Using technology to improve the customer experience

Hi Everyone,

Just wanting to get some ideas on how people are using technology to improve or enhance their client experience?

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@ashley.giles - you might like to chat about what Wendell’s is doing?

Here is a simple one Kimberley - using a product like Zoom to conduct your Tenant Induction online.

You can record the session and share your screen, all attendees don’t have to be in the same place and when used in conjunction with electronic signatures - I think you guys have Docusign with REISA - it works a treat.

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Thanks Kimberley,

This is a tough one, there are lots of tech solutions that actually pull us away from our clients. Two ideas come to mind, both are in their early stages of development.

The team at Tommy’s Property Management in Wellington have developed a customised owners dashboard where the owners communicate with their PM’s. It allows them to have all the info in there, and the owners to easily see the correspondence around their properties in one place. Its quite cool. Like a very powered up version of what your trust account will offer.

The second is from a team in Auckland, One Place for property (He is speaking at the round table, so worth coming along to see him on this) he has reversed his model with the tenants at the centre and built a system for them to take their rental history with them and build out a profile which puts them at the top of a potential properties list. https://umanest.com/

Personally, at Wendell Property, we have not found much that replaces heart felt customer service. So we use teach to take pressure off the team, to free them up to connect with the clients. My personal favourite at the moment is Office Vibe, it tells me instantly how engaged my team are which is directly representative of how effective our customer service is. Its a backward approach I know, but its just where personally I feel we should be implementing tech for now. But, I am always looking so if anyone has something else that works… I am all ears!

AG

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Yea I love this @terrihandy makes it easy for the tenants to do the boring, but necessary stuff! and added bonus, by recording you limit your potential liability if things go sideways during the tenancy. Good stuff!

@ashley.giles Tenants love it. They are given a choice to either come in and meet the PM in the office or they can have their meeting online. Either way, they are having a conversation with someone face to face and it helps set the tone for the relationship moving forward.

You can use Zoom for meetings with owners as well. If they are interstate or overseas, this is a nice way to introduce yourself or have that tough conversation. You can always Facetime if Zoom is not an option.

I am a bit keen on the paperless condition reports at the moment too :grin:

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@terrihandy you retain your title as “Tech Queen of PM”.… Love it, make sure you talk to my team about this when you are over here!

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Hi Kimberley,

Without being too specific, I would consider both the customer and the efficiency of the product to ensure it isn’t creating any extra work for the team. In my experience the less work for your team the better the outcome for your client. Systems that allow your perspective tenants to book viewing inspections online, also allow the automatic sending of owner feedback reports post inspection, and are an easy solution. Owners get pretty excited when they get a post inspection report from the property within minutes of a tenant viewing. No waiting for PM’s to contact them with feedback.

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Good point @adam, it seams so mainstream now with IRE, but it is actually a great selling point that PM companies should be shouting about! Anything from the US you think we could learn from here Adam?

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The US is struggling with the same problems Oz and NZ are suffering from. Lots of new software to promote both internal efficiency and customer engagement but they also work in isolation so no one wants them all, but which one is best. Sorry, I didn’t really mean to circle this conversation back to the start.

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@kimberley.yeeles its a bit of a plug but this is part of what we are discussing in the upcoming Webinar Series. If you have not registered already, here is the link.

https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4862128772224198147

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Hi Ashley,

Thank you, yes I will be joining todays webinar.

I am looking forward to it :slight_smile:

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Hello!
We use the following tech and it certainly saves the teams time & therefore allows our team to communicate more with our clients leading to enhanced service:

  • Trello
  • Slack
  • 360 Virtual tours
  • 27/7 portal access
  • Maintenance Manager
  • IRE (oldie but goodie)
  • NPS (Survey Monkey)
  • Pandadoc (electronic agreements)
  • Virtual Assistants
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Hi @sarah

What is your absolute favorite piece of technology that you and the team could not do without?

Ahhh I just got a bit of anxiety with that question trying to imagine life with only one!!! lol… We would have to say our cloud based software pptme.

Highly recommend pptme.

Officevibe is amazing and free, we love it.

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I am a big fan of Office Vibe, a great way to keep your finger on the pulse. Good job on the list above, so great to see all of these.

I know, I got asked this question the other day and I panicked. If you don’t love your trust accounting software, then you are in all sorts of trouble.

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We also fall into the trap of not becoming experts on one form of technology before the next one is introduced.

I worry that we don’t use some of our technologies to their full capacity.

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