One of the nicest things about residential communities is that they feature a diverse collection of personalities and opinions. Of course, this can also be one of the biggest challenges, particularly for association managers. In addition to their mountain of other responsibilities, community managers face the monumental task of keeping a melting pot of temperaments happy, all at the same time.
Topics: Productivity, Technology, Property Management, Customer Service, Communication
Like it or not, where there are neighbors, there will inevitably be disputes. Homeowner A doesn’t like the way homeowner B cuts his shrubs while homeowner C is growing increasingly annoyed by how loud homeowner D plays his music, and so on and so forth.
Topics: Technology, Property Management, Customer Service, Communication, Customer Satisfaction, Conflict Resolution
Residing in a community that’s managed by an HOA can have many advantages. Properties are typically well-maintained, safety is a top priority and there is usually access to several attractive amenities. That being said, however, there are some downsides to HOAs. In particular, conflict can sometimes arise. Let’s explore some of the most common HOA disputes and how to best resolve them.
Topics: Property Management, Customer Service, Communication
4 Reasons Why You Should Focus on Customer Service to Drive Profitability
Your business exists for two main purposes: to fill a customer need and to be profitable. As it turns out, these two goals can be attained collectively by investing into customer experience. Research confirms, time and time again, that organizations that have better customer service are profitable. A study conducted by Temkin Group found a moderate increase in customer experience warranted an average revenue increase of $823 million over 3 years for a company with an average $1 billion annual revenue.
Topics: Productivity, Property Management, Customer Service, Budgeting, Customer Satisfaction, Profitability
7 Methods for Collecting Payments: What Works Best for Property Managers
Property managers have a lot of responsibilities but if they can’t effectively collect fees from their customers then they can’t do much else. While it may be cliché, it’s true – cashflow is the lifeblood of any business, so property managers find effective, efficient, and convenient methods to collect payments to enable growth, enhance customer service, and optimize planning.
Topics: Productivity, Customer Service, Accounting, Rentals, Leasing, Customer Satisfaction
Property management companies make tons of financial transactions every month from receivables to payables between customers and vendors. The ACH/EFT network is generally very secure, in the first quarter of 2020, ACH payments in the US increased over 7% but approximately less than 1% of transactions were returned as invalid, of that 1%, only a fraction is a result of fraudulent activity. The problem with ACH/EFT fraud is that the large value of payments and the potential breach of sensitive customer data which can hurt a company’s customer relationships as well as their public reputation.
Topics: Property Management, Customer Service, Economics, Customer Satisfaction, Cybersecurity
Having vacancies for too long can be bad for business, they can reduce cashflow, customer satisfaction, and employee morale. No matter how well you advertise or how well you maintain your customer relationships there will be turnover and vacancies. While it’s less than ideal, it’s not an impossible situation, here are 5 strategies to reduce the time units spend vacant.
Topics: Productivity, Technology, Property Management, Customer Service, Marketing, Branding, Business Growth, Advice, Leasing, Customer Satisfaction, Automation
There has been an unprecedented growth of cloud-based software and SaaS platforms, Gartner estimated that cloud services would grow 17.5% in 2019 and continue to grow exponentially by 28% in 2022. The monumental movement to cloud-based software may have some property management companies weighing out whether or not there is enough reason to transition from self-hosted physical servers to a cloud-based SaaS platform.
Topics: Productivity, Technology, Property Management, Customer Service, Marketing, Business Growth, Advice, Portal, Organization, Automation
Communication is crucial to seamless and productive operations in any organization, but as businesses grow, maintaining strong communication can become increasingly difficult. According to a 2018 Gallagher study, 60% of companies do not have a long-term communication strategy, yet around 50% of those companies said that they wanted to prioritize improving leadership and communication. Organizations that seek to improve the effectiveness of communication can integrate mobile apps into their strategy to extend the reach of communication and as a result improve employee engagement.
Topics: Property Management, Customer Service, Business Growth, Employee Satisfaction, Engagement, Customer Satisfaction
Of the 2.7 billion smartphone users and additional 1.35 billion tablet users worldwide, people are spending 90% of their time on apps rather than web-browsers. By offering employees access to their property management software from a mobile app creates, companies are providing a platform that is more adaptable to both their job and lifestyle. Apps available on smart devices provide additional efficiencies to users and can also facilitate a new and improved standard of productivity.
Topics: Blog, Customer Service, Business Growth, Engagement, Advice, Reporting, Trends, Analytics