What is Customer Support Software, and why does your HOA Management Company need one?

Customer service is at the heart of any HOA management business.  When done well, customer service increases board member and resident satisfaction.  In today’s digital age, residents are looking to the web to get answers instantly. They also look up to their management company to provide them with quick and reliable support. That’s why it’s important to give your residents an easy way to find answers. When they do reach out to you, tracking their requests on sticky notes and spreadsheets isn’t enough. Your team needs a more efficient way to organize these requests so you can deliver reliable and fast support.  Enter customer support software. 

Customer support software helps you to organize your customer support requests from start to finish. In this post, we focus on why your HOA management business needs customer support software and how to identify what’s right for you.

What is Customer Support Software?

Customer support software is a set of tools that enables companies to better assist their customers.  It also tracks the journey of customer support issues from start to finish so your staff members have all the information they need to deliver the best experience.   

At a basic level, customer support software helps businesses to:

• Keep track of incoming customer requests and issues. 
• Help managers stay organized and accountable.
• Maintain a history of important customer data to cut down the time it takes to solve an issue.
• Provide customers with self-service capabilities.  
• Make important business decisions with reports.

Benefits of Customer Support Software

Customer support software offers companies a simpler way to manage customer requests and keep their team aligned. Let’s talk about how a community management-specific customer support platform can benefit your HOA management company.

An easy way for residents to get in touch with you

Residents will frequently come to you with a question, issue, complaint, or suggestion.  It’s vital to give them a channel where they can be heard.  Customer support software enables residents to submit a support request, attach relevant files, communicate with their manager, and get status updates.  When you keep residents in the loop, they’ll feel more connected to the community. 

Help residents help themselves

In a digital-first world, residents expect to find information in an instant.  According to recent studies, 89% of millennial customers will conduct an internet search to find the answers they need before calling the company.  As more millennials become homebuyers, it’s important to create a knowledge base that is searchable and answers their questions.  

Customer support software enables your HOA business to have a presence 24×7 even if your managers can’t physically be there to answer phone calls or emails.  This puts less strain on your call center or client service team.  You’ll also increase resident satisfaction, as they can quickly find the information they’re looking for.  

Manage company and community knowledge

A knowledge base also streamlines the knowledge and learning of important community processes.  

When managers have a well-stocked knowledge base, it can save them time in responding to resident support tickets.  It also helps an after-hours staff member to quickly find important information when dealing with residents.  

Change is part and parcel of managing communities.  When a manager or board member leaves, you can use a knowledge base to train new members.  This is instrumental in getting a manager or board member up to speed so they can deliver the best customer service to residents. 

Keep your client services team organized and accountable

To deliver on the promise of fast and reliable customer service, your client service team needs a way to organize and prioritize incoming tickets.  Customer support software makes it simple to assign tickets, prioritize them, and set a due date.  That way, each manager is accountable for their work.  Having a customer support platform in place improves team communication so that nothing is lost in translation. All managers can work together on one platform to give residents the best customer service.

All customer data in one place

When you’re working to resolve a support ticket, it’s important to have context for the issue you’re handling.  That way, you can provide the resident with an accurate solution.  

A customer support platform, especially an HOA-centric platform, will allow you to track information at a unit or person level.  Consider the types of information you can use to resolve support issues faster:

• Other occupants in the unit.
• Payment transaction history.
• Guests.
• Pets.
• Vehicles.
• Insurance.
• Previous support tickets.
• Maintenance requests.
• Violations.
• More!

The support solution should also track every action that’s been taken on a support request.  This includes when a ticket was assigned or reassigned when a comment was added, or when the status was changed. This information helps to keep your team accountable.

Increase board satisfaction and loyalty

To retain your customers, you need to show the value you’re providing them.  However, this is something that many management companies struggle with.  

Through a customer support platform, you can generate reports to help you accurately convey the work you’ve done. The reports should show how many resident requests came in and how many you’ve resolved.  You can create these reports on a weekly or monthly basis based on your needs and present them to the Board. 

Gain insights to run your business more efficiently

Your client services team is putting effort to deliver superior customer service to the residents.  Now, it’s time to understand the impact of those efforts.  

As a business owner or manager, you’ll want to know how those efforts are panning out.  Is one community creating more work than another?  Is anyone in your client services team overwhelmed with work?  

A customer support platform gives you vital insights to answer these questions. You’ll be able to find out how many requests your staff is opening or closing in a given timeframe.  With this information, you can confidently manage staff workload.  These reports also tell you how much work each community is creating.  If your team is getting a lot of support requests from a specific community, you may consider increasing rates when it’s time for clients to renew. Also, it’s easier to justify the price increase.

Choosing the Best Customer Support Software for Your HOA Business

Customer support software is key the day to day operations of your client service team.  Now that you have a better understanding of how it can help your HOA management business, how do you choose one that’s right for you?  To help you identify which tool is the best for your company, consider these questions.

1. Can residents easily contact you?
2. Are there any self-service capabilities within the platform so residents can find information on their own?
3. Can you easily manage the wealth of knowledge that your communities or company have? 
4. Can you organize and prioritize tasks for your team?
5. Is there an easy way to track and find unit-specific information so you can cut down the time it takes to respond back to them?  
6. Can you generate reports so you can show value to the Board?
7. Can your company executives get business analytics to help them in making important decisions?  
8. Is the software easy for your staff, board members, and residents to use?

Since there are many tools in the market, it’s important to evaluate how each vendor addresses the above questions. As you start evaluating options, see how generic customer support tools compare with an HOA-specific tool such as Pilera’s.

Drive resident and board loyalty with Pilera’s customer support platform

Thousand of managers use Pilera daily to improve their customer support operations. Designed for the HOA and property management industry, Pilera offers a comprehensive set of tools that allow managers, board members, and residents to all work together.

Meet resident expectations with a single place to make payments, submit requests, update contact information, and manage their unit. Residents can log into a secure portal to submit support, maintenance, and architectural requests. They can also update their contact information and manage their unit to keep their managers updated. Through Pilera’s integrated customer support solution, managers, board members, and residents keep each other informed and can build better communities.