Text-Connect™ can help Landlords comply with Gas Safety regulations.

Text messaging is a NEW and valuable tool for Landlords for prompting tenants into arranging appointments for critical gas safety testing. Landlords have a legal obligation to test gas appliances every 12 months but tenants missing appointments with service engineers is a serious problem which can lead to expensive court action and even repossession.

Landlords usually make an initial inspection appointment with tenants with a phone call. Text messaging gives landlords a very cost effective way to confirm the appointment, and later remind tenants of the appointment time prior to the engineer arriving. Text messaging also gives Landlords a facility to quickly leave an automated messages on 'land line' phones asking for tenants to get in touch and arrange an inspection.

The '2 way' nature of the system gives tenants a quick and effective way to rearrange inspections should they need while the Landlords save money by increasing the effectiveness of their engineers through fewer expensive 'no shows'.

To send text messages, a simple CSV / Excel text file, created from the Landlords management information system, is quickly uploaded to Text-Connect™ where a personalised 'mail-merge' text shot is sent to tenants using just a few key strokes. Message delivery to an individual tenants' phone is quick and easy using Text-Connect™ reporting facilities.

Any "No Access" cases, typically where an engineer is unable to conduct the inspection due to the absence of the tenant, should be prompted with an 'Ad Hoc' text message and urging them to contact the Landlord and arrange an alternative inspection date.

Landlords using text messaging in this application report that expensive missed inspections are reduced and response from "no access" cases is very encouraging.

The web based implementation of Text-Connect™ means no software or hardware needs to be installed which makes the system quick and easy to implement. Little or no formal training is required due to the intuitive, user friendly nature of Text-Connect™.

To summarise, Text-Connect™ can help Landlords achieve high access levels to tenants’ homes to carry out gas servicing and provides a valuable management tool for “no access” cases, saving Landlords money by reducing the number of cases where court injunctions and/or repossessions are sought against tenants.