Maintenance tools go high-tech: when maintenance meets technology, property managers can expect more efficient operations, reduced maintenance time and improved resident satisfaction.

Property maintenance can be one of the most time-consuming, costly and frustrating operations for property managers. Even more importantly, residents can see the day-to-day upkeep of a community, or in a worst-case scenario, the lack of maintenance.

Maintenance issues have far-reaching effects on a community, directly affecting residents' overall level of customer satisfaction and ultimately the community's resident retention rate. To achieve streamlined and successful maintenance to ensure a high level of resident satisfaction, the management team needs to have a complete toolbox, filled with the best tools for the job.

Bye, Bye Whiteboard

"Historically, our service manager would manually keep track of all the make-ready schedules on a giant whiteboard and [track] service requests on a separate system to ensure that all the jobs were completed in a timely manner," said Mirriam Livingstone, Vice President of Auditing and Operations for Village Green Companies, which manages a portfolio of more than 35,000 apartments and ranks among the Midwest's largest developers and managers of luxury apartments.

"Although the manual systems worked, we knew it was time to embrace a new integrated method to improve how we managed our operations," she said.

Maintenance operations vary by the size of the community and the total number of doors at the property. These operations can include apartment make-readies, appliance and HVAC maintenance, plumbing issues and landscaping, just to name a few. As a community gets larger and older, there is an increased amount of required daily maintenance. Antiquated manual systems become more inefficient as the amount of required maintenance increases.

Streamlined Work Orders

In recent years, many property managers have replaced their manual systems with technologically advanced tools that help them improve operations. Enterprise management systems have been infiltrating the apartment industry and offer unique functionality to increase revenue optimization, improve resident services and deliver effective expense management through improved workflow and efficiencies. These systems also address numerous aspects of community maintenance, including the processing of work orders, communication between management and maintenance staff, preparation of scheduled make-readies and preventive maintenance of appliances and systems.

With the software solution in place, managers and maintenance staff have a centralized database of all the information, which they can refer to if needed. The database can help identify recurring maintenance trends, which could indicate a more serious problem. For instance, property managers can examine the number of air conditioning work orders reported by residents leading up to hot summer months.

Once the trend is identified, mangers can better prepare for the increased number of requests and start to conduct seasonal maintenance earlier than in past years or investigate the potential of a larger HVAC problem within the community. Because the software system tracks each maintenance request through its entire cycle--from when the complaint was logged, through the maintenance process and when the work order has been closed--property managers can ensure they are responding to the needs of their residents within a reasonable amount of time.

"With instant access to the entire database of maintenance records, we tan quickly determine if an event has been resolved within 24 hours, which is very important for our residents' satisfaction," Livingstone said. "The system keeps our maintenance staff informed of the high-priority jobs and makes it possible for them to efficiently plan their week's workload."

The system can sort the database of maintenance events by resident, type of problem and the technician who performed the work. By examining the productivity of maintenance workers on specific jobs, management can better determine the best technician for the need that has been identified. For example, Technician A may be more skilled at fixing electrical issues quickly and more successfully than Technician B. To ensure the greatest efficiency, Technician A will be assigned to all electrical issues within the community. Fixing these issues in the least amount of time with greater success not only affects the financial bottom line for the property manager, but it also improves resident satisfaction as it relates to personal maintenance requests.

Taking Maintenance Directly to Residents

Village Green has had great success using property management software to manage the "behind the scenes" aspects of maintenance within its portfolio. And now, it is considering taking this functionality to the next level: directly to the resident.

In addition to improving productivity and workflow for the maintenance staff, enterprise management systems can integrate a resident portal into the community and greatly improve direct communications with residents.

A resident portal is a customized, Web-based homepage designed exclusively for the community and used by residents and management to communicate back and forth quickly and efficiently. The portal can be used by residents to register maintenance work orders, check on the status of repairs and confirm completion of work.

Additionally, residents can use the portal to make online rent payments and reserve common areas. With the portal integrated with property management software, residents have the ability to log in from the comfort of their own apartment or anywhere they have Internet access and get information in real time regarding work orders and community events.

"Our current property management system has uncovered numerous cost savings, streamlined our maintenance procedures and improved our internal communications," Livingstone said. "Because customer satisfaction is a high priority for us, we are always investigating innovative ways to improve how we interact with residents, and this software can deliver that added functionality."

Having the right tools for the job can make a difficult and tedious task much more manageable and cost efficient. A talented maintenance team is critical in keeping the building up and running, and the right enterprise management system can be the perfect addition to a property manager's toolbox. With these two "tools" in place, property managers can expect to see more efficient operations, reduced maintenance time and, most importantly, improved resident satisfaction.

Russ Sandlin is the Residential Market Manager for Intuit Real Estate Solutions, makers of MRI Residential. He can be reached at 800/321-8770.