Workflow automation is the future in the world of business, and property maintenance is no exception. Manually managing repetitive tasks is a thing of the past. Your staff, vendors, owners, and residents deserve a more productive and profitable way to operate. So what’s preventing you from incorporating the most talked about technical tool?
Reality check:
- Task workloads are increasing.
- Vendors and technicians are becoming a limited resource.
- The real estate market is a seller’s dream.
- Property owners are leaving property management companies at a rapid rate.
There is significant pressure to transform your daily operations to be more productive and increase profit. Don’t fall behind.
Below, our guide discusses what automation is, the benefits of implementing an automated process, and how you can use it to increase your bottom line.
What is workflow automation?
Automation isn’t new to the workplace. Advanced technology is experiencing rapid growth and there’s been continuous development in handling routine tasks that people don’t want to do. So what it is exactly? Workflow automation is creating rule-based logic that triggers an action without the need for human oversight or intervention.
How can automation help with property maintenance?
If there’s anything obvious about automation, it’s this: it can completely remove human error from repetitive tasks.
Consider this scenario:
It’s the middle of a record-high summer, and your resident submits a maintenance request stating that their HVAC is on the fritz. Before scheduling a repair, you want to make sure this isn’t an issue that can be resolved through troubleshooting. You begin drafting a response with triage tips, then get distracted and completely space on sending the message. The next day, your resident is so hot-headed of the lack of response that they decide to flood you with phone calls and online negative reviews.
This type of situation can be avoided. Distractions that lead to human error can be easily resolved with the use of automation. Rather than wasting time drafting a reply with troubleshooting advice, you can create a trigger that sends specific troubleshooting tips to any maintenance request including “HVAC”.
4 Benefits of Property Maintenance Automation
1) Automation increases productivity
Simply put, time is money. The more time spent on tedious tasks is time lost on other opportunities that can increase your company’s profit.
CIO Insight shared that businesses lose 20 – 30% of revenue every year due to inefficient processes. If that statistic didn’t make you race to review your financials, here’s one that may.
Workers spend about 520 hours a year on repetitive tasks. This includes follow-up calls, scheduling maintenance requests, invoice processing, repair estimates, and more. Additionally, think about how much more time your employees can spend nurturing and retaining quality relationships with your residents and owners if they had automated processes.
Your internal staff is a valuable asset to your business, and their experience with your customers, paired with automation, is where you will see the most profit.
2) Streamlining workflows can free up vendor time so they complete more tasks
It’s no news that vendors are becoming hard to find — and quality vendors at that. Implementing easy software to perform repairs will help with efficiency.
Much like your internal staff, a vendor or internal tech who spends time performing mundane tasks is also losing money because they are not actively performing repairs. When you automate your workflow, your vendor can increase their throughput, thus completing more repairs efficiently.
In addition, the more repairs your vendors complete is more profit that your company can make.
3) Faster turnovers and make-readies
Without a streamlined process, turnovers and make-readies can be time-consuming, and responsibilities can fall through the cracks.
According to the National Apartment Association (NAA), the cost of a single turn starts at around $1,000 and can scale up to $5,000.
Let’s say you are a single-family residential property management company that manages 400 doors with a per-unit turnover expense of $1,200 and a generous 20% turnover rate (6.6 turnovers per month). This equates to $95,040 in lost revenue. That doesn’t take into account the loss in profit from a vacant unit. Yikes!
When you drive the turnover process with automation, you’ll greatly reduce the time it takes to complete the endless amount of tasks. The last thing you want is to do is risk valuable rental income and omit checking off the turnover process checklist.
You will also significantly decrease the turnover period, so you can move in residents quickly, and make money.
4) Increased resident satisfaction
By completing maintenance tasks fast and flawlessly, your residents will be happier. You can easily remove human mistakes from daily tasks, too. You cannot afford to leave tasks incomplete to risk a negative review.
By the way, a happy resident improves your resident retention, increases your chance for a 5-star review, reduces turnover, and sets you up for success.
The Low Down
With all this in mind, automation will not only increase your capacity to handle more doors but also grow your bottom line. Even better, you can reap the highest results of your workplace efficiencies by pairing it with your staff.
Request a demo to learn more about how we can help you automate your maintenance process.
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