Community Association Management Companies (CAMs) play an important role in managing administrative, accounting, financial, and maintenance tasks for the communities that have hired them. However, when servicing clients, CAMs face various challenges, such as resident dissatisfaction, overburdened managers, and dissatisfied boards. These issues often arise from a lack of forming and maintaining strong connections with their communities. That’s where a CRM comes in.  

This blog post will look at the top challenges management companies face, how a CRM can address these challenges, and why implementing a CRM is vital. Thus, we will equip you with the correct tools and knowledge to improve resident happiness, board connections, and management efficiency.

Challenges that management companies are currently struggling with

Low Retention Rate 

Community Association Management companies often struggle with low retention rates. This issue primarily manifests as most HOA communities leave their current management company within two years, opting to either self-manage their community or sign on with a competing management company.  

This revolving door phenomenon forces CAM companies to seek new clients to replace the clients they have lost. This adds extra strain to management companies because they spend more time acquiring new sales. Moreover, high turnover in community management can undermine the trust and satisfaction of existing clients, who may perceive it as instability or lack of value in the services provided.  Focusing your efforts on retention becomes vital through strong client relationships, proactive communication, and demonstrating value to ensure long-term satisfaction. 

Eroding Resident Trust 

Many management company interactions center around payment requests, invoicing, collections, and handling violations. Over time, the transactional nature of these relationships can make residents feel less valued, unheard, and unsatisfied. As trust erodes, residents may become more hesitant to participate in community activities, resulting in strained relationships and possible disputes.

Board Doubt and Oversight

Board members may often raise concerns about the value they’re getting from your management services. They want to be certain that services are efficient, jobs are completed on time, and communication is clear. Thus, a lack of proper management of community issues or communications can strain the board-management relationship. 

Operational Inefficiencies

Community Association Management companies frequently face inefficiencies, such as manual processes, data in different places, and communication gaps. These inefficiencies can result in delays when responding to resident issues and inconsistent or poor service, all leading to increased workloads for managers. Additionally, operational efficiencies lead to more unpredictable schedules and stress for managers.

Limited Resident Engagement 

Creating a sense of community and encouraging resident participation is important for a well-functioning community. However, management companies often struggle to keep residents informed. Limited communication channels and a lack of personalized interactions can all hinder building an engaged community.

Outdated Technology

Leveraging the latest technology is important for delivering exceptional customer service.  However, several management companies are tethered to outdated systems. Being stuck in the past technologically can throw a wrench into your communication, data management, and operational efficiency.  This ultimately diminishes the quality of services you provide to communities.

How CRM can help CAMs build better connections

By leveraging an industry-specific CRM, management companies can streamline operations, build resident trust, and improve board relationships. Let\’s discuss how CRM built specifically for the CAM industry can help your company.  

1. Track resident interactions and provide support

With a CRM system, management companies can easily track resident interactions and provide efficient assistance. Here\’s a deeper look at how CRM may solve these key concerns:

Centralized Data Management

CRM enables management companies to keep all resident-related information in one unified platform. This includes residents’ contact information, communication choices, service requests, support requests, payment history, and unit information.  

Centralizing data has many benefits. It enables your staff to access up-to-date resident information, reducing response times and increasing overall efficiency. It also improves data quality and consistency, decreasing mistakes and redundancies in resident records. Furthermore, having a centralized database allows team members to collaborate more effectively since everyone can access the same data source. 

On-Demand Support through a Knowledge Base

One significant benefit of adopting a CRM system built for the community management industry is the ability to provide on-demand help through a searchable knowledge base. A knowledge base stores important community information, such as frequently asked questions, troubleshooting tips, and community policies and procedures.

Residents have 24/7 access to the knowledge base, allowing them to solve common problems at their own convenience. This eliminates the need for support teams to handle common questions, allowing them to focus on more meaningful or urgent tasks. A well-maintained knowledge base also improves resident satisfaction by delivering prompt and correct answers to their questions, resulting in a more efficient and streamlined support experience.

Efficient Handling of Support Tickets

CRM systems help management companies handle support issues more efficiently. When a resident submits a question or request, the CRM simplifies the process by enabling them to contact the right managers quickly. 

With a CRM, you can keep residents informed about the progress of their requests, and they can communicate back with you, which creates a two-way feedback loop. This approach streamlines support processes by maintaining regular updates and keeping residents informed throughout the resolution process.

2. Communicate with residents

Effective communication lies at the heart of successful HOA management. A CRM system can revolutionize how HOA managers interact with residents, fostering efficient and personalized communication.

Proactive, Multichannel Communication

CRM solutions built for the community management industry enables you to engage with residents proactively through many channels. These channels include phone calls, emails, text messages, postal mail, website notifications, and resident portals. This proactive strategy ensures that residents receive updates, announcements, and notifications in the format that best meets their needs. Moreover, by embracing multichannel communication capabilities, management companies can improve the efficacy of their outreach initiatives, increase resident participation, and establish better community relationships. 

Tailored Messages with Dynamic Distribution Group

CRM systems with communication capabilities provide dynamic distribution group functions, allowing management companies to segment residents according to locations. This segmentation allows management companies to provide relevant and targeted communications to certain groups of residents. For example, management companies can form distribution groups for homeowners, renters, and board members in a specific area for emergencies. Dynamic distribution groups help to enhance engagement, responsiveness, and resident happiness by personalizing communications to the interests and needs of each demographic.

3. Increase transparency and collaboration

Management companies must update board members regularly on the status of community tasks and projects.  Here’s how a CRM improves transparency and communication with your board.  

Collaborative Task Management

A task management system within your CRM allows management companies to collaborate with board members on community-related tasks. Each task can be categorized, prioritized, and assigned to a particular team or board member to ensure everyone knows their responsibilities.  

Email Notifications and Updates

Task management features within a CRM can automate email alerts to board members for task assignments, changes, and updates. This proactive communication keeps board members informed and engaged with community initiatives, projects, and ongoing duties. Email notifications also function as reminders to take action and follow up.

Document Management and Sharing

Within a CRM, document management tools can help management companies store, organize, and exchange key documents, including contracts, rules, meeting minutes, and reports, with the HOA board. Authorized board members may securely view these documents, guaranteeing transparency and quick access to critical information. Additionally, document versioning and permission management improve security and governance.

Reporting and Analytics

CRM systems have extensive reporting and analytics capabilities that provide information on task progress, completion rates, resource allocation, and overall performance. Management companies can generate reports and view information on dashboards to share with the HOA board, highlighting critical data, trends, and successes. These reports provide transparency by offering information about operational efficiency, resident satisfaction, and community initiatives.

5 Features Your CRM should have

Here are the 5 features your CRM should have:

1. Communication

CRM systems should have powerful communication capabilities.  Communication is vital for building connections, resolving issues quickly, and keeping stakeholders informed. CRM\’s communication component offers seamless engagement with residents and board members through several channels like email, phone, text, and portals.

With Pilera’s communication technologies, CAM benefits from seamless contact with homeowners, stakeholders, and the HOA board through many channels. This enables people to select their preferred communication channel, ensuring that timely and relevant communications reach them.

2. Customer Support

CRM systems should enable customer support teams to effectively respond to resident queries, complaints, and service requests. A CRM system with extensive customer support capabilities automates ticket administration, tracks support interactions, and guarantees that issues are resolved on time.

Pilera’s help desk function simplifies customer service for management teams. It enables managers to provide superior customer assistance by leveraging automated processes and knowledge base, increasing resident satisfaction.

3. Operations

A CRM system with strong operations management capabilities simplifies work assignment, scheduling, and tracking. It allows management companies to handle maintenance requests and track repair progress quickly.

Pilera’s operations management tool helps Community Association Management (CAM) improve task management, maintenance, ACRs, violations, and more.   It also empowers collaboration with tools such as ticket assignment, automatic email notifications, and automatic audit logs.

4. Resident Engagement

Engaging residents is critical to creating a lively community and encouraging involvement in events, projects, and decision-making processes. Your HOA CRM should incorporate resident engagement features like community portals, event management, and surveys.

Pilera’s resident engagement portal offers residents a unified platform for accessing community information, participating in debates, and learning about future activities.

5. Board Collaboration

A powerful CRM should have comprehensive board collaboration tools to promote effective governance and decision-making. It allows CAM businesses to create, allocate, and monitor jobs, handle architectural modification requests, and provide reports demonstrating workload and work completion progress.

With Pilera’s board collaboration tools, CAM companies can enhance transparency, improve collaboration, and streamline operations, leading to better governance, informed decision-making, and a more cohesive community environment.

From Transactions to People-First, with CRM designed for CAMs

In conclusion, a CRM system is critical for Community Association Management organizations to manage challenges. An HOA CRM system streamlines communication, provides efficient customer assistance, optimizes operations, increases resident participation, and allows for smooth board cooperation. These capabilities enable CAM businesses to strengthen resident connections, increase transparency and confidence with HOA boards, streamline operational procedures, and provide superior services to their communities. CAM businesses can overcome barriers, increase efficiency, and achieve long-term success by utilizing a CRM system like Pilera while maintaining a flourishing and connected community.

---

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, operations, client support, engagement, and voting.  Book a personalized demo to learn how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

As an HOA management company, enhancing the operations of the communities under your care and building strong community relationships is at the heart of what you do.  But without measuring current efforts, it\’s hard to make changes that positively impact your internal processes and deliver the level of service your clients expect. That\’s where data analytics comes into play.

This article explores how data analytics empowers you to move beyond numbers, making informed decisions with a people-centric focus. From community engagement to maintenance trends, these insights transform how communities are managed, ensuring they thrive under your care.

How data can revolutionize your community management operations

Data analytics empowers you to make informed choices, streamline operations, and enhance community living experiences. 

In this guide, we’ve broken down data analytics into two main categories: 1) For your company 2) For the communities you manage.  

Use our table of contents below to navigate the topics you’re most interested in.  

Your Company:

• Improve Client Services & Build Better Relationships 
• Propel business growth
• Easily Convey the Value You Provide to Boards
• Improve team productivity & staffing decisions

The Communities You Manage

• Communication Effectiveness
• Maintenance Trends
• Security Incident & Resident Dispute Patterns
• Common Rule Violations
• Architectural Changes & Design Trends
• RFP Management Trends
• Resident Support Trends

Data Analytics for Your Company

1) Improve Client Services & Build Better Relationships

Knowing how satisfied your board members and residents are is key to delivering services that go beyond their expectations. A client survey can help you gain valuable insights into how your boards and residents perceive your company. Taking positive actions on their feedback will naturally lead to stronger loyalty and retention.

Consider creating separate surveys for board members and residents with questions that cater to their individual experiences.  

Survey questions for board members:

• How effectively does the management company communicate with the board regarding community matters and updates?
• How responsive is the management company to requests and concerns the board raises?
• How satisfied are you with the communication and handling of common area maintenance?
• How satisfied are you with the management’s use of technology to manage community operations and resident communications?
• How would you rate the professionalism and expertise the management company\’s staff demonstrated?
• What made you choose our management company over other alternatives?  

Survey questions for residents: 

• How likely are you to recommend our management services to another association?
• How effectively does our management company communicate important community updates and announcements?
• Are you satisfied with the maintenance and upkeep of common areas, landscaping, and amenities?
• On a scale of 1 to 5, how well do you think the management company\’s services are contributing to maintaining or increasing property values?
• How responsive is the management company to your requests and concerns?
• How would you rate the availability of management company staff for addressing resident needs?
• How satisfied are you with enforcing community policies regarding noise, parking, and other regulations by the management company?

Pilera enables management companies to create surveys and gain valuable feedback from board members and residents. Some ways that you can utilize Pilera\’s surveys include:

• Create a survey at a community or company level.
• Include custom questions in the form of ratings, drop-down questions, open-ended questions, and more to get the information you need.
• Get a secure link to the survey to distribute to board members and residents through our powerful communication solution.
• Track message delivery and email replies related to your survey communications.

Related: Tips to Improve Your Company\’s Online Reputation

2) Propel Business Growth 

According to studies, 60-70% of all community associations are managed by property and HOA management companies.  With 8,000 new associations forming each year, the demand for HOA management services is increasing, and competition is becoming fierce. To identify areas for growth, make sure your software provides actionable business analytics to retain existing clients and attract new business. 

Pilera\’s Ticket Analytics Report can give you big-picture insights into your company’s operations.  This report provides an aggregated view of all tickets your company is managing across your entire portfolio, including work orders, violations, incident logs, support, ACRs, RFPs, and more.  This report allows you to identify which communities require the most attention from your team and even justify your pricing structure over time.

3) Easily Convey the Value You Provide to Boards

As a management company, one of your challenges is effectively conveying the value you provide to boards. It can be frustrating when you constantly receive questions from board members questioning the value of your services.

Data analytics tools can help you easily demonstrate the value you bring to the table without any doubts or guesswork. Imagine being able to present clear and compelling reports to the board, highlighting key insights.

Pilera’s Ticket Analytics Report enables you to communicate the value your company brings in a way boards will easily understand and appreciate. By showcasing how you proactively address community needs and resolve issues, you can create long-term relationships over time.

Within Pilera, managers can also generate a professional-looking PDF summarizing all the work they have completed for the community during a certain time frame.  Board Members love this report! 

Related: How Your Management Company Can Win New Business 

4) Improve Team Productivity & Staffing Decisions

Limited staffing, high turnover rates, and lack of technology implementation can have a negative impact on your team\’s productivity. This can lead to employees feeling overwhelmed and compromised service quality for your clients.

However, by utilizing HOA software that automates your team\’s workflow and provides analytics on workload, your team can increase productivity, deliver exceptional client services, and feel rewarded for their efforts.

Through Pilera\’s Ticket Analytics Report, company executives can gain valuable insights into employee performance and workload management. This report provides a comprehensive breakdown of all ticket types and closed, open, and assigned tickets by employees.  By analyzing these metrics, executives can make informed decisions about staffing needs. They can identify if employees are on track or overwhelmed with work and then allocate resources to improve the team’s efficiency.  This data gives you a better idea of whether you need to hire additional community managers.

Data Analytics for the Communities You Manage 

1) Analyze Your Communication Efforts 

Communication is vital to the overall well-being and success of your communities.  It’s the foundation of good community engagement, whether you are sharing maintenance schedules, notifying residents of emergencies, distributing newsletters, or inviting residents to community events. However, many communities struggle with understanding the impact of their communication efforts and whether they’re hitting the mark with residents. 

Analyzing your communication efforts can help you identify shortcomings and successes in your strategy, ensuring residents are engaged and well-informed.

Here\’s how you can evaluate and improve your communication strategies with Pilera:

• Delivery Analytics – Pilera provides detailed delivery analytics for each announcement you send to your community. This includes confirmation of email delivery or replies, text message delivery, and details on whether a resident answered a phone call or if it went to voicemail. These analytics help you understand if you\’re reaching residents effectively. 
• Communication Usage Report – This report gives insights into the number of communications sent per community. With this data, you can identify communities communicating effectively and those needing to increase their communication efforts to inform residents better.

Related: HOA Communication Tools to Build a More Connected Community

2) Work Order Trends

Maintenance plays a vital role in ensuring the upkeep and safety of a community. Yet, community management teams often face challenges such as lost work orders, employee burnout, record-keeping, and evaluating vendor performance. Analyzing maintenance data within your HOA software tool can provide valuable insights to address these challenges and improve maintenance operations.

Pilera offers innovative solutions to enhance maintenance operations through data analytics:

Work Order Trends

In each community, you can use the work order dashboard and visual charts to analyze trends over time, including the ratio of open versus closed tickets, work order categories, status breakdowns, and assignment distribution. These insights help identify common maintenance issues and how work orders are progressing. 

Workload

For each community, you can see a breakdown of work orders assigned to various staff members.  This breakdown helps identify overwhelmed staff members and opportunities to redistribute tasks so everyone can perform at their best.  

Backlog

Pilera sends a monthly automated report of stale work orders that have not been worked on in 30 days.  

Vendor Performance

The work order dashboard in Pilera enables you to filter by a vendor company or specific vendor company staff member to see open/closed work order trends and monitor workload.  

Related: How to Make Informed Decisions with Work Order Reports

3) Identify Patterns in Security Incidents & Resident Disputes

Analyzing data on security incidents and resident disputes can help enhance safety measures and overall harmony. 

With data analytics in your HOA management software, you can identify areas of concern and improve security measures, ensuring a safer living environment for residents.  

It\’s also important to track resident complaints and disputes so you can identify recurring issues, implement preventative measures, and make the resolution process easier for your team.  

Pilera\’s Incident Management feature (formerly Activity Logs) empowers managers to monitor incidents and resident interactions at the unit and occupant levels. Easily categorize various types of incidents and utilize the dashboard to filter through data. The dashboard enables you to pinpoint which incidents are most common and take a proactive approach to foster safer communities.

Similar to work order insights, managers can gain the following insights on incidents and resident interactions:

• The trend of open and resolved incident tickets over time.
• A breakdown of incidents and resident interactions by priority.
• A breakdown of incidents by category, so you know which type of issues are most common.
• A breakdown of incident logs assigned to managers lets you see who is overwhelmed and can redistribute tasks effectively. 

4) Common Rule Violations

Ensuring that residents follow the rules in the community’s governing documents is important to preserving property values, enhancing public appeal, and fostering harmony. However, some community managers struggle to ensure compliance is met, especially if residents aren’t aware of the rules or are resistant to them.  

By gathering data analytics on rule violations within your community, you can take proactive steps to improve compliance and educate residents about the importance of following the rules. Examples of analytics that you can gather in Pilera include:

• See which categories of rule violations are most common in each community.
• Repeat offenders of community rule violations
• Breakdown of rule violations assigned to staff members
• A breakdown of open versus resolved rule violations.

For instance, if the most common violations are displays outside homes (such as flags or decorations), you can implement proactive measures to educate and remind residents about the rules and why they\’re important. This can be achieved through automated communications, such as emails or texts, dedicated pages on the community website outlining the rules, or informative knowledge base articles on the topic. You can track the effectiveness of your efforts over time by seeing whether the display violations are still common or have been reduced. 

Related: Balancing Regulations & Holiday Spirit in Your HOA Communities

5) Architectural Compliance and Design Trends

Boosting property value through home improvement projects is a common goal for residents. However, it\’s crucial to ensure that these projects align with your community\’s rules. By staying updated on the architectural changes that your communities are requesting the most, you can provide residents with valuable guidance. When managed effectively, ACRs have the power to enhance curb appeal and attract potential homeowners.

To improve the ACR approval process, managers can view data on:

• The trend approved and rejected ACRs over time.
• A breakdown of ACRs by category so you can understand the most popular types of home improvements and provide tips to residents on improving their property value.  
• The type of ACRs that are rejected the most enables you to provide guidance to residents on compliance and how to submit accurate ACRs.
• A breakdown of ACR approvals by priority. 
• A breakdown of ACRs assigned to managers, board members, or committees.

6) RFP Management 

Managing the Request for Proposal (RFP) process is important to ensure you get clear scopes for community projects, ultimately leading to selecting the vendor that best aligns with your needs.  

However, managers often face challenges in determining which vendors to invite to submit bids for an RFP. Limited time and resources can also prevent thorough analysis of RFP proposals, potentially causing important details to be overlooked.  

Pilera\’s RFP management tool empowers you to gather vital data to enhance your bid process:

• Accepted/Rejected Vendors – In Pilera, you can filter the dashboard to view a list of all vendors who have been accepted or rejected for each category.  This information allows you to consider inviting successful vendors from past RFPs to participate in future ones or reassess previously rejected vendors to determine if they merit another invitation. 
• Employee Workload – Pilera\’s intuitive dashboard and visual charts enable you to monitor the workload of employees responsible for evaluating RFPs within your company. If certain staff members are overwhelmed, you can efficiently redistribute RFPs to other team members. By balancing the workload, you ensure that your team has ample time to thoroughly review RFPs, thereby avoiding the risk of overlooking critical details in the proposals. 
• License Expiration Notifications – Reminders about when a vendor’s license expires can also aid in important decisions about which vendors to invite or consider for your RFP. 

7) Resident Support

Exceptional customer service is the driving force behind successful HOA management businesses. It not only enhances board and resident satisfaction but also strengthens community connections. Today, residents also seek instant answers and rely on their management company to provide prompt and dependable support.

Support analytics can help give you insights into support request trends and staff workload, so you can allocate resources more effectively to resolve your residents’ requests.  

Here are some ways Pilera helps you understand resident support efforts:

• Trends – Learn about the most common issues residents report, so you can take proactive steps to prevent or help residents resolve them.  
• Open vs Closed – A breakdown of open versus closed support tickets over time.
• Priority – A breakdown of support tickets by priority so you’ll know what needs to be addressed immediately.
• Employee Workload – A breakdown of support tickets by managers so you can distribute workload effectively.  

Related: What is Customer Support Software and Why Does Your Management Company Need One?

Transforming Data into Stronger Community Connections

Data analytics in HOA management is not just about crunching numbers.  When interpreted well, you can use data to improve the operations of the communities under your care and contribute to better living experiences. Every aspect of community operations, from communications to maintenance to customer support, can give you insights to build stronger relationships, drive growth, and improve productivity.

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, operations, client support, engagement, and voting.  Book a personalized demo to learn how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

As we enter a brand new year, we’re excited to reflect on the features we\’ve released last year.  Furthermore, for us at Pilera Software, this past year has been a thrilling journey filled with innovation and commitment to making our community management clients’ jobs easier!  This blog article will share an overview of new modules, improvements, and achievements in 2023! 

New Modules

We continue to develop new modules based on our clients\’ needs to help you create more self-sufficient communities. From brand-new modules to improvements, our software has evolved to cater to the growing needs of modern community management.  

1) PileraVOTES

If you’re tired of delays in community decision-making, worried about security, or have to deal with the tedious chore of manually counting votes, PileraVotes can help!  We just introduced PileraVotes, a more streamlined way to run secure and fair voting or elections in your community association.  Our new voting platform allows you to reach quorum faster, improve community decision-making, and increase satisfaction.  Our beta clients have experienced 80% owner participation with the platform.  

How PileraVotes simplifies your community’s voting experience:

• Easy to use & modern voter portal
• Vote on anything – surveys, amendment changes, and elections
• Questions customized to your community’s needs with candidate write-in options
• Fractional voting with unit weights
• Restrict to one vote per unit
• Secure access link
• Tamper-evident technology
• Instant tallying with visual charts & reports
• Integrated with your daily workflow for resident engagement and communication. 

Learn more about E-Voting for your HOA or Condo community in our release notes.

Resource: Guide to Running Smoother HOA Elections 

2) PileraPROCURE (Request for Proposal Software)

Securing qualified vendor bids and contracts for your communities can pose a challenge. That\’s why Pilera launched Pilera Procure (in partnership with RFP Plus), a cutting-edge RFP tracking solution. It centralizes all your request for proposal (RFP) tasks, vendor communications, and documents in a single location, simplifying data retention. Our RFP solution streamlines your processes, saving your team valuable time, fostering stronger vendor connections, and ensuring you can get the best bids for your communities. 

How our RFP management solution makes your procurement process more efficient:

• Manage your entire process, from sending an RFP to finalizing a vendor.
• Automate RFPs quickly with bulk sending and assignment
• Get board member approval on RFPs
• Track vendor and staff responses directly within the RFP
• Protect your community with license expiration notification reminders to managers and vendors.
• Dashboards and charts that give you visual insights into your RFP progress
• View accepted/rejected vendors per category
• All RFPs, documents, and communications are in one place.

  

Improvements

We firmly believe that community management software should make your lives easier, not harder.  Alongside introducing new products, we prioritize continual improvement of our existing functionality. We aim to improve the workflow of the functionality you use and love to bring greater efficiency to your team.  

Message Inbox

The Message Inbox is the newest addition to PileraCONNECT, our Communications module.  For busy community managers juggling multiple tasks, sifting through endless emails to locate a vendor or board member\’s response can eat up valuable time. Our new Message Inbox changes that. Now, you can find email responses within seconds, not hours. This inbox consolidates all email conversations from residents, vendors, board members, and fellow managers that originated within Pilera. The powerful search and filtering capabilities let you find conversations in a snap. 

Architectural Change Request Committees

The ACR committees feature was a popularly requested feature among our clients who needed a better way to streamline the review and approval process for ACRs.  We introduced the ACR Commitee Role, which you can assign board members and residents to so they can access ACRs, approve/decline them, and stay informed throughout the process.

Ticket Charts

Want to track the trend of open versus closed tickets? Easy! How about a breakdown of your team\’s tasks based on priority? Or a chart showing ticket assignments? We\’ve got you covered!

Ticket Charts are designed to quickly highlight operational trends and the work affecting your communities. Explore these charts across various ticket types—from work orders and support to ACR, violations, and more—to gain quick insights into your team\’s activities.

Ticket Messages

View a history of all conversations from vendors and managers/assignees within the ticket itself, eliminating the need to search through your emails endlessly. 

Other Ticket Improvements  

• Create and update tickets in bulk – Speed through your work by duplicating and updating tickets in batches.  These enhancements are great if you need to assign similar tickets to the same staff member or close multiple tickets at once and need to notify the resident. 
• Create tickets directly from the dashboard – Managers, board members, and residents can save time by creating or submitting tickets right from the dashboard in Pilera. 
• Select ticket attachments – When replying to a ticket, you can choose which attachments to include in your email.  For example, you can send a different attachment to a vendor than a resident.  Once sent, you can also track the attachments you send as part of a conversation in the history of the ticket.  
• Modify ticket attachments – You can also easily add or remove new file attachments to a ticket and retain the history in the audit logs. 

Vendor Improvements

• Filter dashboard by vendor – See the workload associated with vendors in your community anytime.  
• Manage vendor staff in different departments – You can add multiple staff members from a vendor company to the database and allow them to be assigned tickets.  That way, you can communicate more easily with an employee from different departments, such as accounting, a triage person, or the owner of the vendor company, etc. 
• Set a default vendor assignee – To avoid any confusion about who should be assigned work orders from a vendor company, you can set a default vendor contact to be assigned work orders.
• Invalid contact information – In the app, you will see if a vendor staff member cannot receive notifications because their email address is invalid. 
• Vendor communication tracking – Email communication with vendor staff is now tracked in the Message Center. Additionally, vendors can reply to work order and RFP tickets and their responses are tracked in the Message Inbox.

Achievements 

Pilera earned recognition as a top software performer across multiple industry reports last year!  We couldn’t have done it without the support of our amazing clients, who inspire us to keep innovating!  

GetApp for Exceptional Performance in Property Management Software Category

In July 2023, Pilera was recognized as a Category Leader by GetApp, a free online service that helps organizations find the right software in the property management technology space.  GetApp’s recognition of our software in this category is a significant achievement.  Pilera has an overall rating of 4.8/5 on GetApp.  Check out our reviews here!

FrontRunner for Property Management Software by Software Advice

In June 2023, Pilera was recognized as a top-rated product by Software Advice in their 2023 FrontRunners Report for the Top Property Management Software Category.  In their report, Pilera ranks as one of the highest-rated products for its customer service and usability.    Check out the reviews here!

Capterra Shortlist for Property Management Software

Capterra is a popular free online service that helps organizations find software that’s right for them.  In June 2023, Pilera was recognized as a Top Performer in the 2023 Capterra Shortlist for Property Management Software.  With an overall rating of 4.8/5, our clients rated Pilera the highest for its customer service and ease of use. 

What our customers say:

“Pilera has been influential in helping me become more acclimated to my job as a property manager. It allows me easy access to reaching out to residents, as well as tracking the history of communication between management and homeowners. I would absolutely recommend this software to any and all property management firms.”

Nick K. (Capterra)

“Our office now runs all our resident interface and communications through Pilera. The resident portals have been a big hit with our residents. I can’t tell you how happy our Boards are with our reporting capabilities. What we really appreciate from a business perspective is the level of support and the constant improvement culture Pilera exhibits. They don’t rest on their laurels. They continue to improve on their offerings.”

Carlos (Source: Software Advice)

“I love that the software is not complicated. It is very user-friendly. I love that it provides a “go-to” place for our residents to keep up with the community and their accounts. I also love that Pilera offers great customer service that is professional, reliable, and provides resolution when I have an issue.”

Sierra (GetApp)

Conclusion

In 2023, our team was hard at work releasing brand-new modules and improvments, all shaped by our customers\’ feedback! This year, we\’re excited to bring new features to help you create self-sustaining communities, improve your team\’s workflow, and grow your company!  Stay tuned to our releases this year on our blog! 

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. Book a personalized demo so you can see firsthand how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Every day, HOA managers take on the responsibility of ensuring the smooth operations of their communities. With the constant stream of resident inquiries and the need to demonstrate your value to the board, it can be challenging to regain control of your day. This is the perfect opportunity to reassess your current processes and technology stack.

However, with the ever-improving technology landscape and so many software options available, it\’s easy to feel overwhelmed.  How do you identify the right technology partner that will help you boost operational efficiency and improve client relations? In this article, we share a list of 7 important factors to consider to make searching for new software easier.

1) Diverse resident communication & engagement options

Communicating regularly with residents is vital because it reduces frustration, helps you operate more efficiently, and leads to overall community satisfaction. Residents of all ages and backgrounds have their own preferred methods of staying connected. For instance, older residents, who may not be tech-savvy, tend to favor postal mail or phone calls. On the other hand, millennials prefer text messages. 

Does your current software or process ensure that everyone feels included?  If not, it\’s important to consider adopting software that offers diverse communication options.

With HOA management software, you can cater to the unique preferences of your residents by offering text messages, email, phone calls, postal mail, websites, portals, and community-only discussion boards. Everyone can receive important updates and stay connected in the way that suits them best. By letting residents choose how they want to hear from you, you can increase participation and alleviate the workload for your team.  

Here are some features your automated communication platform should include:

• Phone, text, email, and postal mailing options
• Distribution groups
• Resident communication & language preference
• Advanced scheduling
• Templates
• Message delivery analytics
• Invalid contact reports & troubleshooting
• Strong message delivery reputation

Pilera Communications

Pilera\’s all-in-one messaging tool covers every aspect of your communication lifecycle.  You can cater to every demographic with phone, email, text, and postal mailing options.

Our dynamic distribution groups automatically update as residents join or leave the community, so you know you’re reaching the right people. Plus, you can track the delivery of your messages in real time and know who opened a text or email or picked up a phone call. Our team monitors delivery reputation, guaranteeing your messages reach every time.

2) Eliminate repetitive tasks

Is data entry, managing repairs, or fielding board member tasks taking up a lot of time? If so, it\’s important to consider HOA software that simplifies your workflow and helps you regain control of your day. That way, you can focus on what matters most, such as improving client relations. HOA software enables you to automate time-consuming tasks like communicating with an entire community, storing and sharing documents, managing maintenance, tracking resident requests, and managing resident data. 

Here are some ways that HOA software can help you automate vital community tasks:

• Maintenance – Residents can submit work orders, which you can assign to your team and monitor for completion. You can send automated notifications to vendors, staff, and residents, keeping everyone informed.
  
• Document management – You can store and organize community documents such as CC&Rs, meeting minutes, financial statements, and newsletters.  You can restrict access to documents to staff, board members, tenants, and owners to increase security and ensure no unauthorized access to confidential documents. Residents and board members can then login and view documents, thus reducing calls to the office. 
  
• Events – Manage community gatherings and meetings more efficiently with features such as recurring events and email notifications. Residents can log into the portal at their convenience and stay up to date about the latest community.
  
• Architectural reviews – Residents can submit architectural change requests online and supply photos or documents.  You can assign ACRs to committee members to approve digitally.  Residents can track their requests online, reducing the need to contact the office for updates.  When you have one place to streamline your ACR process, you can reduce paperwork, speed up the review process, ensure compliance with community guidelines, and improve resident satisfaction.
  
• Online payments – Residents can make payments online, helping you create a predictable flow of operating income for the communities you manage.
  
• Voting –  Online voting or survey platforms eliminate the need for paper forms and manually compiling responses. With HOA software, you can conduct board elections and other voting activities securely online and view results instantly. 

How Pilera can reduce administrative burden

Pilera’s HOA management platform takes the burden out of managing important community tasks such as document storage, maintenance, ACRs, events, voting, and more.  In our recent client survey, 89% of managers say that time savings with Pilera freed them up to work on more strategic tasks for their communities. Having a single place to manage essential community tasks opens up an environment for managers, board members, residents, and vendors to all work together on their shared community goals.

3) Stability

Whether doing on-site visits, working in the office, or at a meeting, it\’s important to have reliable tools to work uninterrupted from anywhere. We recommend choosing software that is known for its stable and reliable performance.  Before investing in software, research user feedback on review platforms like Capterra to understand what your peers like and don\’t like about a particular software vendor. Then, schedule a demo with your interested software providers to help you understand how they can solve your challenges and serve as a technology partner you can rely on.  

Pilera has a 99.9% uptime, so you can count on uninterrupted access to the platform.  Our platform is also built with other measures in place, such as fault protection for communications and a responsive design so you can work from anywhere.

4) HOA Management Software that grows with you

The industry is continuously evolving, and so should your software. Consider choosing an HOA software solution that updates its platform regularly, is responsive to market changes, and can adapt to your needs.

One of the common myths about finding new software solutions is that a software provider may offer more features than you need. This often results in you overpaying for features you don\’t need, potentially diminishing the value you provide to your clients. Choosing a software provider that can tailor its offerings based on what you need is important. That way, you can feel confident that you\’re getting value.

At Pilera, we are committed to providing our customers with the best tools to improve their workflow. Pilera regularly rolls out new features, enhancements, and bug fixes on a monthly basis.  We continue to develop many new features backed by our client\’s feedback, such as discussion boards, bulk ticket creation and editing, and more. Our software is designed to cater to the unique requirements of management companies and associations of all sizes and processes. With our a-la-carte model, you have the freedom to choose the specific products that meet your needs. As your business grows, you can easily add more products to further streamline your operations.

5) Proven customer service, training, and onboarding:

The right technology partner should be there to assist you with questions when you need it, right from onboarding and throughout your journey. In the beginning, it’s essential to have comprehensive onboarding and training so you can start managing your communities more effectively. On-demand and responsive support helps you to get quick resolutions to your questions, so you can focus less on getting help and more on the tasks that matter. It’s important to ensure your chosen software solution offers many ways to get help when needed.  These include self-help options such as videos and help articles.  It’s also essential to have rapid email and phone support for detailed questions.  

Pilera’s support team is highly regarded for providing exceptional service in a timely manner, at no additional cost.  We also offer many ways to get help via phone, email, a self-help knowledge base, and videos.  Our onboarding team guides you through the rollout process and provides extensive training to help you get started.  

6) Visibility & security:

You’re working with a lot of community and resident data daily, so security should be a top priority.  Choosing a software provider that is built with security in mind is vital.  Look for a software solution that offers password-protected portals and different permissions levels.  That way, the right people in your organization can access only what they need.  

Pilera is built with industry-standard security from the ground up to keep your community’s data safe.  Our cloud-based platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has been proven to work in the toughest situations.  Our team is on call 24/7 to handle any security or stability issues.   

7) Value for Money:

Maximizing the value of your software is essential to improve operations and grow your company. Digitalizing all your community processes, such as communications, document storage, resident data management, forms, and voting, can reduce paperwork, time, and money.  Through task automation, you can allocate more time and resources towards other important aspects of community management, improving productivity, keeping your team happier and organized, and enhancing client satisfaction. View community management software as a positive long-term investment for your company rather than an expense.

Pilera\’s community management software helps you automate repetitive tasks and provides on-demand access to important community information. In our recent client satisfaction study, managers report getting one day back per week on average.

Resource: Community Management Software ROI  

Conclusion:

Choosing the right HOA management software can help you boost efficiency, improve resident satisfaction, and create stronger client relations. Your chosen software should be easy to use, flexible to meet the needs of diverse communities, reliable, and secure. In a tech-driven world, where communication is critical, and residents expect quick and accurate updates, HOA software plays a vital role in the success of your communities. By considering the factors above, you can find a software provider that will cater to your specific needs, optimize your workflow, and achieve ROI – leading to happier residents and less stressed management teams.

Smarter HOA Management with Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. To learn how Pilera can help to improve efficiency and reduce costs, book a personalized demo. Discover how you can communicate with residents 30x faster and regain work efficiency by 25% with Pilera today!

As a community manager, staying up-to-date with the latest technology is essential.  That way, you can meet board and resident expectations as they evolve.  If your team is currently losing time to outdated software or handling tasks in many applications, it is a sign that it is time to change your software.  With efficient community management software, you can reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and improve your team\’s workflow.

When migrating to new community management software, it is natural for your team to feel concerned.  Though you may face some challenges, such as learning a new system or how it will impact residents, the rewards of change far outweigh the risks.

In this article, we talk about eight common myths about changing community management software.  Then, we will talk about how you can overcome these challenges.

1) Learning new software is too time-consuming.

As a community manager, you manage many communities and handle daily tasks. Learning new software can start to feel overwhelming. Some software platforms are challenging to use, demanding more time and effort from your team.  

We recommend ensuring software providers can offer the following services:  

• Easy to use software to communicate, create tasks, respond to resident or board requests, and more.  
• Help set up your communities and answer any questions you have. 
• Flexible support options such as email, phone, videos, and help articles so you can get the help you need when needed.
• Support should be part of your ongoing subscription, so you don\’t have to worry about paying extra.

Pilera’s property management software is one of the easiest-to-use platforms in the industry.  We help you avoid the headaches that come with new software implementation.  In addition, Pilera provides onboarding, training, and ongoing support at no extra charge. 

2) We’re already using our email service provider. Why use a communication platform?

Effective communication with residents, board members, vendors, and staff is vital to your operations.  Many managers use their company\’s primary email service provider to communicate with residents.  Relying on your company\’s email provider for communication can feel overwhelming.  Searching for emails takes too much time.  It can also take hours to update your email list whenever a resident\’s contact information or preference changes.  Communication software helps you cut down on manual tasks while keeping residents informed. 

Your technology provider should offer the following capabilities to enhance your communications:

• Phone, email, text, and postal mailing to cater to broader community demographics. 
• Distribution groups update when a resident\’s contact information changes or they join/leave the community.
• Message delivery confirmation to know if a resident opened an email or received a text. 
• Reverse 911 functionality to send out emergency blasts by phone or text. 
• Language translation so you can ensure every message is received and understood.

With Pilera\’s automated communication platform, each community saves an average of $4,927 per year over traditional methods.  You can reach an entire community or group of residents the way they want – through phone, email, text, and postal mailing.  Translate emails and text into more than 100 languages, and send phone calls in Spanish.  Pilera also tracks the delivery of each message you send and tracks email replies in a message inbox. 

Download Whitepaper: Understanding return on investment for your community’s technology

3) An all-in-one solution is the best option.

There are many accounting software platforms in the community management industry.  Accounting platforms specialize in account receivables, payables, budgeting, and forecasting features.  Many accounting platforms also include basic management features.  These may include work orders, ACRs, violations, and other features.  Although an all-in-one system may sound attractive, most providers started with accounting and built the management piece later.  That means you will likely miss out on the more advanced communications and operations features that management platforms focus on. 

Even though using two separate systems means splitting your budget between the two, you can benefit by gaining a return on investment in the long run.  By integrating your accounting software with a management platform, your team can enjoy the strengths of both systems.  Through accounting software, your team can track the financial health of your communities.  Management software helps you improve customer service, operations, and resident satisfaction.  

Pilera has 2-way integration with some of the best accounting platforms in the market.  Pilera enhances the accounting features you love with advanced communications, client support, operations, and resident engagement features.  Through the integration, you can save time, reduce manual errors, and improve data accuracy.   

4) Implementing new software will disrupt residents.

Another concern we often hear is that switching to new software will cause disruption for residents, and they will have to learn how to use new software.  Is the change going to cause an influx of residents calling in? How will residents perceive this change? 

Change can be daunting, especially for residents. But, an easy-to-use portal and seamless sign-up process can bring a sense of calm to the transition process. 

Look for a provider with the following capabilities: 

• Access to community information anywhere and on any device.
• Simple resident registration
• Convenient online payment options
• Features that get your residents coming back for more, such as discussion boards, documents, events, and a marketplace.  
• Residents can easily manage their data.
• Self-help videos and instructions for residents to use the resident portal.  

Pilera’s onboarding team has helped ease transitions from single associations to management companies of more than 50,000 units.  PAS, a California management company, transitioned thousands of residents from their previous platform to Pilera.   

\”Pilera\’s support has been exceptional. Having us migrate from one platfrom to the other without that support, we would not have looked as good as we did. It gives our company a finished polish.\”

Carlos Molina, CTO
Professional Association Services, Inc.

5) Already using spreadsheets to track community data

Many managers use spreadsheets to organize and track their tasks, including work orders, resident contact information, violations, and support issues.  Yet, managing several spreadsheets over time can be overwhelming.  Since spreadsheets don\’t readily facilitate manager collaboration, tasks can easily slip through the cracks.  

You can organize your team\’s work under a single roof with community management software.  Community management software helps you to manage community tasks and resident requests.  Features such as comments, documents, and real-time updates help your team to work better together.  You can respond to resident requests faster and even empower them to check the status of their tickets.

With Pilera’s community operations software, your team can work together on and manage work orders, architectural control requests, rule violations, and tasks.  Our clients increased efficiency by 25% and saved $5,000 per staff member per year with our ticketing system.  Features such as email reply tracking, audit logs, documents, and comments give your team visibility into each task.

6) Software has too many features that we don’t need.

Every HOA community has unique challenges to solve every day. When transitioning to new software, you may be concerned about software providers requiring you to use features you don\’t need.  

Some software providers offer one or two pricing plans, often leaving communities overpaying or needing more value.  

When evaluating software providers, see if they will offer solutions that fit your community\’s needs: 

• Customized software packages – Do software providers allow you to select which products/features you want?
• Start slow as you go – If you don\’t need all the products a provider offers at the get-go but see potential down the line, do they allow you to choose what you want now and scale later?  Your software platform should be customizable, allowing you to add new features as you grow.

Pilera works with thousands of HOAs, condos, co-ops, and apartment communities. Each has unique challenges and needs. Our a-la-carte pricing model enables our customers to choose the products that are right for them.  

7) New software will change how we currently operate.

Another myth about transitioning to new software is it will change how you operate. Community management platforms should help you organize your existing processes. Software shouldn\’t change how you operate! 

Here at Pilera, we recognize that each community operates differently. We designed our software to give you flexibility in creating, managing, and overseeing your tasks:

• Enable different products and features based on your community\’s needs.  
• Distribution groups enable you to combine units and people to send a message to. 
• User roles help you control who has access to send messages, create tasks, manage documents, and more. 
• Categories enable you to organize the type of work orders, RFPs, support tickets, ACRs, violations, and tasks you manage to identify patterns or trends.
• Ticket permissions give you control of whether residents can view work orders, ACRs, support, violations, and their associated comments. 

8) Our current process/software is good enough.

Is your current HOA management process or software just functional, or is it helping you create more efficiency for your team? 

Suppose you are spending too much time on manual data entry, constantly chasing your team members for task updates, struggling to identify community issues, lacking an overview of your team’s work, dealing with constant complaints from board members, or fielding too many calls from residents. In that case, it may be time to consider switching software. 

By changing to community management software that automates tedious tasks, improves collaboration with board members, and creates self-sufficient communities, you can deliver a better resident experience and boost efficiency for your team. 

Pilera has helped community management companies and associations regain efficiency by 25% and reach residents 30x faster.  Additionally, each community saves over $4,900 over traditional communication methods such as company email service providers and postal mailing. 

Conclusion

Changing software can be scary, but it can be worth it for better efficiency, growth, and client satisfaction.  As you check which community management software is the right choice, consider the following criteria for a successful transition: 

1. A software that is easy to learn and offers onboarding, training, and self-help options. 
2. A communication platform that keeps you organized saves your community money and improves resident satisfaction by offering many ways to stay informed. 
3. Leverage the strengths of both your accounting platform and management platform to monitor financial performance and deliver an excellent resident experience. 
4. Ease the transition for residents to your new platform with a simple registration process and easy-to-use features. 
5. Replace static spreadsheets with an online system that helps your team stay focused and improves collaboration. 
6. Select a platform that lets you choose which products your communities need.
7. Software that enhances your processes without changing how you operate.
8. Software platforms that help you automate tedious tasks and empower you to improve the client experience.

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. To learn how Pilera can help to improve efficiency and reduce costs, book a personalized demo. 

Are board members truly satisfied with the level of service provided by your HOA management company?

Over the past few years, the expectations of board members have changed drastically. As an HOA management company, the opinion and expectations of the board members should be of high importance to you.

In this article, you’ll learn about 4 ways management companies can meet and even exceed board member expectations.

1) Increase visibility

An important goal of board members is to ensure that community operations run smoothly and that decisions taken are in the collective members\’ best interests.

An HOA or Condo association will often hire a management company to help them to run the community\’s operations and handle finances, maintenance, violations, complaints, and more. Board members want to gain visibility into the community\’s operations and finances. They also want to know the type of issues residents are experiencing and how the management company is handling these interactions.

Managers can meet board member expectations by improving visibility, regularly communicating with board members, and providing them with status updates. One of the most useful ways to give your board members visibility is by creating a monthly Board Packet. Board packets can include financial statements, reports on in-progress and completed work orders, resident support requests, violations, and any other tasks that managers are working on.

Pilera’s HOA software empowers managers to increase visibility and communication with the board through real-time analytics. The Ticket Analytics Report gives insight into the open, closed, and in-progress tickets for work orders, ACRs, rule violations, support, and tasks. With the help of these real-time reports, managers can directly communicate the value of their services to the board member and thereby improve board member satisfaction.

2) Fast response time

In the digital age, customers expect a fast response time from the companies they do business with, and it\’s no different for HOA and condo communities. It\’s important to establish a method of communication with your board members and residents and the frequency with which you will communicate with them. When they reach out to you, it\’s important to set expectations on when they will get a response. Here are a few ways to manage expectations and improve your response times:

• Inform your board members of when they can expect a response from you. Is it within 24 hours or 48 hours? Clearly state this on your website or email responses.
• Maintain a singular place for board members and residents to submit requests, whether that is through email, a form on your website, or an online portal.
• Encourage self-service in your community by keeping your website or online portal fresh with the latest community information, documents, events, and more.

3) Reduce the risk of liability

Since board members volunteer their time to run the association, they may not have the expertise to handle rules and regulations that impact the community. Therefore, they often look up to an HOA management company to guide them through legal questions or challenges. Managers need to be well-versed in community association law and actions that a community needs to take to comply.

Also, by maintaining information on a technology platform, you can help board members reduce the risk of a community\’s liability. Here\’s how:

• Maintain all interactions and communications within the community. This can be done effortlessly through an HOA software such as Pilera’s.
• Keep a history of all open and closed tickets for work orders, ACRs, rule violations, support, and tasks.
• Pilera\’s document library has board-specific folders so they can access important rules & regulations.
• Managing repair work is a major task undertaken by management companies. HOA associations are required to acquire a minimum of 3 vendor bids for repair and maintenance work. Managers can help associations compare bids and secure the best vendor.
• With Pilera\’s vendor management, you can easily store vendor information and receive automated COI reminders, thereby reducing the community\’s liability.

4) Manage daily operations efficiently

Board members rely heavily upon HOA management companies to run their associations and manage their operations. An HOA management company acts primarily as an advisor of the HOA board and serves as its helping hand. As an HOA manager, you have to handle a variety of tasks such as maintenance, resident requests, violations, architectural change approvals, vendor bids, and more. With so many tasks to manage, time management and efficiency are critical. Creating more efficiency enables you to generate better outcomes for the community as well as save the community money. Here are some ways in which you can improve team efficiency:

• Streamline processes – You should have a well-documented process of how your team handles different tasks from start to finish and how to handle any problems that arise.
• Improve communication with staff and board members – It\’s important to keep your board members informed of tasks and projects that you are working on for them. With a collaborative HOA platform such as Pilera\’s, you can update the status of any work, communicate with board members and staff, and automatically maintain a history of each task.
• Invest in technology to automate tasks – With the right technology, you can manage a variety of tasks, communicate with board members and residents, and monitor your workflow.

Conclusion

By working with your board member clients, you can create more self-sufficient communities and improve operations together. When you invest in automated technology, you can improve transparency with the Board, respond faster, reduce any potential risks or liability, and create more efficiency.

---

Are you ready to start a business in an exciting industry? If yes, then being a homeowner association manager is the perfect place for you to start. By starting your own HOA property management company, you can help a community thrive beyond its imagination while earning a comfortable lifestyle for yourself as well.

It doesn\’t matter whether or not you have experience running a business. Your knowledge of managing homeowner\’s associations will take you a long way in this field. Here\’s how you can start and manage your own HOA property management company:

Understand the HOA Industry and the Rules in Your Location

First and foremost, do your due diligence and ensure you understand how local homeowners’ associations operate in your area. Even if you are well-versed in it, it will benefit you to analyze your local area again and refresh your knowledge about the industry as well.

As you begin learning more about the HOAs in your local area, try to narrow down the needs and requirements of these associations. This will help you understand how you can fill a gap and address the needs of local HOAs. 

These include:

●     Community maintenance

●     Collecting resident fees and bill payments

●     Managing finances of the HOA association

●     Processing resident work orders or support requests.

●     Creating a channel of communication between the association and its residents.

Furthermore, it is important to have an in-depth knowledge of the local laws and rules governing the communities. At this stage of your research, you must also narrow down the type of associations you\’d like to serve. These could be anything between the range of gated communities to high-rise buildings.

Type of Communities

○ Single-family HOA – Single-family homes are a type of detached family homes and hence, their most important needs are processing HOA fees, keeping residents informed, and keeping track of violations.

○ Gated communities – These communities follow strict regulations to control the pedestrian flow and are characterized by closed walls and perimeters. Their needs include security, package tracking, and vehicle tracking.

○ Luxury condos and High Rise Buildings – These are buildings with multiple units that may or may not be owned by different individuals. Their requirements include managing amenities operations and reservations.

○ Other types of communities you may be in the best position to manage include active adult communities, golf communities, or townhomes.

Size of the Community

Next up, you must decide what community sizes you can manage. This will depend upon the services you\’re offering and your workforce. If this is your first time stepping foot into the HOA industry, then it\’s best to start slow and pick up a smaller community to work with.

This will help you to understand what a community demands and how you can improve your working efficiency as well. Once you\’ve got a hold of your chosen community, you can move on to the next steps.

Differentiate Yourself

A great way to succeed in your HOA community is to figure out who your competitors are and decide what your ultimate selling point is. This will help you stand apart from the crowd and cater to your target audience better. Here are some of the ways you can make your mark in the industry:

• Service Offering – Define the types of services and the range of services you are ready to provide as a full-time management service.  This can include communication, accounting, planning, budgeting, on-site management, and serving as a direct contact for residents.
• What Sets You Apart – Identify the areas where your competitors are lacking and try incorporating them into your management company. For instance, if your competitor doesn\’t provide legal planning to the association, then you can go ahead and incorporate it into your plan.
• Personalized Customer Service – Due to the advancements in technology, the expectations of people have increased by leaps and bounds. Therefore, people nowadays love to have detailed and personalized customer service. You can provide fast responses to your customers and be on top of resident complaints.
• Expertise – Set an example of professionalism and expertise in your company by truly putting the needs of the community association and the residents ahead of your own.
• Staff professionalism and expertise – Will you require staff to have a professional certification in community association management? It\’s important to encourage staff members to get accredited through local trade organizations or the Community Association Institute (CAI). CAI offers professional certifications and courses to help managers stay updated in the field.

Company Name and Branding

Once you\’re done with the above principles of starting a company, you need to hit the accelerator on your company’s branding. Ensure that the name you choose has a click to it and can make a connection with your potential customers. Remember that your brand name must be easy to remember and identifiable.

Create Your Website

Your HOA management company should have a website of its own to reach out to your target audience on a larger scale and find more leads for your business.

Optimizing your website as per the latest search engine trends will help your target audience to find you easily on the internet and give you an edge over your competitors. Furthermore, it is also important to include a section on the website about your contact information.

Leverage Technology

The latest property management software can be your best friend in sailing your way through the HOA industry. An HOA software like Pilera can help you store resident information, keep track of residential requests and maintenance, view important community documents, communicate with the residents, collect dues, and pull up reports.

As your company grows, find software that will accommodate your growth through portfolio management capabilities. This will enable your staff to multitask much better. Furthermore, Pilera makes this digital transition easier for your company by providing special start-up pricing.

Come Up with a Pricing Plan

You need to develop a pricing plan that will include administrative expenses, legal expenses, HR & payroll. Ensure that the pricing is a round-figure monthly fee so that your pricing is easy for customers to understand.

Typically, management companies charge $10-20 per unit per month, according to All HOA Management. Depending on the location and the needs of the community, what you decide to charge HOAs can vary accordingly.

Marketing of Your Business:

Marketing your business will help spark an interest in your company amongst your target audience. Digital marketing tools like social media can play a huge role in expanding your business and your reach. Another important marketing strategy is to be listed on search engines such as Google and Bing or review sites such as Yelp so potential customers can find you.

Conclusion

Even though starting your own HOA property management company might seem like a daunting task at first, developing a plan to help you identify potential customers and your service offerings can help you get off to a good start. 

Leveraging HOA software from the start can help you organize resident requests and communication so you can steadily grow your company.  HOA management platforms such as Pilera can help make things easier for you. So, begin your journey in the HOA industry today with the latest technology right by your side!

Communication is vital to a community’s success.  It enables boards and managers to operate the community more efficiently and increase transparency with residents.  However, boards and managers often struggle with keeping residents informed in an ever-changing world.  Which HOA communication tools can you use to meet your resident’s expectations? How do you choose the right tools for your community\’s unique needs?

The importance of having multiple HOA communication tools

It’s important to have multiple communication channels in your community outreach. Let’s first dive into the reasons why this is important. 

Increase Reach

Your message will get across more effectively when you utilize tools that resonate with your residents.  It’s a good idea to let your residents choose how they prefer to hear from you.

Increase Engagement

Residents will feel included when they are informed in a way that works best for them.  They are more likely to tune in to what is going on in the community and become engaged.  Using multiple communication methods to keep your residents engaged makes you more likely to reach a quorum in your annual board meetings.

Meet Different Needs

Different needs call for different communication methods. For example, some of your residents might like to receive text message reminders for upcoming board meetings.  You may also have different groups of residents who would like to receive newsletters in an email format vs print.

Protect

The lack of communication or not using the right channels can increase your community\’s risk of getting sued by homeowners.  Your community can save thousands of dollars in litigation costs when communicating frequently and clearly.

Comply

Every community’s governing documents or state laws differ, so it’s important to understand what they require to comply. For example, a Florida law that went into effect in 2019 requires condo associations with over 150 units to post documents on a password-protected site or portal.  By contrast, Nevada now requires all community associations to send postal mail for all communications and other electronic means they already use.

10 HOA Communication Tools

Now that you understand the role of good communication in your community, we’ll dive into various forms of communication you can use.  You can click on any communication method in the table of contents to learn more about it. 

8) Resident Discussion Board/Forum

As we mentioned earlier, many communities use Facebook Groups or Nextdoor to communicate without the oversight of management or board members. If the board and management aren\’t seeing complaints, they can\’t address them before it gets out of control. If your community is looking for a better way to facilitate resident discussions but also manage community issues internally more effectively, a Discussion Board is a good choice. Discussion Boards are available within a password-protected resident portal where residents can communicate with each other and managers/board members gain better oversight into community issues.

Use cases for discussion board in your HOA:

• Exchange ideas on home improvements
• Provide feedback on community amenities
• Get recommendations for products and services
• Find ways to stay connected with other community members, such as through a book or gardening club.
• Gain insights on issues or topics that matter most to your residents, how they feel about it, and ways to improve the resident experience.

With Discussion Boards such as Pilera\’s, you can assign moderators to oversee conversations, remove inappropriate topics or comments, submit private comments for other managers/board members to view, and publish rules to create a more enjoyable experience for your community.

Conclusion: HOA Communication Tools to Inform & Engage Your Residents

When boards and managers can effectively communicate with residents and one another, they can improve operations and increase resident satisfaction. Using various HOA communication tools enables you to reach every resident in the best way for them. It’s important to clearly inform your residents what you will use each communication method for. 

All of the HOA communication tools we highlighted have their own unique uses:

• Email is a diverse tool for sending updates, reminders, and even more detailed information in an e-newsletter. 
• Phone calls are essential during emergencies and for resident demographics who do not have text or email.  
• Text messages can be instrumental during emergencies and can be used for non-intrusive reminders and updates. 
• Postal mail is useful when a resident doesn\’t have electronic means of communication and for non-urgent, transactional communications.
• Community websites and resident portals provide a one-stop shop for residents to access all community information. 
• Social media, discussion boards, and virtual meeting solutions take resident engagement a step further when everyone can have productive conversations about the community in real-time.  

When there are so many HOA communication tools available, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.  However, you don’t need to use every tool out there.  It’s more essential to use tools that cater to your residents’ needs and comply with your governing documents and local laws. Try a combination of these tools today and you will surely see increased resident satisfaction.

---

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier property management software that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel improve communication and customer service. Request a personalized demo so you can learn how Pilera’s community management suite can increase work efficiency for your company.

As a board member or a community manager, you hold regular HOA board meetings on a monthly and annual basis to discuss important community issues, make decisions, and communicate those decisions to residents. Successful board meetings are critical to smooth community operations, reducing costs, and increasing resident satisfaction. However, many board meetings are plagued by low attendance, an unorganized agenda, and overrun meetings. This can cause frustration for residents, board members, and managers alike. In this post, you will learn how to improve your HOA board meeting by offloading some key tasks onto technology platforms.

Preparing for your HOA Board Meeting

1. Schedule your HOA Board meeting well in advance, and notify your residents.

Low resident attendance is one of the biggest challenges that board members and managers face.  It’s important to schedule board meetings well in advance and communicate with residents.  Notifying residents in a timely manner can help alleviate attendance woes by giving them enough time to fit the meeting into their busy schedules.*

Community management platforms can help to keep residents informed and increase attendance.  Through such a platform, you can create one-time or recurring events and notify residents on-demand.  Through Pilera’s event calendar feature, managers can create a custom Board meeting calendar, set recurring events, and notify the community by user role. Residents can log into their community portal and view a calendar with all the upcoming events.

2. Create an agenda and make it accessible to residents

Most states require that an agenda be created for the board meeting. The purpose of an agenda is to keep track of all the issues that need to be discussed or resolved in the board meeting. It generally includes topics such as maintenance projects, manager updates, disputes, and homeowner concerns.  In some states such as California, residents must receive a copy of the agenda along with the meeting notice 4 days in advance of the meeting.

A document management system can make it easy to store agendas and share them with residents. Make sure that through your document management system, you can create folders and subfolders to organize your documents. Your residents will then be able to find what they\’re looking for quickly.  

In preparation for your meeting, you can also take advantage of a task management solution to keep track of all agenda items.  Through Pilera’s task management system, you can create tasks and assign them to other board members or managers. You can create a special category called \”Agenda\” and use the dashboard to filter just those items during the meeting.   

3. Survey your residents

Getting your residents involved and curbing apathy starts with letting them know their opinion matters.  A survey is a good way to collect resident feedback prior to the meeting so that you can stay on track during the meeting.  You can decide which ones to respond to via email and which require more discussion during the meeting. 

Some community management platforms provide automated communications and form features to automate this process.  Through Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can create simple or more comprehensive forms.  Through our automated communications feature, you can distribute the form link electronically and track who clicked on it. Charts, searchable tables, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets help you to capture the data you need to make decisions.

4. Holding an election during your annual meeting

During annual meetings, communities will usually hold elections for members to vote for the next year\’s board positions. Many communities are now turning to online voting as a way to increase owner participation. Residents can vote from anywhere, even in the comfort of their own homes. In an online election, it\’s important to prepare the online ballots well ahead of time. Make sure that candidate information and how they plan to operate and improve the community are clear on the ballot.

As many residents may worry about security and privacy of their data, it\’s important to make sure that your community management platform has security protocols in place. Pilera\’s integration with Formsite for voting provides a secure platform for residents to vote and management to store election results. It also allows one vote per unit so your elections remain fair and compliant. The results are also instant, eliminating the need for managers to manually count the votes. Leaders can get insights into what the community finds important with analytics. Results and feedback can be collected in multiple ways – searchable tables, visual graphics, PDFs, or Excel spreadsheets*.

*These are best practices aimed at helping you improve your board meetings.  These tips are not legal advice.  We highly recommend that you review the community’s governing documents and state laws on what your board meetings must adhere to.  Different states and governing documents will have varying requirements on meeting notices, agendas, voting, and meeting conduct.  

During your virtual Board Meeting

In the past year and a half, most communities have turned to online meetings like Zoom or Skype to conduct association business. With virtual board meetings, members can meet from anywhere, making it more convenient and a good way to increase homeowner attendance. Since virtual board meetings tend to attract a larger number of homeowners, it\’s important to have a structure, timeline, and set expectations to be respectful of everyone\’s time.

1. Do a test before going live

Before you go live with your Board meeting, you\’ll want to set 30 minutes to an hour of time to test the meeting software with the Board. As you run more meetings and become more familiar with the software, you can dedicate less time to a test run. Doing a test run helps you identify any issues beforehand so that there aren\’t any delays in the meeting. In your practice meeting, you will want to test the following:

• Audio settings – Make sure that each speaker\’s microphones are functional.
• Screen share – Test that each person is able to share presentation slides and web browsers.
• Questions – Enter in a question and check if other presenters can see it.
• Chat – Enter in a chat message, and then test responding to the chat individually or publicly to everyone on the meeting.
• Muting and unmuting individuals – It\’s essential to make sure that muting options work to limit distractions during the meeting.
• Document sharing – Upload a document and test to see if others can download it. Do a similar test with links.

2. Assign roles

Assigning specific roles during the meeting will help to run the meeting a lot smoother, especially when everyone understands what they are responsible for. Depending on the size of your community, you can combine these roles or keep them separate. Here are some roles you\’ll want to assign:

1. Speaker – This person will be responsible for driving the meeting. They will go through the meeting rules and agenda items.
2. Meeting Coordinator – This person will assist the speaker by managing the chat, muting or unmuting members, and providing technical support to residents during the meeting.
3. Task Manager-  The task manager will be responsible for noting down action items that come up during the meeting.  They will benefit from a task management system that allows them to create tasks, assign them, set a priority, and a due date.  Pilera’s task management system makes it easy to create and manage tasks on the fly from any device or location.
4. Meeting Minutes Coordinator – This person will be responsible for taking meeting minutes.  The coordinator should use some type of word processor to type the notes during the meeting. As an example, Gmail provides a free word processing software called Google Docs.  

3. Dedicated time to each item on the agenda

No one wants to stay in long board meetings on a workday evening, so it\’s important to keep meetings focused. Dedicating a set amount of time to each item on the agenda keeps everyone on track. You can dedicate an equal amount of time to each item or based on the complexity of the issue.  

4. Allow a set amount of time for homeowners to speak

If your governing documents allow for it, dedicate a set amount of time for homeowners to speak and give their opinion. Before the meeting, it\’s important to set expectations on the amount of time residents have to speak about their issues or concerns. During the meeting, have your residents use the \”raise hand\” feature on the meeting software when they want to speak. Table any issues that homeowners bring up that require a longer discussion for the next board meetings.

After the Board Meeting

Now that you’ve run a successful board meeting, what’s next?  

1. Send meeting minutes

Meeting Minutes are important to document what occurred while reviewing items from the agenda.  It should be a short and concise summary of who called the meeting, discussions about the agenda items, and any items that were resolved.  Check out the Meeting Minutes template created by Hillcrest Management.

Once the meeting notes have been approved and recorded, store them in a secure online document management system.  Keep each month\’s meeting minutes organized by creating folders and subfolders. Additionally, the document management system should allow you to notify residents when you\’ve posted the new meeting minutes.     

2. Review action items list

Revisit all the action items that your team took note of during the Board Meeting and transition it to a task management system if you haven’t already done so.  Your task management system should allow you to organize, prioritize, and track items efficiently.  Be sure to assign each task to another board member or manager, prioritize it, and set a due date for completion.  That way everyone knows who is responsible for what tasks and nothing slips through the cracks. Through Pilera’s task management system, you can keep everyone informed by posting an update, changing the status, and e-notifying boards or managers.

3. Collect post-meeting feedback from residents

Even if you’ve had a successful board meeting, there are always things that you can improve for future meetings.  Collecting feedback from residents on how the last board meeting went can give you insights on what was done well and what needs improvement.  Create a short survey, email the residents, or encourage them to log into their community portal to complete the survey.

Improve your HOA Board Meeting with technology

With the advancements of technology, Board members and community managers can offload many key, cumbersome tasks onto software. It empowers you to handle every aspect of the Board meeting to ensure it\’s productive for everyone:

1. Prepare for a board meeting by scheduling meetings, sending event notices, conducting surveys, and sharing agenda documents via a community management solution.
2. Run a smooth meeting with virtual meeting platforms like Zoom or Skype and keep track of action items in a task management solution.
3. Keep your team on track with action items by prioritizing them and providing updates in a task management system.

Pilera\’s community management solution enables board members and managers to streamline various aspects of a board meeting with automated communications, events, document sharing, surveys, and task management. To learn more about how Pilera can work for you, request a personalized demo.

Community associations are constantly growing, with more residents desiring a sense of community and shared responsibility. Communication with residents is critical to ensure a community runs smoothly and improves the resident experience. Residents expect to receive information about HOA dues, meetings, events, policies, maintenance, emergencies, and other important community information at the tip of their fingers. With many businesses using texting/SMS to connect and engage with their customers, should your community start using text messaging too? In this article, we’ll describe the 4 ways text messaging benefits your community. We\’ll also briefly talk about the benefits of HOA texting software.

Vital in sending emergency or urgent notices

There\’s no time to waste when there’s an emergency or a situation where residents need to be notified at short notice, such as roadblocks or maintenance work.  While email and phone calls are effective methods, there’s nothing as immediate as a text message.  Where it may take days for residents to receive physical mail or a few minutes to send out a voicemail, they\’ll receive text messages instantly. 

It’s important that your communication software can handle sending a large volume of emergency messages at short notice.  Pilera’s communication platform is designed to stand the toughest tests.  Our platform has fault protection and retry algorithms to ensure fast and reliable delivery.  Features like reverse 911 functionality allow you to send emergency text messages to residents, bypassing their communication preferences.  

Cost savings

Traditional communication methods, such as postal mail, can become expensive over time.  More modern means like texting can improve operations and staff efficiency. Because text messaging is much quicker and easier to implement, it can save communities hundreds or thousands of dollars annually. With HOA texting solutions, it takes only a few clicks to message a group of residents or your entire community. Features in Pilera, such as templates and unit-based distribution groups, save you time when messaging the same group of individuals.

Convenience

According to Pew, 1 in 3 Americans prefers to receive text messages from a business, irrespective of the message.  Studies also suggest that 85% of individuals prefer a text message over a voice call.  Most adults own a mobile phone, making text messages the most preferred way to receive a message. HOAs can use text messaging by encouraging residents to choose how they want to hear from you. With Pilera, residents can receive messages like text, email, phone, or mail. Additionally, Pilera\’s language translation capabilities allow residents to choose from over 100 languages to receive their text messages.

Highest open rate

Ensuring residents receive your messages on time is vital to your community’s communication efforts.  Postal mailings often take time to reach residents, and even so, residents may not open their mail consistently every day. Email sending is a cost-effective way to reach your residents; however, 20-30% of them are opened. Text messages, by far, have the highest open rate than any other medium of communication. 99% of text messages are opened and read within three minutes of receiving them, making them one of the most effective ways to reach your residents. 

Your communication platform should confirm that your residents have received your message.  In Pilera, confirmation delivery analytics on whether someone opened a message will be available to you after you send a message.  

Improve your communication efforts with HOA text messaging software

Although various modes of communication, such as postal mail, email, and phone calls, all have advantages, text messaging is a faster and more direct way to reach residents. It’s a cost-effective alternative to postal mail.  With the highest open rates of any mode of communication, you\’ll see increased resident engagement and improved operations.

Pilera\’s automated communications platform lets you quickly send text messages and know with confidence that your residents have received them. If you\’d like to learn how Pilera can improve your communications today, email us at [email protected] or request a demo.

---

---

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier property management software that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. May we help your community achieve these success stories? Contact us so you can see how Pilera’s community management suite can increase work efficiency for your company.