ServusConnect Blog

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Getting rid of paper work orders and enabling mobile/digital service response for your maintenance teams will speed up service, provide precise repair documentation and significantly improve resident experience.

These alone are great reasons to make the move to mobile, as significantly more and more multifamily operators are transitioning, according to a recent Multifamily Insiders survey.

That being said, there are several tactical items for operators to decide on that could significantly impact success of the initiative. The most important of which is: Will your technicians actually adopt (and use) the software?

This isn't without risk; at the end of the day we're asking a predominately non-technical group of users to completely abandon a well-worn way of working (paper work orders, minimal documentation & tracking) and migrate to a completely digital/mobile process.

Let's face it, technician adoption of your digital/mobile maintenance initiative is your baseline key to success. Given that, we've assembled the Top 5 Factors that will ensure successful adoption, based on direct feedback we received from multifamily maintenance technicians located all over the country.

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It should be no surprise for multifamily apartment operators that emergencies happen. Our team has spent enough time on multifamily properties to hear numerous stories of how the property teams (office, leasing, and maintenance staff) were the first to respond to an emergency, even saving a life in one scenario. As I write this, a historical weather event is approaching the U.S. East Coast, which could have dire consequences for all of those in its path, including those multifamily operators that don't have emergency preparedness plans and tools in place.

Here are 5 apps your teams need to have on their smartphones when dealing with emergency or extreme weather conditions:

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With apartment maintenance and repairs, getting resident service requests completed correctly and in a timely manner is critical to consistently exceeding resident expectations.

Maintenance Operations, done right, can become a valuable component in the marketing of your brand. Conversely, it can be a scourge upon your online property reputation at influential rating sites such as Google Maps and ApartmentRatings.com.

The good news is that your service technicians carry an extremely valuable piece of technology, in the form of their smartphone, that can provide a massive assist in getting requests done fast and right!

But, with almost 4 million apps on Google Play and 2 million on Apple App Store, figuring out which are the most valuable to assist your maintenance technicians in keeping repair-completions moving, can seem overwhelming. That is why we went straight to the source, interviewing dozens of technology-embracing multifamily maintenance technicians to see what apps are critical to them!

Here are your 8 must-have apartment maintenance apps:

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In multifamily apartment operations, moving maintenance and other field service jobs away from paper-based, manual business processes and over to mobile, app-based, digital workflows is a major initiative for 2018/19.

Enabling massive productivity boosts for field service staff, significant improvement in asset repair records, and enhancing resident engagement through automated service notifications, field mobility can be a major win for multifamily operators.

Before that can happen, there is one nagging dilemma that senior management has to address:

"Do we provide a smartphone for field service staff or expect them to bring-your-own-device (BYOD)?"