What Property Managers Have Learned Since the Holidays

Take a moment and exhale. The holidays. It’s all over and done with, and you’ve made it! You and your team have survived the influx of visitors, mounds of packages, and no doubt unique requests along the way. But before you put the holidays behind you entirely, take a moment to reflect on your successes over the last month or so.

The Concierge Plus team is always chatting with clients and over the holiday season, we’ve heard some pretty great stories about what worked with residents, team members, and community visitors. Here they are, the top five success stories of the 2016 Holiday Season:

1. Success: asking residents to communicate special requests (from entry instructions to visitor requirements) well in advance of the holidays so that the appropriate staff members are prepared.

2. Visitor Parking. “Concierge Plus helped us finally put system in place for managing visitors and parking during the busy season,” said a security manager we know. “It used to be a lot of legwork for my team. With Concierge Plus, both the front desk and residents can print out passes themselves and it’s all controlled by the Property Manager.”

3. Success: updating Unit & User Manager. Some of our clients manage communities with either fully or semi-retired residents. It’s a great idea to ask those who “snowbird” or spend longer than a few weeks away from home over the winter months to update their Concierge Plus profiles before they go. This way, your front desk won’t be scrambling for important contact information should an emergency occur. 

4. Entry Instructions. “I manage a very young, boutique-style building with a lot of single or just-married professionals who like to socialize,” explained a PM we spoke with. “Without a gatehouse at the parking lot or a full-time concierge presence in the front lobby, managing visitors to our building is very important; we don’t want anyone waiting out in the cold. This year, a big success for us was that we started reminding residents well in advance to update their Concierge Plus Entry Instructions online. We sent out a reminder via the Announcements feature as well as the display screen in our front lobby.”

5. Success: allocating a cloak / storage room for parcel deliveries and unexpected packages. “We use an automated notification system,” said one Property Manager, “but some residents are away for a couple days at a time and others are too busy with holiday parties and other obligations to pick up packages right away. Keeping packages in a separate room was a big success for us this year.”

Watch our webinar about parcel management in a COVID-19 environment and learn how to manage the unrelenting tidal wave of parcel deliveries.