4 ways 'big data' is changing property management companies experiences

“My definition of ‘innovative’ is providing value to the customer” Mary Barra

Big data seems to be the buzzword at the moment. Many industries are already collecting statistics from customer experiences and using them to change and shape their organisations in such a way that the customers’ expectations are exceeded from the initial attraction onwards. We look into how our property management companies are getting the benefit of effective data to make the best decisions for their building.
The property management industry seems to be lagging behind on this innovative approach. Many companies still use archaic methods to manage their customer relationships such as handwritten work orders, unsecure excel databases with customer information and cheque based payments to name a few.

Related: Strangford’s Client Portal, what you need to know about it

Below we will look at 4 innovative methods that property management companies use to manage our customer relationships and to exceed their expectations each and every time:

1. Arrears Levels: Whilst we minimise our clients’ exposure to arrears, we are aware that life sometimes distracts us and payments may be missed at times. We use a stringent arrears recovery process as well as daily monitoring through our CRM (customer relationship management) system to ensure that arrears levels are consistently low. To put it simply, we micromanage the service charge cash-flow on a daily basis and report real-time balances to our customers.
2. Number of insurance claims: as we discussed in our previous blog regarding reducing your building insurance premium, the volume of insurance claims can have a number of effects from increased premiums to mismanagement of an ongoing problem. Strangford Management constantly review the number of insurance claims logged on our CRM within the property, highlighting these in our client reports so both the client and Strangford are aware of any underlying issues and how to remedy them in a swift manner.
3. Time on site: when we ask potential new clients what issues they have with their current Managing Agent, we almost always hear ‘our property manager never comes to the property’. Using unique technology, we are able to log our ‘check in’ and ‘check out’ time for our site visits, posting this information on the clients portal along with a detailed report of what was seen so the client can see the value of our management throughout the year.
4. Customer Feedback: property managers seem to have a tendency to hide behind the buildings they manage, but we take a very different approach. We proactively seek out our customer feedback on a regular basis to learn and adapt to our customers’ needs, using big data to tailor our approach.

Strangford Management uses over 15 different indicators to provide a statistically measurable customer service that is incomparable. This information is regularly collected over the year and provided to our clients in order to allow Strangford to provide the best advice and the client to make the best decisions.