3 Property Management Challenges & How to Overcome Them
Property management companies have a constant goal to improve their competitive position while managing everyday operations. While working to achieve those goals, property managers may face several challenges: delivering top-notch customer service, managing regular and unexpected maintenance, and improving staff efficiency. Cloud-based technology systems where features integrate well with each other can help property managers battle those challenges and drive greater success. In this post, we’ll talk about top property management challenges, technologies, and how Pilera’s own property management software can help drive success.
Top 3 Property Management Challenges
1. Delivering quality customer service
Customer experience can make or break a company. As customer experience impacts success at every level of an organization from productivity to employee satisfaction to revenue growth, it’s important to make it the core of everything you do. However, things can get tough when a property manager’s phone lines and email inboxes become uncontrollable, tasks are forgotten, and tenants start sharing negative experiences on social media or Yelp.
To deliver a customer service experience that goes beyond the tenant’s expectations, it’s important to focus on their needs. In the digital age and more recently during stay/safer-at-home orders, tenants expect to have information at the fingertips. If they’ve asked for your assistance, they also expect to hear back from you in a timely manner. A customer relationship management tool can help property managers proactively meet those expectations. Pilera’s platform is specifically designed to help property managers elevate the customer experience for residents through a self-service tenant portal, fast and reliable communication system, and activity log management. A well-maintained, self-service resident portal with online payment capability, documents, calendars, and an FAQ section can reduce the need for a tenant to call or email the office, significantly saving managers time. An automated communication system with the capability to reach out to tenants how they want will leave them with a positive perception of your company. In turn, when tenants reach out to you, capturing all of your interactions and resolutions with them in one place helps you to further nurture relationships and increase the chance of renewals.
2. Managing regular and unexpected maintenance
It can be a challenge to stay ahead of multiple maintenance projects – whether they are regular maintenance items, resident submitted, or unexpected maintenance. Unexpected maintenance can heavily strain company resources, specifically finances, employee workload, and vendor availability, as well as introduce liability.
For property managers to stay on top of maintenance projects efficiently and accurately, they need to be able to pull in their staff, tenants, and vendors all in one system. Pilera’s comprehensive maintenance tracking system helps property managers stay on top of tasks they need to get done on any device or location and review the resolution with after-job details. Additionally, Pilera’s work order management system integrates seamlessly with the vendor database, which means that managers can keep track of vendor contact and license information, ratings, assign them to work orders, and notify them through email. Managers receive license expiration notices so that they know which vendors to call upon short notice, for unexpected maintenance, or during emergencies. Furthermore, managers will field fewer inbound calls to the office when residents can submit service requests themselves and view updates in the portal.
3. Improving staff productivity
A property manager’s day is never slow or completely predictable! When things happen that change the course of the day or week, it’s possible for tasks to be forgotten or set aside. How to improve the productivity of your staff in a fast-paced environment starts with efficiently managing their time and improving their processes. When property management leaders can improve staff productivity effectively, they are more likely to reduce staff turnover and attract more quality property managers.
How do you make the best use of their time and improve their processes? Be sure to assign tasks, set a due date, and encourage your staff to provide updates as they go. Tracking all these actions in a unified system will prevent your staff from having to shuffle through a lengthy email chain for the latest update or call their coworkers. Through Pilera’s ticketing system, staff can manage all their tasks from start to finish. At the start of each day, they can use the ticket dashboard to see all the work assigned to them for the day. Property managers and company executives can use the ticket analytics report within Pilera to identify which properties are generating the most tickets, which staff members are overloaded, and where to shift workload for better performance on a busy day.
Turn your challenges into successes
Looking to turn these property management challenges into success for your company and staff? Be sure to go beyond your tenant’s expectations with concise and frequent communication. Keep all stakeholders informed when they need to be when it comes to maintaining your properties effectively. Check-in with how your staff is performing and how you can shift workload for better performance. A cloud-based, integrated, and collaborative technology platform can help property managers and leaders stay on task and on the go, as they work toward building a competitive advantage and operating efficiently.
About Pilera
Pilera Software is a leading property management software company that offers diverse solutions for the multifamily and rental industry. Pilera specializes in automated phone, email, and text messaging. Increase tenant engagement through resident portals with online payment, document sharing, and work order management, as well as a wide array of other management features. To learn how you can take your management operations to the next level with Pilera, you can sign up for a personalized demo.
