, the office can show who signed for them and when. Your team spends its time booking and doing jobs rather than asking the same questions by email.
It also makes you easier to work with than the locksmith who only takes emails, which is how you keep an agent when they review their contractor list.
Is agent work costing you more than it should?
- Most agent instructions need at least one reply asking for details.
- Engineers regularly arrive at properties they cannot get into.
- Agents ring your office to ask whether a job has been done.
- Nobody can prove which keys went to whom.
- Each agent sends work in a different way.