Investor Approval Speed: The Linchpin of Property Management Efficiency

The speed at which property management firms obtain investor approval for maintenance repairs can make or break their operational efficiency. Delayed approvals not only prolong the resolution of maintenance issues but also lead to resident dissatisfaction and potential damage to the property’s reputation.

Monitoring investor approval speed allows property managers to identify bottlenecks in the approval process and take corrective actions promptly. By streamlining approval workflows and facilitating quick decision-making, property managers can ensure that maintenance repairs are addressed in a timely manner, thereby minimizing disruptions and enhancing resident satisfaction.

Property Meld allows property management companies to set up automated Workflows to increase their investor approval speeds. In fact, our customers achieve speeds of just 4 – 6 hours.

Book a demo to see how our software can boost maintenance efficiency, leading to increased resident satisfaction and improved property owner retention.

Impact on Resident Satisfaction: Timeliness Equals Contentment

Resident satisfaction is intricately linked to the speed and effectiveness with which maintenance issues are addressed. When residents experience prompt resolution of maintenance requests, they feel valued and supported by their property management team. Conversely, delayed repairs can lead to frustration, inconvenience, and a perception of neglect.

By monitoring investor approval speed, property managers can expedite the resolution of maintenance issues, thereby improving resident satisfaction levels. This proactive approach demonstrates a commitment to resident welfare and fosters a positive relationship between residents and property management, leading to higher retention rates and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

Ultimately, investor retention hinges on the satisfaction and loyalty of property owners. Property management firms must demonstrate their ability to maximize property value and profitability while minimizing operational inefficiencies. Monitoring investor approval speed on maintenance repairs is a critical component of this equation.

Customers utilizing Property Meld are achieving investor approval speeds of just four to six hours. If you are well above this number, it may be worth seeing how a dedicated property maintenance software can help you improve investor approval speeds.

Building Strong Relationships with Property Owners: The Key to Long-Term Success

To build strong relationships with property owners, property managers must prioritize transparency, communication, and efficiency in all aspects of property management. Monitoring investor approval speed on maintenance repairs is one way to achieve this goal.

Property owners entrust their investments to property management firms with the expectation that their properties will be well-maintained and managed effectively. By demonstrating a proactive approach to maintenance management and keeping property owners informed of repair requests and approval timelines, property managers can build trust and confidence with investors.

Property managers can leverage technology solutions, like Property Meld, to streamline the approval process and provide property owners with real-time visibility into maintenance activities. By offering transparency and accessibility, property managers can strengthen their relationships with property owners and enhance overall satisfaction levels.

Monitoring investor approval speed on maintenance repairs is critical to the success of property management businesses. By expediting the resolution of maintenance issues, property managers can improve resident satisfaction, minimize operational disruptions, and ultimately, retain investors. Additionally, by demonstrating transparency, communication, and efficiency in the approval process, property managers can build strong relationships with property owners, laying the foundation for long-term success and growth.

The post The Crucial Role of Monitoring Investor Approval Speed on Maintenance Repairs appeared first on Property Meld.

Property Owner Retention: The Key to Sustainable Growth

For property management firms, retaining property owners is akin to retaining the lifeblood of their business. However, it’s not just about keeping them on board; it’s about building trust and demonstrating value consistently. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by leveraging maintenance data intelligently.

Maintenance data provides property owners with transparency and accountability. By offering insights into the frequency of repairs, costs incurred, and overall property condition, property management firms can instill confidence in their investors. When property owners see that their investments are being well-maintained and managed efficiently, they are more likely to remain loyal.

Moreover, maintenance data enables property managers to identify potential issues proactively. By spotting trends in maintenance requests or detecting signs of wear and tear early on, property managers can address issues before they escalate, thereby safeguarding the value of the property. This proactive approach not only enhances investor satisfaction but also contributes to long-term asset appreciation.

Property Meld empowers property managers to track maintenance data like never before. Dive into key maintenance metrics like repair speeds, segmented cycle times, and average maintenance spend. 

Sharing this data with your investors is the key to showing your value and boosting retention.

Resident Retention: A Cornerstone of Investor Retention

In addition to satisfying property owners, maintaining high resident retention rates is essential for fostering a sense of community and stability within properties. When residents feel satisfied with the maintenance and upkeep of their homes, they are more likely to renew their leases and recommend the property to others.

Maintenance data plays a crucial role in meeting resident expectations and addressing their needs promptly. By tracking response times, resolution rates, and resident feedback, property managers can ensure that maintenance requests are handled efficiently and satisfactorily. This not only enhances resident satisfaction but also cultivates a positive reputation for the property, attracting prospective renters in the process.

Furthermore, leveraging maintenance data enables property managers to prioritize maintenance tasks based on their impact on resident comfort and safety. By focusing on areas that directly affect the quality of life for residents, property managers can create environments where residents feel valued and cared for, fostering stronger connections and reducing turnover rates.

Building Strong Relationships with Property Owners: The Data-Driven Approach

To build strong relationships with property owners, property managers must demonstrate their commitment to transparency, efficiency, and profitability. Maintenance data serves as a powerful tool in this regard, offering tangible evidence of the value delivered by property management firms.

First and foremost, property managers should ensure that property owners have access to comprehensive maintenance reports and analytics. By providing detailed insights into maintenance activities, costs, and outcomes, property managers can keep property owners informed and engaged in the management process.

Additionally, property managers can use maintenance data to identify opportunities for cost savings and optimization. By analyzing maintenance trends and identifying areas where efficiencies can be gained, property managers can demonstrate their commitment to maximizing ROI for property owners.

Moreover, property managers can leverage maintenance data to facilitate proactive communication with property owners. By providing regular updates on maintenance activities, upcoming repairs, and property condition assessments, property managers can foster trust and transparency, thereby strengthening the relationship with property owners over time.

Maintenance data serves as a powerful tool in fueling investor retention and building strong relationships with property owners. By leveraging maintenance data intelligently, property managers can instill confidence in investors, enhance resident satisfaction, and demonstrate their commitment to transparency and efficiency. In an industry where trust and reliability are paramount, maintenance data emerges as a valuable asset, driving long-term success for property management firms and their stakeholders alike.

Book a demo with our team of experts to see how Property Meld’s maintenance data can help you provide a better resident experience, increase property owner retention, and increase your bottom line.

The post How Does Maintenance Data Fuel Investor Retention? appeared first on Property Meld.

In the realm of property management, the way you handle maintenance is a game-changer. It’s not just about keeping things in order; it’s about ensuring your assets stand the test of time, and residents and investors are happy. Property management companies must juggle providing top-notch maintenance to their residents while closely monitoring maintenance spending.

In the past, the industry has hit roadblocks when accessing the crucial data and insights needed to monitor maintenance performance accurately. Understanding and measuring maintenance key performance indicators, or KPIs, is essential for tracking success and pinpointing areas of improvement. With software like Property Meld, you can follow the efficiency of your maintenance process to make data-driven decisions regarding your procedure. However, before you can use data to drive your business forward, you need to understand what all the metrics mean.

Get our Maintenance KPIs Cheat Sheet

What are the Key Performance Indicators for Property Maintenance?

Regarding property maintenance, several KPIs play a crucial role in gauging the effectiveness and success of your efforts. Here’s a breakdown of some key metrics to keep a close eye on:

1: Repair Speed

– What it Measures: The time it takes to address and resolve maintenance requests.

– Why it Matters: Swift response times contribute to resident satisfaction and prevent minor issues from escalating.

2: Preventive Maintenance Completion Rate:

– What it Measures: The percentage of planned preventive maintenance tasks completed.

– Why it Matters: A high completion rate indicates proactive efforts to prevent equipment breakdowns and potential disruptions.

3: Maintenance Cost per unit:

– What it Measures: The average cost incurred for each maintenance event.

– Why it Matters: Monitoring costs per event aids in budget optimization and expense control.

4: Resident Satisfaction:

– What it Measures: Resident feedback on the quality and timeliness of maintenance services.

– Why it Matters: Happy residents are more likely to stay, reducing turnover and vacancy rates.

5: Work Order Backlog:

– What it Measures: The number of outstanding maintenance requests yet to be addressed.

– Why it Matters: A high backlog may indicate resource or efficiency issues, affecting resident satisfaction and employee burnout.

By regularly tracking and analyzing these key performance indicators, property management teams can gain valuable insights into the efficiency of their maintenance practices, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately enhance the overall living experience for residents.

Understanding Maintenance KPIs

All the maintenance KPIs Property Meld identifies are developed from our Ladder of Maintenance Excellence. A solid grasp of engagement is imperative, as it is essential for advancing to higher stages like scheduling efficiency. The KPI cheat sheet is systematically organized according to their alignment with specific ladder levels. Once you comprehensively understand the essential KPIs related to engagement and consistently achieve or surpass the target metrics, you can focus on scheduling efficiency.

Download our maintenance KPIs cheat sheet to understand better the crucial maintenance metrics you should be tracking. 

Or schedule a demo with our team to see how you can access these powerful insights with Property Meld. 

The post Your Cheat Sheet to Understanding Maintenance KPI’s appeared first on Property Meld.

According to Forbes, A KPI ,or a key performance indicator, is a measurable and quantifiable metric to track progress towards a specific goal. Property maintenance KPIs help identify strengths and weaknesses, make data-driven decisions, and optimize your process where necessary. Also, KPIs help you score the health of your maintenance process. Without them, you are left guessing. There are two different types of KPIs, and it’s crucial to understand the difference between them.

Leading Indicators: Leading indicators help define actions necessary to achieve your goals. They look ahead and help you predict future outcomes.

Lagging Indicators: Lagging Indicators measure output that has already occurred to gain insight into the future. They focus on the past and help confirm trends.
An example we like to use to help people understand leading versus lagging indicators is your speedometer and a speeding ticket.

Driving over the speed limit can result in more speeding tickets (lagging indicator). Knowing this, you can monitor your speedometer to avoid speeding in the future (leading indicator).

Property Meld lets you take a magnifying glass to your maintenance process to pinpoint KPIs and create a predictable, world-class operation.

Achieving Maintenance Excellence

Property Meld created the Ladder of Maintenance Excellence (LoME) as a guide for property managers to master the various steps of the maintenance process.

Property Meld’s LoME is based on Maslow’s Ladder of Hierarchical Needs. Maslow’s Ladder is an idea in psychology that states five categories of needs dictate human behavior. Humans need their physiological needs met before reaching love and belonging needs. Without food and water, you can’t move on to building a shelter. The LoMe works the same way. Without mastering communication with your residents, vendors, technicians, and investors, you can’t move to achieve scheduling and staffing efficiency.

Knowing where you are in the LoME and what might affect your progression is only possible by tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Why Tracking Maintenance KPIs is Critical to Retaining Investors

As a property manager, investor retention should be one of your top priorities. One of the best ways to retain owners is to provide them with a predictable maintenance NOI, which can only be achieved by utilizing maintenance metrics. The graph below shows the exact metrics that play into the health of your portfolio and ultimately impact your investor retention.

If you’re interested in looking at maintenance on this granular level, book a demo to see how Insights can help you join the new standard of property maintenance.

The post How Tracking Property Maintenance KPIs Creates a World-Class Maintenance Experience appeared first on Property Meld.

Regularly tracking and evaluating industry maintenance benchmarks can help property management companies make data-driven decisions to improve property management, reduce costs, enhance resident satisfaction, and see how they compare against their competitors.

According to IBISWorld, there are over 296,000 property management businesses in the United States. This means the competition is fierce and if property management companies are falling short with the industry, they will lose owners and residents to their competitors. Analyzing property maintenance benchmark data regularly is a great way to ensure your company is on track with others in your region.

Historically, the challenge in monitoring maintenance benchmarks has been the unavailability of relevant data.. With Property Meld Insights Pro, you can leverage an immense amount of maintenance data collection to provide world class, average, and mediocre, benchmarks for a variety of maintenance metrics. Property managers can view benchmark data by region to compare their metrics to their direct competitors.

What are Important Property Maintenance Benchmarks?

Property management companies have many different metrics they can track to determine the success of their maintenance process. Depending on your goals there may be specific metrics you want to pay closer attention to. The below list includes some of the most important metrics property management companies should be paying attention to.

Speed of Repair:

Measures how long a repair takes to complete from resident submission to invoicing. Property Meld data shows a world class speed of repair is 2.7 days.

Speed to Schedule:

Speed to schedule is the measure of how long it takes for a repair to be scheduled after it has been assigned to a vendor or technician. This is a measure of how effectively your team communicates and if you have any issues with scheduling efficiency. You should be scheduling work orders within hours, not days.

Speed to Assign:

This measures how long it takes for a work order to be assigned to a vendor or technician after it is submitted. Customers using Property Meld have a speed to assign of 0 because  our customers have set up automation to instantly assign work to the proper vendor or tech.

Technician Response Time:

Measures the speed at which technicians reply to messages from residents, maintenance coordinators, or the property manager. Tracking this metric helps identify if you have any communication issues.

Vendor Response Time:

Measure the speed at which your vendors reply to messages. This is a great way to track how your vendors are communicating and helps you identify your best vendors, or ones that may not be meeting your standards.

Average Vendor Invoice Costs:

The typical or standard amount a vendor charges for their services or supplies related to property upkeep and maintenance. This information can be useful for budgeting purposes, comparing quotes from different vendors, and identifying any significant deviations from the standard rates. Keep in mind this may vary based on the time of year, location, and the type of work being done.

Average Resident Satisfaction:

Average resident satisfaction measures how satisfied residents are with the maintenance work being done. This metric is extremely important because unhappy residents are more likely to move out. If your competitors have higher rates of resident satisfaction you may be losing residents to them.

Technician Utilization Rate:

Technician utilization rate is a comparison of how much work hours a technician logs, compared to their total hours. For example, if a technician works a 40 hour week and logs 32 hours of work, their utilization rate is 80%. This metric helps you measure the productivity of your internal technicians.

Owner Approval Response Time:

Many property management companies request owner approval for maintenance costs over a certain threshold. However, waiting on owner approval can slow down the repair process. Tracking this metric helps you determine if you have effective communication with your owners and investors.

Why is Benchmark Data Important?

Property maintenance benchmark data is important for several reasons:

1: Cost Analysis and Budgeting:

Benchmark data allows property owners, managers, and stakeholders to compare their property maintenance costs against industry standards or similar properties. It helps them identify areas where costs may be higher than average and make informed decisions about budget allocation and cost-saving measures.

2: Performance Evaluation:

By comparing maintenance metrics to industry benchmarks, property managers can assess the efficiency and effectiveness of their maintenance operations. They can identify areas that require improvement and set performance targets to enhance the overall maintenance experience.

3: Vendor Evaluation:

Benchmark data enables property owners and managers to evaluate the performance of their vendors. They can determine if the costs charged by vendors align with industry averages and if the level of service provided meets or exceeds expectations.

4: Identifying Opportunities for Efficiency:

Benchmarking allows property managers to identify opportunities for operational efficiency. They can learn from best practices in the industry, adopt innovative maintenance techniques, and streamline processes to reduce costs and improve service quality.

5: Data-Driven Decision Making:

Monitoring benchmark data enables data-driven decision-making in property maintenance. It helps avoid making decisions based on assumptions and ensures that choices are based on real data and industry standards.

6: Trend Identification:

Analyzing benchmark data over time can reveal trends in property maintenance costs, service quality, and industry standards. This information is valuable for long-term strategic planning and forecasting.

7: Performance Incentives:

In some cases, property maintenance benchmark data can be used to create performance incentive programs for maintenance staff or vendors. By setting goals based on industry benchmarks, managers can reward outstanding performance and motivate their maintenance team members to excel.

Overall, property maintenance benchmark data serves as a valuable tool for property managers to optimize maintenance operations, control costs, improve service quality, and enhance overall property management efficiency. It empowers them to make informed decisions that positively impact the property’s value, resident satisfaction, and the return on investment (ROI). It also helps property managers make a case to their property owners to back up their buying decisions with facts.

How Can You Measure Your Efficiency?

Some of the top property management companies can measure their maintenance efficiency by implementing various performance metrics and tracking key indicators. Here are some methods they can use:

1: Response Time:

Measure the time it takes for maintenance requests to be addressed and completed. Shorter response times indicate more efficient maintenance operations.

2: Repair Speed:

Track the time it takes to resolve maintenance issues from the moment they are reported to the point of completion. As we mentioned above, a world class repair speed is considered 2.7 days.

3: Number of Trips per work order:

Monitor the percentage of maintenance issues that are resolved on the first visit by maintenance staff. If your maintenance team is making multiple trips to resolve one maintenance issue, you are losing money and repair speeds will increase.

4: Preventive vs. Reactive Maintenance:

Measure the ratio of preventive maintenance tasks (scheduled maintenance to prevent issues) to reactive maintenance tasks (addressing issues after they occur). A higher percentage of preventive maintenance suggests a proactive and efficient approach.

5: Work Order Backlog:

Track the number of open work orders at any given time. A low backlog indicates efficient workflow management and timely task completion.

6: Resident Satisfaction:

Conduct regular resident surveys to gauge satisfaction with maintenance services. Higher resident satisfaction scores indicate efficient and satisfactory maintenance support.

7: Jobs per Day:

Measure the number of maintenance tasks or work orders completed per maintenance staff member on a daily basis. Higher productivity levels signal greater efficiency.

8: Vendor Performance:

Evaluate the performance of external vendors or contractors who provide maintenance services. Assess factors such as response times, resolution times, and customer feedback to ensure efficient vendor partnerships.

9: Cost per Work Order:

Calculate the average cost of completing a single maintenance work order. Tracking this metric over time helps identify cost trends and inefficiencies.

Efficient maintenance operations not only helps you improve your bottom line, but has a direct impact on your resident and owner churn.

How is Benchmark Data Calculated?

Using the data we have captured over the last 8 years from leading property managers in our platform, we have identified industry trends and created world class, average, and mediocre benchmarks for a variety of key areas. Customers on our platform have the ability to see their maintenance on an incredibly granular level to identify where inefficiencies are occurring. Customers can compare their data to others in their region to see how they stack up against their competitors utilizing Insights Pro.

If you are interested in learning more about how Property Meld can help you track and compare your maintenance data to industry standards, schedule a demo with our team of maintenance advisors. 

In the meantime, fill out the form to download our World Class Maintenance Benchmarks, containing key maintenance data points allowing you to see how the rest of the industry is performing.

Download World Class Maintenance Benchmarks

The post Property Maintenance Benchmarks to Monitor Efficiency appeared first on Property Meld.

For those property management companies that are tracking metrics, we typically hear they are doing so manually. Not only does this lead to uncertain discrepancies in their data from human error, but it’s also extremely time-consuming.

How to Manually Track Maintenance KPIs

If you do not have a designated property maintenance software, there are still ways you can track metrics that are necessary to determine the health of your processes. However, if you’d like to explore how you can automate your maintenance process and view real-time metrics, schedule a demo with one of our maintenance experts to learn more

Here are some steps you can follow to track your maintenance metrics manually:

1. Pick your metrics: Before you can begin tracking maintenance metrics, you need to determine what metrics are most important to your property management business. Standard metrics include the speed of repair, jobs per day, speed to schedule, technician utilization rate, and resident satisfaction. After determining what metrics you intend to track, develop a maintenance log to record all maintenance requests and their details. Include information including the date the work order was submitted, the work order category, the assigned maintenance person, and the completion date. If you receive feedback from the resident, you will also want to include this in your maintenance log.

2. Define your benchmarks: After determining what metrics to track, define your benchmarks. You hope to reach this target for each metric you’re following. For example, you should aim to keep your speed of repair under five days or achieve an average resident rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. An excellent way to determine your benchmark is by looking into your competitors and other industry leaders to decide where to set your goals.

3. Collect all data: Next, you must collect all data from every maintenance requests in your maintenance log. This can be done daily, weekly, or even hourly. If your maintenance process is highly manual, you can anticipate that collecting this information for every work order may be difficult and time-consuming.

Although manually tracking your maintenance KPIs is possible, it is prone to human error and a heavy manual lift for your maintenance team. This time spent entering data keeps you and your team from focusing on tasks that impact your company’s bottom line.

How to Track Metrics With Property Meld

If manually tracking your maintenance metrics sounds like a hassle, don’t worry; there is a better solution. Property maintenance software like Property Meld has a complete real-time maintenance dashboard.

With Property Meld,when a resident submits a maintenance request through their resident portal, a work order (we prefer to call them Melds) is automatically created. Once a Meld is created, you can automatically see the submission date, the type of work order, and a brief description of the work that needs to be done. With a maintenance dashboard, you can set customized filters to see all work order data at a glance.

For example, you may want to see how many total work orders you have at a certain time range. Out of those, how many have been open for more than a week? KPI dashboards allow you to get incredibly granular with your metrics. This transparency and oversight will enable you to evaluate each step of your maintenance process and determine if any changes need to be made.

On the other hand, this dashboard also allows you to see areas where your maintenance process is flourishing.

Benefits of a KPI Dashboard

Property Meld’s new Insights dashboard offers several benefits for property managers.

Here are some key advantages:

Real-time data: An automated dashboard provides instant access to real-time data metrics. You can see the current status of any open work order, track the performance of your maintenance team, and space and intervene if necessary.

Improved efficiency: Automation streamlines the process of tracking maintenance metrics. Data is automatically collected, organized, and updated in real-time, saving your team hours of manual data entry.

Enhanced accuracy: Manual tracking is time-consuming and more prone to errors and inconsistencies. An automated maintenance metric dashboard reduces the risk of human error by automatically collecting data derived from the software.

Improved communication and transparency: An automated dashboard lets you be more transparent with your property owners and maintenance staff. If intervention is needed, the communication process is much easier since everyone involved knows what stage the work order is at and what is holding it up.

A common complaint we hear from property management companies nationwide is that they spend too much time on manual tasks. In addition, they can’t track maintenance metrics.

An automated KPI dashboard can solve both of those problems. Providing you with access to accurate, real-time data that you can use to influence your decisions regarding property maintenance.

If you want to improve your maintenance process, schedule a demo with our team to see our powerful maintenance metrics at work. 

The post What Is a KPI Dashboard appeared first on Property Meld.

Maintenance metrics enable property owners and managers to track and analyze various aspects of maintenance, including response times, work order completion rates, preventive maintenance tasks, maintenance costs, and resident satisfaction. These metrics allow organizations to gain valuable insights, make informed decisions, and continuously improve their property maintenance strategies. Property management companies need to track maintenance KPIs or metrics to set goals, see their progress, or identify flaws in the maintenance process.

At Property Meld, we often say that our software gives property managers complete oversight of the maintenance process. But what does full oversight mean? If you don’t know why metrics are important or how to use them, having enhanced visibility doesn’t mean much. As industry leaders in the property maintenance space, our goal is to provide property management companies visibility in their maintenance process and show them why these metrics are beneficial and how they can use them to improve their ROI.

Maintenance metrics are essential to the success of your entire property management company; Our data shows that 31% of residents choose to leave a property due to poor maintenance issues. So if you have a problem in your maintenance process, you will find it challenging to retain your current residents. Not to mention, if you are receiving an influx of negative online reviews, it may be impacting your ability to gain new residents.

Maintenance affects more than just the resident experience; maintenance also dramatically impacts a property manager’s relationship with their property owners. Property owners want you to take good care of their assets while keeping costs as low as possible. If owners see high monthly maintenance costs on their owner statements, they may begin looking for another property manager. By tracking essential metrics, you can start to be more predictable and efficient with maintenance which keeps costs lower for property owners. If you want to share key metrics with property owners, you can show them the direct impacts you have had on their business.

KPIs help you measure how various successful aspects of your business or operation perform in real-time. This allows you to avoid problems before negatively impacting your company’s bottom line. When assessing the health of a property management maintenance operation, KPIs are beneficial. You shouldn’t wait till things are going wrong to make a change; by tracking key performance maintenance metrics, you can identify issues before they become more significant problems. This allows you to be proactive instead of reactive and make process changes before your business starts to see a negative impact.

Overall having the ability to see your metrics and, more importantly, understanding what they mean is crucial to the success of your property management company.

If you’re interested in learning more about maintenance metrics and our new Insights dashboard, schedule a demo with our team of maintenance gurus. 

The post What are Maintenance Metrics or KPIs appeared first on Property Meld.

Neglecting maintenance metrics leads to a reactive approach, where issues are addressed only after they’ve escalated into significant problems. By contrast, embracing KPI tracking allows for proactive problem-solving, enabling managers to nip potential issues in the bud before they spiral out of control. Here’s why integrating KPIs into your maintenance strategy is paramount for success:

1. Performance Measurement: KPIs offer a tangible means of evaluating your maintenance team’s efficiency and process effectiveness. Metrics such as repair speed and technician utilization rates provide actionable insights, empowering you to optimize performance based on hard data
2. Goal Alignment: Setting measurable goals aligned with overarching business objectives becomes seamless with KPIs in place. Whether it’s enhancing resident satisfaction or streamlining repair timelines, tracking relevant metrics ensures your efforts are directly contributing to organizational success.
3. Benchmarking and Best Practices: Leveraging KPIs allows for benchmarking against industry standards and identifying best practices. By analyzing competitors’ metrics and industry benchmarks, property management companies can refine their processes and stay ahead of the curve.
4. Cost Control: As mentioned earlier, a significant benefit to KPIs is the ability to be proactive instead of reactive with your maintenance process. Not only does this help improve the efficiency of your maintenance team, but it also significantly reduces maintenance costs. Implementing preventative maintenance practices and analyzing work order data can help you predict when things may break down or need to be replaced. This can help you avoid costly repairs and schedule maintenance tasks when parts and labor costs aren’t so expensive. Property maintenance can be so costly due to its unpredictability, but with maintenance KPIs, it doesn’t have to be.
5. Communication and Accountability: KPIs facilitate effective communication and accountability within the maintenance team. Establishing clear performance metrics allows expectations to be set, and progress can be communicated to stakeholders. KPIs also foster a sense of ownership and responsibility among maintenance personnel, encouraging them to strive for better results.
6. Owner Transparency: As a property manager, one of the critical responsibilities of your job is providing information and insights to your property owners. Owners want to know that you care for their properties and make them money. Expensive maintenance costs are often the source of a negative relationship between property managers and their owners. Instead of telling them how great of a job you’re doing, maintenance metrics allow you to show them. Your owners will have increased oversight and transparency into the maintenance process, leading to better owner relationships and retention.

If you are interested in learning more about maintenance metrics and their essential role in the success of your property management business, schedule a demo with our team. 

Our maintenance experts love showing how we can solve your biggest maintenance pains and help you improve your process with clean data derived from our software.

The post Why KPIs Are Crucial to Maintenance Success appeared first on Property Meld.

In property maintenance, preventative maintenance refers to the proactive and scheduled maintenance activities carried out to prevent property-related issues and ensure the proper functioning and longevity of the property and its appliances. It involves inspecting, cleaning, and maintaining various systems, structures, and equipment within a property with the primary objective of identifying and rectifying potential concerns before they escalate into significant challenges.

However, if you still need to solve communication, scheduling efficiency, and staffing issues, handling preventative repairs may be challenging. To learn more about solving these things and achieving maintenance excellence, subscribe to The Maintenance Minute.

Examples of preventative maintenance tasks in property maintenance include:

1. HVAC System Maintenance: Regularly cleaning and servicing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to ensure optimal performance and prevent breakdowns.

2. Plumbing Maintenance: Inspecting and maintaining plumbing fixtures, pipes, and drains to prevent leaks, clogs, and water damage.

3. Electrical System Maintenance: Checking electrical wiring, outlets, and panels for any signs of wear or malfunctioning to minimize the risk of electrical failures or hazards.

Why is Preventative Maintenance Important?

Preventative maintenance for properties is important for several reasons:

1. Cost Savings: Implementing a proactive maintenance approach can help property management companies save their owners money in the long run. By identifying and addressing minor issues before they escalate into major problems, preventative maintenance can prevent costly repairs or replacements. It is generally more cost-effective to perform regular maintenance tasks than to deal with large-scale repairs or emergency fixes.
2. Increased Lifespan of Property: Regular maintenance helps prolong the lifespan of various property components, such as HVAC systems, plumbing systems, roofs, and equipment. By keeping them in good working condition, properties can function optimally and remain in good shape for a longer period, reducing the need for premature replacements.
3. Minimized Downtime and Disruptions: Unplanned breakdowns or failures of critical systems can lead to significant downtime and disruptions in property operations.
4. Enhanced Safety: Regular inspections and maintenance activities ensure that safety hazards are identified and addressed promptly. Faulty electrical systems, leaking pipes, damaged flooring, or unsafe structures can pose risks to occupants or visitors. Preventative maintenance helps mitigate these risks, creating a safer environment for everyone.

Overall, preventative maintenance for properties is crucial for cost savings, property preservation, safety, and uninterrupted operations. It provides peace of mind to property owners and residents, reduces risks, and contributes to the long-term success of the property.

What Metrics are Involved in Preventative maintenance?

When tracking preventative property maintenance, several metrics can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of the maintenance program. Here are some key metrics that should be tracked:

1. Maintenance Costs: Monitoring the costs associated with preventative maintenance activities provides an overview of the financial investment required to keep the property in good condition. This includes expenses such as labor, materials, equipment, and external service providers. Analyzing maintenance costs over time can help identify trends, cost-saving opportunities, and areas where maintenance efforts may need adjustment.
2. Asset Downtime: Tracking asset downtime helps measure the effectiveness of preventative maintenance in minimizing disruptions. This metric measures the amount of time assets or systems are non-functional due to maintenance activities. A reduction in asset downtime indicates successful maintenance efforts in preventing unexpected failures or breakdowns.
3. Work Order Completion Time: This metric measures the time it takes to complete maintenance work orders from the moment they are initiated. Tracking work order completion time helps identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or delays in the maintenance process. It allows for better planning, resource allocation, and streamlining of maintenance tasks.
4. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): MTBF calculates the average time between failures of a particular asset or system. By tracking MTBF, property owners can assess the effectiveness of preventative maintenance in increasing the reliability and lifespan of assets. A higher MTBF indicates longer periods of uninterrupted operation and successful maintenance efforts.
5. Resident Satisfaction: Resident satisfaction surveys or feedback can provide valuable insights into the impact of preventative maintenance on resident experience. Tracking resident satisfaction helps gauge how well the maintenance efforts are meeting the needs and expectations of the property’s occupants. Higher satisfaction levels indicate successful maintenance practices and a well-maintained property.

These metrics, when analyzed regularly, can help property managers make data-driven decisions, identify areas for improvement, optimize maintenance strategies, and ensure the effectiveness of preventative property maintenance programs. To learn more about understanding maintenance metrics and how they are used, check out this article.

Request a demo with our team if you are interested in learning more about preventative maintenance and how it can be automated with our platform.

The post What Are KPIs for Preventative Maintenance? appeared first on Property Meld.

The majority of property management companies employ two types of maintenance personnel: in-house maintenance technicians and external third-party vendors. Maintenance technicians are typically salaried employees who only complete jobs for your properties. A third-party vendor or contractor is someone that you hire on a per-job basis based on their speciality. Property management companies can be made up of both internal maintenance technicians and third-party vendors, and there are benefits to both maintenance structures.

Whether you are utilizing third-party vendors or an internal team, ensuring their efficiency is crucial to the success of your property management company. Tracking key metrics related to maintenance performance is the best way to identify any problem areas in your maintenance process or opportunities to optimize your team.

Before you can begin tracking metrics related to maintenance performance, you have to understand scheduling efficiency and staffing efficiency at a deeper level.

For more insights on scheduling efficiency, staffing efficiency, and other aspects of the Ladder of Maintenance Excellence, subscribe to the Maintenance Minute.

Scheduling Efficiency Versus Staffing Efficiency:

Your scheduling efficiency refers to the speed at which you can complete a task. When a work order is received, how promptly can your team schedule it with an appropriate vendor or internal technician, and arrange a time for the repair to be completed with the resident? On the other hand, staffing efficiency determines if you have the right-sized team to handle the number of work orders you receive on time.

Imagine arriving at an auto shop to get an oil change for your car. If there are 30 technicians working on 15-minute oil changes simultaneously, they may be very efficient, but we understand that may not be a profitable business model. So even though they can get the job done quickly, they don’t have the right amount of people working for the demand of the job. That is the critical difference between scheduling and staffing efficiency. Scheduling efficiency refers to how fast you can get a job done. While staffing efficiency is determining how many team members you need to get the job done promptly.

Now that you have a better understanding of what maintenance performance means, we will go over what metrics you should track to determine the performance of your maintenance team.

Technician Utilization Rate:

Technician utilization rate is a metric used to measure the productivity and efficiency of your internal maintenance technicians. The technician utilization rate represents the amount of time a technician spends on billable work compared to their total available working hours. This helps you measure your technicians’ effectiveness and how much of their day is spent on tasks that directly contribute to your bottom line. For example, most salaried employees work 40 hours a week. If your maintenance technician spends 30 hours on billable tasks, you can calculate their utilization rate as follows.

Utilization Rate = (Billable or Productive Hours / Total Available Hours) x 100

(30/40) X 100 = 75%

Jobs Per Day:

Jobs per day are simple; it measures how many appointments a maintenance technician can complete in one day. However, to determine if there is a problem with your staffing efficiency, you have to track both jobs per day and your utilization rate. If you don’t follow both of these metrics, you will have significant blind spots in your process and struggle to find how to improve. For example, if you have a technician who is only taking on quick, easy jobs but you aren’t sure how they’re spending the majority of their day, time may be wasted even though their jobs per day are healthy.

On the other hand, if it takes a maintenance technician four hours to complete a repair, that should only take two; their technician utilization rate may be reasonable, but in reality, they aren’t working efficiently. Tracking these two metrics together will help you catch inefficiencies with your internal maintenance team.

Speed of Repair:

Lastly, if you want to track your scheduling and staffing efficiency, you should closely monitor your repair speed. Speed of repair measures how long a work order takes to complete from the time a resident submits it. At Property Meld, we prefer to divide the speed of the repair process into various segments.. This lets you visualize which part of the maintenance process takes the longest. Maybe your team struggles with assigning the right maintenance person or vendor to a task promptly. Or it might take a while to schedule a time with the resident for the repair to be completed. This is why we divide the speed of repair into rate to assign, speed to schedule, and speed to invoice.

Schedule a demo with our team to see how you can improve your metrics and your maintenance process.

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