In many of the best action movies, a high-tech, fully functional command center is imperative to the success of the mission. Full of modern equipment, efficient workspaces, highly trained professionals, and system after system dedicated to maximizing efficiency, this room functions like the brain of the operation. Without it, the mission would fail.
At Epic Property Management, we have a maintenance war room that functions in the same way. Because mastering the maintenance game is one of the secrets to success in real-estate investment. Today, we’re taking you behind the scenes to learn the ins and outs of a perfected process for property maintenance services.
Over the years, what started as a tucked-away workspace has evolved into a working control center where a team of property-management professionals expertly handles each and every maintenance need for hundreds of rental properties.
Whether or not you’re planning to hire an expert property-management team to handle maintenance on your rental properties, you can learn something from how we focus our efforts:
Get Efficient with the Incoming
No matter how well maintained your properties, if you own rental units, you will receive incoming maintenance requests from tenants. So be ready.
We strategically designed our war room as an open co-working space where our maintenance team accepts incoming requests, processes them, schedules necessary services, follows up, and communicates with tenants.
With the number of properties we service, the Epic war room sees anywhere from 40 – 60 maintenance requests in a day, through a wide array of communication channels. Along with our customized systems, the open-flow setup of our war room helps ensure we’re handling and tracking all requests quickly and seamlessly.
Key takeaway: perfect your systems, efficiency, and communication.
Master Meetings
Accountability and internal communication are essential to efficient property maintenance services. So our war room includes dedicated meeting space where maintenance dispatchers gather for a daily maintenance stand up: a fast, focused meeting wherein they review schedules, systems, processes, and expectations.
The key here, no matter how large your team, is to keep meetings goal focused and time bound.
Schedule Smarter
When it comes to property maintenance, scheduling and tracking can get complicated, fast. Did you book the painter to come after the plumber, or the other way around? Did the electrician submit the order on time? When is the new refrigerator scheduled to arrive?
Our custom software, develped over years of continuous improvement, includes many innovative features that allow Epic Property Management to operate hundreds of scattered site properties with the same efficiency you would expect at a 200-unit building.
One of the many features of our software is a live-scheduling system that allows everyone at Epic to see each day’s schedule in real time—both our in-office staff and our teams in the field. This helps our maintenance technicians see the big picture, stick to assigned schedules, and keep our dispatchers informed should delays occur. When work orders are completed, the appropriate person is notified immediately and automatically, which reduces delays and helps ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.
No matter your size, for successful outcomes, begin with discipline and systems.
Track Like a Pro
The more you know about the care of your properties, the better cared for those properties will be.
Our maintenance war room staff members use high-tech GPS tracking systems to monitor real-time data on the whereabouts of all our vehicles and maintenance technicians. This helps us
- Keep all team members on the same page
- Recognize opportunities to provide more efficient service
- Reduce wait times for tenants and team members
- Improve the overall efficiency of our maintenance services
Key in on Keys
Before you become a rental-property owner, keys may seem like simple items that help you enter your home or car. Once you own rental property, you quickly recognize that the way you manage property keys can have a massive impact on your use of time and resources—aka, your bottom line.
At Epic, we’ve implemented a high-tech system for key management that blends biometric identification with dedicated key boxes and tracking, to support the speed and efficiency of every property visit and maintenance call.
Efficiencies like these enable us to provide exceptional property-management services at an excellent flat-rate cost to owners.
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Above are just a few of the operating procedures that allow Epic Property Management to operate with unparalleled quality and efficiency. Our maintenance war room helps our team systematically handle both routine and emergency maintenance requests promptly and professionally. It also helps all departments work together, communicate effectively, and maximize productivity. Just one more way we’re perfecting the art of property management, so you don’t have to.
Property Maintenance Services: Pass It On
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