Designed to Be Understood: Modern Assessing Requires Strategic Communication

Good Communication Is Part of Being An Assessor

The challenge of being a good assessor is that valuing properties isn’t the only job. Yes, that is the core job, but helping people understand how you arrived at those values and how you assess properties is another big part. In short, good communication is part of being an assessor.

Most assessors can improve as communicators. Just sharing information isn’t enough; to be effective, communication has to be designed with intention, your goals central, the content tailored to the audience it’s meant for.

When you’re strategic, the information you provide not only informs – it shapes and frames how your audience views you and assessing.

Most assessors have two primary audiences:

• The property owner, who needs to understand the assessing process in order to collaborate;

• The internal stakeholder (think the building department, the IT department, the town select board, the city council, etc.), who needs to see how your work supports their own goals and who might be able to provide money, political support, and other key resources.

Each one requires a different approach. If you design your communication mindful of these differences, the other parts of being an assessor flow more smoothly—you get better data, you build trust, and you strengthen collaboration across departments.

Communicating with Property Owners: Clarity That Builds Collaboration

When a property owner understands what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how it affects them, they’re much more likely to trust you, let you onto their property, listen, and share the information you need. But that doesn’t happen magically—or with just a friendly smile at the door. It takes preparation.

First, you have to know what your message is. It might be notifying the property owner of upcoming property inspections. You might be trying to demonstrate the assessor’s transparency. Maybe the goal is to educate people about the steps in the assessing process and what occurs in each step. Whatever your message is, make sure you are clear on what you’re trying to communicate.

Second, remember that no two property owners are the same. Besides differences in knowledge about assessing, property owners also differ in age, background, and communication preferences. That’s why your communication needs to be strategic: not just with your words, but how you say it and through which channel you distribute your information. For example, you might send a notification letter to everyone, but a brochure included with the letter might help one group better understand the context, while a quick text message might work as a reminder for another.

Use clear, plain language, avoid jargon or legal terms, adapt your message to the format—and remember, the emotion the words invoke is just as important as the words themselves. Pay attention to the tone you’re using. People don’t respond to what you meant to say—they respond to what they understood and emotion, evoked by the tone of your communication, is part of how they understand.

Finally, your message must be consistent. Your whole team and each piece of content need to communicate the same message; conflicting messaging creates confusion and weakens trust.

Clear communication, targeted to both deliver the information you wish to convey and to frame things so that the property owner’s perception of assessing changes from adversarial to collaborative, leads to property owners helping you do your job and both parties trusting one another.

Communicating with Internal Stakeholders: Results That Earn Support

Interactions with people within local government serve different purposes. Politics, funding, and collaboration are all reasons for working with peers in other departments.

The internal stakeholder doesn’t necessarily want or need the details of how you calculate property values, but they need to know why they can trust the values you’ve calculated.

For them, the accuracy of valuation and the trust in those values helps answer key questions:

• Will citizens complain or be satisfied?

• Will the projected budget be met?

• Can they rely on the data you provide to make decisions?

• And perhaps most importantly—how will your work help them directly?

Again, strategic communication is necessary. The technical work must be complemented with clear, strategic explanations. Show them how your work makes theirs easier. Maybe your values help them better allocate resources. Maybe your maps support emergency planning. The point is: they need to see what’s in it for them.

Internal communication calls for a different tone—more institutional, more results-focused, and less technical. It might be a short executive summary, a one-page overview they can share with their team, or a visual report that connects your work to their outcomes.

When they trust that your values are accurate and they understand why they can trust those values, they can make stronger fiscal projections; they can begin to think about how your data can support activities like urban planning or public services; they begin to see your value and want to help fund you. You become a reliable partner whose value is understood.

Conclusion:Your Work Doesn’t Speak for Itself—Design Your Communication

Designing communication is a strategic decision. In the world of assessors, where the legitimacy of the process depends on perception as much as on results, how we talk about our work is just as important as the work itself.

If no one understands your message—or if it doesn’t connect with your audience—you won’t get the collaboration you need or the support your office deserves. Your work doesn’t speak for itself. Give it a voice with the right communication.