Answer every inquiry the same way, at 10pm on a Sunday

The part of the week nobody owns

It is 10:41 on a Sunday. Somebody has three listings open in three tabs and sends the same message to each. Two of those firms reply at 9:15 on Monday. Nobody staffs an evening shift for four messages, and nobody should have to — but the inquiry is still decided by then.

By Monday the backlog is not only late, it is uneven. Eleven near-identical messages get eleven slightly different replies, because whoever is clearing them is typing each one fresh and in a hurry. One forgets the move-in date. One promises a Saturday the owner does not allow. A consistent answer in a minute beats a perfect one in a day — and that is the thing a person cannot do at midnight.

What "automated" means here, precisely

This is the part most vendors leave vague, so here it is plainly.

What is automated today is the intake: the link answers. An applicant who arrives at 10:41 is asked your questions, gets your criteria applied to their answers, and — if they qualify — books a showing from your real availability, all without anybody waking up. They are not waiting on a reply, because the reply was the process.

What is not automated today is prose written in your name. Releaser does not compose a chatty answer to a question about the boiler, and it does not hold a conversation on your behalf. Drafted replies, out-of-hours answers and the escalation rules that decide what must always reach a person are in design — we write about them in Eleven near-identical emails and The inquiry that landed at 10:41 on a Sunday — and nothing on this page depends on them shipping.

How it works

1. Your questions, written down once

The things you need to know before a showing is worth anyone's time, and the answers that qualify. Your words, your policy, per property type where they differ.

2. One link per property, posted wherever you advertise

Listing portals, Facebook groups, a reply in a message thread, your own site. Every inquiry lands in the same flow regardless of where it came from, so there is no channel where standards quietly slip.

3. Every applicant meets the same process, at any hour

Same questions, same order, same criteria, Sunday night included. An applicant who meets your criteria books a showing from your availability; one who does not is not offered a time on your calendar.

4. Monday is a list, not an archaeology project

Every inquiry and every booking in one place per property, with the answers attached. The work on Monday morning is reading a sorted list, not reconstructing a weekend from four inboxes.

What it does not do

• It does not write to your applicants in your voice. Not yet, and not quietly. When it does, it will be because you wrote the policy it answers from.
• It does not answer questions about your buildings. There is no general-purpose chat here inventing a plausible answer about parking or the heating.
• It does not judge anyone. No scores, no rankings, no opinion of its own about an applicant; your criteria are applied and that is all.
• It does not run credit or background checks, and it does not verify anything an applicant says.
• It does not replace the person who should see a hard message. A question about an accommodation, a complaint or a lawyer is a person's job, always — see The most valuable thing leasing software can do is stop.

Who it is for

Firms running 50 to 500 units in the US and Canada, where out-of-hours inquiries are a real cost but not a headcount. Under 50 units, weekend messages are a nuisance you absorb. Over 500, someone is rostered for them. Between the two, every inquiry that waits until Monday is a unit that stays empty a little longer, and the only fix that scales is a process that does not need anyone awake. Tell us your portfolio size on the form and we will point you at the right setup either way.

Read next

• How fast should you respond to rental inquiries? — picking a target you can actually hold.
• The inquiry that landed at 10:41 on a Sunday — the most recognisable loss in mid-market leasing.
• Eleven near-identical emails — why drafting goes first, and why it hands you the draft.

The questions themselves are covered in tenant pre-screening software, and what happens once someone qualifies in rental showing scheduling software.