
When it comes time for your residents to renew their lease, will they do it? While parties and incentives are excellent for resident retention, the condition and appearance of the overall property and their apartment or home is crucial as well. So, have you been offering quality service in terms of maintenance? Whether you have or haven’t, you can start looking for a poway realtor right now besides following these three tips:
- Determine Common Requests for Maintenance.
Your community probably has at least a few requests for maintenance services that are always put in. In some cases, it may be possible for the resident to remedy the problem themselves without having to pull one of your maintenance personnel from their current work order or home if it is after hours. So, to help combat unnecessary requests, and keep residents as well as your staff happy, sit down with the maintenance team and identify five or more common requests. For each one, determine what the resident can do, if anything, and a few questions that could be asked that would prove to be helpful for the maintenance team. Then, make sure everyone has a copy so that all residents get the same answer when they call in.
- Follow Up on All Maintenance Requests.
One of the easiest ways to keep track of how well your team did and how happy your residents are is to follow up after a service request. You can do this by phone, text, email, or even a survey. You just want to make sure that you ask if the property completed the service request to their satisfaction and if there is anything else that the property can do for them at this time.
- Have Maintenance Available in the Evening and on the Weekends.
Most of your residents likely work during the day, so they don’t realize that they have a maintenance issue until they come home at the end of the day. As a general rule, this is after the property maintenance staff have gone home themselves. The same is true on weekends when residents are home for longer periods of time. Plus, some residents may prefer to be home when someone comes into their apartment or home to work. To help with all of this, consider having one maintenance person work Tuesday through Saturday and another one to work later in the evening two or three days a week (and come in later on the mornings that they work the late shift). This makes maintenance more accessible for residents, which could potentially improve the chances of them renewing their lease when the time comes.
If you want to keep residents, you need to keep them happy. One way to do this is by ensuring maintenance is a priority. If you find that managing the property on your own is too difficult, consider hiring a property management company like Richmond Property Management to take over the reins for you.