More and more companies are building a remote work culture into their business model due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Property Managers were also asked to work remotely in the beginning of the crisis, but many are back on-site now. The profession requires on-site presence as managers need to visually inspect many things on a regular basis. However, many managers are not needed on-site seven days a week as the ‘new normal’ has changed the property management industry as well. If managers decide to work remotely a few days per week in the future, they need tools to manage their community remotely and virtually.
While the shift from manual to automation has been ongoing for years, many community associations remain behind the curve. Embracing digital technology is no longer an option – it is a necessity. Yet many board members and property managers remain apprehensive of the perceived scale that comes with such a move.
Among the concerns many community associations have about digitizing their processes are whether it will work on both mobile and desktop, how well adept remote property managers will be when they use the software and the cost of automating processes. Many community associations are also concerned about the potential scale of transforming processes that have been carried out manually for many years.
We did an in-depth study that observed the tasks that a property management team works on throughout each day. It was determined that on average over 100 hours are spent monthly dealing with packages and deliveries, 20 hours dealing with expected visitors, and an additional 10 hours dealing with resident issue communications. This translates to over 150 hours of your team’s time spent on just these three items. Every single month.
By implementing a resident experience management platform that increases efficiency of these tasks, it was determined these same tasks take just over 25 hours to complete. That translates into a substantial savings of time and money every single month and catapults the satisfaction rate residents have in interacting with team members – no longer is everything a painful and time-consuming manual interaction.
radioCITY Condos is a community association consisting of two high-rise towers. An effort that began six years ago, radioCITY Condo’s digital transformation evolved from a simple tech tool implementation to a one-stop shop, moving from a paper-based way of doing things to meeting the needs of tech-savvy residents in a digitally connected world.
Brad Keenan is a board member at radioCITY Condos and provides an insight into the story of the community association’s transformation with Concierge Plus’ resident experience management platform.
“We were using pencil and paper and had several different binders at the concierge desk; one for parking, one for guest-suites, one for the party room, and one for the other boardroom. Record keeping was only as good as what that was and there was no way to have any insight without going through binders with years of information.”
“The board also wanted to track the usage of the several amenities offered by radioCITY. It’s a pretty expensive piece of real estate with a bunch of amenity space and we wanted to know if they were being used or not.”
“Furthermore, we also wanted to provide a great resident experience to our residents. radioCITY Condos consists of a South Tower and a North Tower. Most of our amenities are in the North Tower, and I live in the South Tower, which means that I had to walk to the North Tower to check amenity availability, check-in with residents manually, get a form for them, and fill out the form. These were all paper-based forms and couldn’t be downloaded as we had no digital tool.”
“There is also much more transparency now as the board can see the same thing as the property manager. Board members and property managers can see service requests coming in, the type of service requests that come in, and how many are outstanding. We no longer have to wait for a board meeting or visit the property manager or contact the property management company in order to find out whether the property manager is drowning in tasks. We can get an instantaneous insight ourselves by logging into the user-friendly platform”, says Brad.
Using a resident experience management platform to automate processes allows for transparency between managers, board members and residents, with staff able to fully focus on tasks that really matter. Another major benefit is that it provides convenient online access, and this is essential as staff adapt to working remotely.
There is no doubt that community associations have been shocked by the speed at which coronavirus has transformed their communities. Change is no longer about keeping pace and staying afloat. For example, while social distancing rules force many staff members to remain at home and collaborate remotely. Digital transformation is, therefore, no longer something that can be ignored or delayed. The rapid time-to-value seen in the community associations that have embraced digitization, such as radioCITY Condos, show that that deploying digital processes is not only affordable, but can generate huge savings in terms of time and cost.
Learn how to communicate with your residents in an age when we are practicing social distancing and the benefits of hosting a virtual meeting. Watch our webinar now!