A prospective tenant rings the branch at lunchtime. They have seen a flat they like and they want to know what happens next. What are the fees? What checks will be done? When do they pay the deposit, and where does it go? How long before they can move in? The negotiator answers patiently, as they did for the last caller and as they will for the next. Twenty minutes later a landlord calls with a different set of questions that are, in their own way, just as familiar.
Every lettings team carries a script in its head. It is good, it is accurate, and it is delivered dozens of times a week by people who could be doing something else.
Renting is a process with real steps and real obligations. Referencing, right to rent checks, holding deposits, tenancy agreements, inventories, deposit protection, check in. For people who do not do it often, it is confusing, and for tenants especially it can feel stressful. They are about to commit to a home and hand over money, and they want to understand what they are agreeing to.
Landlords have their own version of the same uncertainty. What does the agency actually do? What is the landlord responsible for? What happens if something goes wrong in the middle of a tenancy?
These questions deserve good answers. The problem is that answering them one call at a time is slow, and the quality of the answer depends on who picks up the phone and how busy they are.
Rental Process Explained is a clear, step-by-step film of your lettings process for landlords and tenants, so you can stop repeating it on every call.
The obvious change is staff time. If a good share of your calls are explanations of the process, a film that does that explaining frees your team for the conversations that need a person: negotiating, solving problems, looking after landlords.
There are fewer repeated questions, too. Tenants who have watched the film arrive at the next step knowing what to expect. They have their documents ready. They are less likely to be surprised by a charge or a check, and less likely to ring back to ask about something they were told last week.
Clients know what happens next, which matters more than it sounds. In lettings, a lot of frustration comes from uncertainty rather than from anything going wrong. A tenant who can see the whole journey from application to moving day is calmer about each step along it.
And there is a quieter benefit: it shows your agency as organised and fair. An agency that explains its process openly, in plain language, looks like one with nothing to hide. For landlords choosing who to trust with their property, and for tenants nervous about renting, that impression counts.
Every agency does things slightly differently, and the film should reflect yours. Some prompts to help you picture it:
Picture a tenant receiving a link with their application form, and watching the whole process explained by someone from your branch before they fill in a single box. Picture a new landlord, uncertain about letting for the first time, seeing exactly how you find, check and look after tenants. Picture your negotiators sending the same link at the end of every viewing, instead of starting the explanation from the beginning.
You do not need to worry about scripts, filming or how to make a process sound clear on screen. Pineapple Tapped plans the creative around your process and the questions your clients really ask, runs the shoot day, edits the film and delivers it ready to send, embed or share. We think about how to keep each step simple to follow, so your team does not have to.
What we need from you is your knowledge of how your agency works and where people get stuck. You know the process better than anyone. We turn it into something people can watch once and understand.
Your team will still answer questions, and the best agencies always will. The difference is that they will answer the interesting ones, not the same ones over again. Have a think about which explanation you would most like never to give again.
Read more on the Rental Process Explained page, or book a call with a producer.