As a property management company, there are various variables to register and regulate remotely. In order to meet customer expectations, you’ll need a specific set of abilities to be a competent property manager, including an ability to plan strategically, technological solutions to manage field service operations, and mobile workforces to organize your workflow easily.
Businesses in every industry, including property management, are converting to digital procedures to streamline and coordinate operations. According to AppFolio, 46% of property management companies have adopted new technology in their operations. To respond to the fast-paced changes in the service industry, the increasing majority of property managers find contractors who have installed field service management software in their operations. This is why it is crucial to partner with a field services company that can offer advanced digital solutions to manage your projects.
What is field service management software?
Field service management (FSM) is a system to coordinate field operations through a mobile/online workforce. At basic level, this entails scheduling service orders, tracking work status, managing orders, etc. FSM has seen a prevalent use in many different industries, and organizations using FSM software have seen a strong improvement in job efficiency. So, field service management is no longer a secret handled by enterprises. It’s rather an important component for the productivity of both managers and technicians.
And with the technological advancement over the past few years, the management industry started to need quicker solutions, which is why the field service management software was developed. It was designed to help businesses keep track of all moving parts by grouping all things in one software.
Primary Concerns of Property Managers, And How Field Service Management Can Solve Those Problems
The market of field service management is over-saturated but very few of these companies have yet implemented management software in their business model to maintain an open line of communication with clients. When working in the industry of field services, you need to be aware of the three main challenges that all property managers face and all the ways field management software can bring effective solutions to these problems.
Work order management and automation
Time consumption is the number one challenge for property managers who are in charge of multiple properties. It can be difficult to manage everything in a timely manner, which is what field service management software was developed to support. By digitizing all activities, it allows users to create, assign, and track work orders throughout the whole company, meanwhile rationalizing workload and consequently contributing to time management. Features like sending completed work orders with necessary photo documentation as well as assigning the right professional to the job maximize productivity of the company and minimize the required time for service delivery.
Instant Communication
This is another common challenge all property management companies have to deal with on a daily basis. Communication with clients typically takes place via email which often causes miscommunication, losing information or even emails in the overcrowded inbox.
Field service management software quickly streamlines communication with field service contractors. Property managers can utilize an online system to keep track of interactions, take notes, and submit requests directly as well as getting instant alerts on work orders in progress. Property managers can place work orders right on the spot, edit details if necessary and receive updates immediately all through the FSM software. In a word, what the field service management does is leading to a completely remote monitoring.
Retention of tenants
Residential property managers need to avoid losing money on unoccupied units. The solution to this is fixing high retention rates and reducing turnover rates of the properties.
Complaints arise in a variety of forms such as maintenance issues or tenants dissatisfied with the residential unit or the overall property management. The longer they deal with these types of issues, the more likely they are to consider relocating. Not only do they need proactive and timely responses but also rapid solutions to their problems. Coordinating all of these actions at the same time—as unbelievable as it sounds—is what field service management software is designed to do. It helps property management companies establish instant communication with the contractor company and optimize property maintenance.
Core Benefits of FSM Software For Property Management Companies
If you run a property management business then you definitely have a heavy workload and not sufficient time to manage everything. That’s why, by working with a field service management company offering a maintenance system, you will save time and energy by not having to track work orders yourself, manually input data into other applications, contact residents and owners and deal with crises.
Whether you manage a property or hire a professional to take care of the job for you, field service management software with its key features will be crucial for both of you. It has a direct impact on productivity and workload optimization. Moreover, it will have a positive influence on time management, as all the maintenance requests, tracking and job status updating will be automated.
Using an FSM software leads to a number of immediate and long-term benefits, including greater customer service, faster response times, better staff management as well as saving time and resources.
Let’s talk about the main benefits of implementing an FSM software you need to know about.
- Upgraded communication
As a property management company, you have a number of responsibilities, such as handling all the complicated procedures of property maintenance and renovation, which require constant communication with your team. Cooperating with field service management companies with maintenance platforms will automate this process and help you quickly connect with the team, easily receive updates on the progress and make sure everything is in accordance with your requirements. It’s not a secret that each business unit in an organization performs more efficiently when all systems can reliably and swiftly communicate with one another. In fact, gaps in business communication chains reduce productivity, leaving with dissatisfied customers.
- Reducing administrative work
Field service management gives an opportunity to create work orders from open cases, manage and monitor workforce, schedule order management and rapidly search for current digital work orders. The automatic update of data makes the process of work order fast and easy by delivering completed work orders directly to invoicing or to the customer, and assigning correct technicians to the right job with a few clicks.
- Access to information in real-time
Operations on the field service management software are transparently documented. The management team receives orders in forms of checklists to make sure all needs and requirements of clients are taken care of properly and in the most professional way. It is a paramount feature for field service technicians to have instant access to updated information.
All of these and more are easily accessible today on a single platform to increase the level of efficiency, accelerate invoicing processes, improve services, and prolong customer lifetime value. Finding a contractor having property management software designed and developed to meet all of your needs can help you improve almost all of your business operations from monitoring payments to managing maintenance requests. All you need to do is make sure you work with a trustworthy company offering two important things—excellent quality services and an optimized field service management software—and you can start shifting your old-fashioned working patterns into a digitized, easy and fast management system.
