Property Maintenance coordinators are an integral part of a business’s maintenance activities, quality assurance, and process control.
However, managing rental properties is a demanding operation. Consistently having to follow up on whether or not they’ve completed their routine inspections, collating overwhelming amounts of maintenance requests, tracking supply and material inventories, the list goes on. These painful tasks drag Property Managers down the whole day and preoccupy most of their time.
Although managing properties comes with a stacked number of responsibilities, it is vital they get handled accordingly to avoid unnecessary pitfalls and drawbacks.
WHY SHOULD YOU STREAMLINE YOUR BUSINESS PROCESSES AND WORKFLOWS?
According to the UiPath survey, most employees in the U.S. feel that they waste about 5 hours a week on repetitive tasks. 70% of them commented that they are unable to effectively and efficiently help their customers due to these tasks.
Email management and scheduling calls (& meetings) were some of the top vexing tasks they determined to be the most time-consuming for them.
While these repetitive tasks can vary for every business, in the case of Property Managers handling maintenance, these could be administering weekly maintenance checks, scheduling daily cleaning and maintenance activities, conducting follow-ups on all repair work, and sometimes even providing customer service. Regardless, they clutter up our days and keep us underwater.
Property Managers constantly get stuck performing low-level administrative tasks, limiting their opportunity to perform core functions of their role. Let’s face it, with limited time, the ability to strategically concentrate on gaining new clients greatly suffers. Instead, sacrifices on things such as quality control are at risk with existing clients.
Thankfully, technology has enabled all businesses to leverage a global workforce. Enhanced global network infrastructure, cloud-based property management software, and voice-over IP phone systems (or VoIP) have enabled every property management company the ability to leverage Virtual Assistants in their business.
Enter, a property management trained Virtual Assistant Maintenance Coordinator.
Who are these skillful experts? How do they benefit you? What can they do?
WHAT IS A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT ( VA MAINTENANCE COORDINATOR)?
A Virtual Assistant is, in short, a professional that supports entrepreneurs, start-ups, and businesses with various professional services from a remote location at a much more affordable rate. It’s as though you have a regular employee that just works from home.
They are well versed in most fields and are able to take over any tasks designated to them, for example, a virtual assistant Maintenance Coordinator helps your Property Manager with scheduling, procuring, work order management, and managing maintenance tickets.
Not only is it safer during the pandemic, but it also saves you on costs! Most entrepreneurs in the industry ask broad questions like ‘WHAT ARE THE TOP REASONS TO HIRE A REAL ESTATE VIRTUAL ASSISTANT?’. However, many are unaware that VA’s can further specialize in all things Property Management! So the real question is, what can’t they do? On top of maintenance coordination, here is a shortlist of common positions property managers
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A VA MAINTENANCE COORDINATOR?
Nowadays, Property management companies are transitioning to streamline their processes through the use of Virtual Assistants. By doing so it allows companies to:
Save on Time
Forbes released an article in 2020, ‘The Cost of Manual Repetitive Tasks In CRE’, which stated that the volume of these tasks alone costs companies millions of dollars in staff time every year. With that being said, hiring virtual assistants streamline business workflows and immensely speeds up these tasks, freeing up your Property Manager’s schedule every day.
Cut Costs
The cost of loss of productivity in the U.S averages around $2.87 trillion annually, making the US one of the top countries in the world in regards to the cost of non-revenue driving, administrative costs.
Alongside the cost of productivity, there’s the cost of labor. Labor is in fact the largest expense most companies face and accounts for about 60% of their total costs, on average.
When you leverage Virtual Assistants in your team, you cut labor costs by one-third. Utilizing Virtual Assistants could save you anywhere from 10%-15%. Not only do you automate your business but you now have a business with a clear path to enhanced profitability.
Increases Productivity
VA’s ensure your company follows a well-documented and system and process that sets you up for success.
When administrative tasks get delegated to professionally skilled VA’s, it enables multiple processes to now be handled simultaneously while Property Managers finally get to focus on revenue-generating activities.
Minimizes Errors
With a system and process in place that carefully, yet tactically places a VA to manage the maintenance aspects there are fewer errors and more positive outcomes. The skills and capabilities of a virtual assistant maintenance coordinator are well equipped to perform well above the average in the industry.
Quality Assurance and Internal Audits
Receipts, bills, and other relevant paperwork are a way for you to track your business’ performance. That pile of paperwork sitting on your desk every day can be challenging having to sort, document, and track bills, receipts, and fixed overhead.
Hiring a VA Maintenance Coordinator forces focus on effective procedures, efficient communication, and improved reporting channels that ensures all the tedious (but essential) processes are handled properly.
Improves Tenant Experience
Some of the key traits customers look for when comparing different providers are convenience and swift access to a service.
Property Management companies understand how closely related the success of your business is with customer service. When your clients are happy, they tend to always come back for more. However, to get powerful/impactful results, making sure your clients are happy takes a good amount of time.
By incorporating a VA to handle maintenance clients you’ll be doing a great favor to you and your clients. Not only does it free up your time but it reinforces your property management company’s capabilities by hiring VA maintenance coordinators who are experienced professionals.
It’s a win-win!
Increases scalability
As new VA’s are added to your business, processes are standardized, errors minimized, and goals are met at a much faster rate. Leading to a larger pool of client portfolios since property managers are better focused. For instance, manually submitting 10 invoices is not the same as producing 1000.
Property Managers understand that time is imperative amid a maintenance transaction. If coordination takes longer than expected, or if sourcing a vendor takes longer than expected, your tenant relationship suffers. Automating your business opens up doors through the transaction chain to undergo coordination and tracking more accurately and timely.
WHAT CAN A VA MAINTENANCE COORDINATOR DO?
VA Maintenance Coordinators lead, plan and acquire maintenance supplies (and services). They have a range of extensive capabilities handling various types of responsibilities.
Some KEY TRAITS of a VA maintenance coordinator include:
Identifying some of the must-have traits of a VA Maintenance Coordinator is a great way to understand just how prominent they can be for your Property Management organization. Let’s dive right in. Here’s a quick list of what a VA can do for Maintenance Coordination and help Property Managers out:
1. Organizing Maintenance Personnel
A virtual assistant maintenance coordinator ensures there are proper coordinating processes for maintenance staff to follow and carry out various tasks. This includes:
- Calling in electricians, mechanics, plumbers, etc. for specific maintenance requests
- Making sure to upkeep the quality control and compliance with the building’s safety codes
- Effectively delivering any orders given by property managers to on-site workers
- Facilitation of job rescheduling and appointment confirmations
- Ticket status follow up with on-site teams
2. Manage Facility Maintenance and Upkeep
Most professional property management companies have a system that guarantees facility maintenance needs are successfully met. They:
- Track rental properties cleaning needs
- Coordinate with the management to plan maintenance schedules
- Oversee repair processes as they arise and log each procedure for future reference
- Ensure that the work that gets done meets the necessary quality level while still complying with the company policies and legal requirements.
- Ensure all appropriate proof of completion is collected and saved in the correct files.
- Handle the preventive aspect of maintenance. They don’t just take care of repairs as they come but take the measures to prevent them from happening.
Through labor automation, you could minimize the overall repair costs and save on resources for other expenditures.
3. Procure Equipment and Tools
Property maintenance VA coordinators are responsible for coordinating with the technicians on the equipment that is needed and procuring it for them on behalf of the company. Your VA Maintenance Coordinator will be able to:
- Get various quotes from vendors to find competitive prices
- Schedule the repair needs of the equipment
- Properly manage the company budget reserved for the department
- Create reports of purchases to be sent to the property manager
- Handle the log of procurements
- Negotiate numerous maintenance contracts and one-time service agreements with suppliers.
Property managers, like you, are leveraging teams for back-office procedures, like rent collection, maintenance, leasing applications, and much more. They are figuring out the secret to running a successful business whilst reducing on costs.
WHO SHOULD HIRE A VA MAINTENANCE COORDINATOR?
Whether you classify yourself as a small, medium, or large Property Management Company you can start hiring anytime. VA’s, in general, are cost-effective yet come equipped with all the essential qualifications to operate your departments with ease.
Ultimately, adding a VA Maintenance Coordinator means Property Managers can utilize their workdays better. The moment you start incorporating virtual assistants (of any profession) in different departments of your business and hone in on each of these areas, it ensures that any future tasks can just as easily be delegated to anyone who steps in. Virtual Assistants automate workflow and create a systematized process for your company that works to bring you success.
Here’s a Property Maintenance Coordination Playbook you can download anytime. It serves as a guide in implementing best maintenance practices.
