National Wants to remember to give a Quiet “Kudos” to our Maintenance Professionals that Make the Magic Happen, Day After Day!
Maintenance Mania Winners - Unsung Apartment Community Heroes
Having a happy and skilled Maintenance and Grounds team will help with Resident Retention, make your property more attractive to visiting prospects, and possibly even improve your online ratings and reviews. Maintenance Staff is often an overlooked group, so on behalf of the stalwart individuals working behind the scenes at our Properties,..we say “Thank You!”
These Cross-Trained individuals routinely handle Maintenance Call Volume with aplomb. Then figure out how to arrange the orders, for each property, to keep service tickets to a minimum.
Resident service expectations are “same-day” service and Maintenance doesn’t differentiate between emergency and non-emergency service after business hours - if a customer needs a light bulb changed on Christmas Day, they do so. Many Maintenance team members live onsite. They even pick up non-doorstep trash throughout the property and take it to the compactor to make sure the property shows well.
Frankly, everything in the apartment business is marketing - mowing the lawn, maintaining the pool, plowing and shoveling 5 feet of snow. In the end, each maintenance person is essentially a leasing person & one of the Keys to retaining your residents.
They face multiple variables at each property:
1. Sorting out what’s performed in-house and what’s contracted out.
2. Age of property and condition of primary components, particularly plumbing and electrical.
3. Meeting Resident Service expectations.
4. Handling Specialty concerns i.e. Blizzard Snow Conditions. Snow plowing and shoveling does not lend itself well to contract services.
On a middle-aged property with about 350 apartments/townhomes, there’s typically a maintenance staff of 5: one person performs customer service requests during the workday (possibly totaling about 2,500 customer service requests a year depending on property age), two persons perform “make-ready” work in vacant apartments, one person helps in the “make-ready” plumbing PM updates, while also performing general PM of A/Cs and repairs to bathroom ceramic tile floors and walls, and a supervisor who coordinates and troubleshoots the variety of issues that can arise on any sizeable property.
We wanted to express the feelings that are in all of our hearts as we provide doorstep trash collection. We are the contracted extension of your maintenance staff. We keep the lines of communication open with your Maintenance team, from letting them know when a breezeway light is out during our nightly pickup to sorting out evening compactor malfunctions.
Stay tuned for More On the Economics of Rental Retention and How Keeping Residents Happy Drives Profit. In Future Newsletters, we’ll break down more on the economics behind tenant retention and look at how applying strategies to reduce turnover will have a positive impact on your profits, operating budget, and long-term success as a rental property manager.
Go with the Multi-Family Pros at National DoorStep Pickup 844-APT-TRASH