One of the biggest reasons property maintenance is such a pain for property management companies is its unpredictability. But it may be more predictable than you think. Most property management companies will deal with similar issues and problems surrounding property maintenance. As leaders in the property maintenance space, we have developed the Ladder of Maintenance Excellence to help property managers predict what issues may arise in their maintenance process and how to fix them to reach a point of profitability.
The Ladder of Maintenance Excellence aims to help property managers deal with problems proactively instead of reactively. Often, we don’t know which situation is coming next until we experience it, and then we can work on how to fix it. Using the Ladder, property managers can predict what issues they will begin facing in their maintenance process and work from ahead to solve those problems before they start wreaking havoc on resident satisfaction and owner retention.
The Ladder of Maintenance Excellence provides you with key metrics you should acknowledge at each step to determine your success and if you are ready to move on. The Ladder will also help you determine where and when things are going wrong and how you can work to improve those areas. It’s important to note that each step must be mastered before moving to the next one!
As you work through the Ladder of Maintenance Excellence, you will see a direct correlation between your resident satisfaction and happy investors. Achieving things like communication, staffing efficiency, and preventative repairs will improve your repair speed and the maintenance technicians throughout. The faster you can complete work orders, the happier your residents will be.
After you have solved the issues in your maintenance process, you will reach a point where you can forecast maintenance issues. By implementing preventative maintenance tasks, you will have greater insight into maintenance forecasting or the ability to predict when things will break down. This insight can help you lower repair costs and avoid costly emergency repairs. By achieving a predictable NOI, you can keep costs down, keeping your property owners happy.
To learn more about The Ladder of Maintenance Excellence, subscribe to The Maintenance Minute.
Level 1
Effective Communication
At the foundation of the Ladder, we have effective communication. Without proper communication, you will never achieve maintenance excellence. Why? All parties in your maintenance process must know what is happening and when. With strong communication channels, key players will be kept in the loop, and work orders will stay intact. After establishing a robust communication model in your maintenance process, you can move on to solving more complex issues like scheduling and staffing efficiencies.
Data Awareness
Being aware of the following data will allow you to master this step
• All communication known by Property Management Company
• All parties aware of communication
Happy Residents
When the needs of this step are met, the following items will result in higher resident satisfaction
• Positive CSAT
• Fully transparent
• Fast repairs
• Interactive experience
Level 2
Scheduling Efficiency
Achieving scheduling efficiency means ensuring that the right resources are in the right place, at the right time, and in the most efficient way possible. Scheduling efficiency is not about being the fastest, but are you getting the right person to the job when they need to be there? Scheduling efficiency is crucial to increasing the output of your maintenance team.
Data Awareness
• Jobs/day
• Speed to schedule
• Speed of repair
• Segmented cycle times
Happy Residents
• Positive CSAT
• Fully transparent
• Fast repairs
• Interactive experience
Level 3
Staffing Efficiency
Similar to scheduling efficiency, staffing efficiency is all about increasing the output of your maintenance team. Keeping track of your billable and utilization rates can help determine how many revenue-generating hours your maintenance team works. If your utilization rate is low, it could mean your maintenance technicians are spending too much time on non-billable tasks like scheduling and followup.
Data Awareness
• Jobs/day
• Speed to schedule
• Speed of repair
• Segmented cycle times
Happy Residents
• Positive CSAT
• Fully transparent
• Fast repairs
• Interactive experience
Level 4
Preventative Repairs
Preventative repairs is the act of scheduling regular upkeep to prevent unexpected failures in the future. Simply put, preventative repairs is fixing things before they break. This allows you to budget a small amount of money over time. Which not only expands the lifetime of your assets, but reduces the risk of costly emergency repairs.
Data Awareness
• Jobs/day
• Speed to schedule
• Speed of repair
• Segmented cycle times
Happy Residents
• Positive CSAT
• Fully transparent
• Fast repairs
• Interactive experience
Happy Investors
• $ / repair lower
• Education on costs
• Programs to reduce expenses
Level 5
Maintenance Forecasting
After you have implemented preventative maintenance as part of your process, you can begin forecasting when maintenance issues will arise. By having a set schedule for repairs and upkeep, you can determine when an appliance or system will need to be replaced. This allows you to better predict maintenance costs and reduce unexpected maintenance costs for your property owners.
Data Awareness
• Jobs/day
• Speed to schedule
• Speed of repair
• Segmented cycle times
Happy Investors
• $ / repair lower
• Education on costs
• Programs to reduce expenses
Level 6
Predictable NOI
An NOI or net operating income is a company’s income after deducting operating expenses. One of the hardest things about property management is providing property owners with a predictable NOI as maintenance costs vary. With preventative repairs in place, property managers will better understand what maintenance issues will arise, allowing them to allocate funds for property maintenance. This way, you can provide owners with an accurate estimate of what they can expect to profit after maintenance costs have been deducted.
Data Awareness
• Jobs/day
• Speed to schedule
• Speed of repair
• Segmented cycle times
Happy Investors
• $ / repair lower
• Education on costs
• Programs to reduce expenses
To learn more about The Ladder of Maintenance Excellence, subscribe to The Maintenance Minute below. Each week, we will discuss a specific aspect of the Ladder, what factors and metrics affect it, and why it can sometimes be challenging to achieve.
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