Increasing tenant satisfaction through a preventative maintenance plan

You know the situation. You have prime real estate assets, ideal location, amenities in arm's reach, everything a tenant could ever want. But they aren’t satisfied. Worse yet, they’re complaining. How can that be?

More often that not, a big pain for tenants is how maintenance requests are handled by property managers. When tenants complain about the process, it usually means their expectations aren’t being met.

And no wonder, dysfunctional appliances and faulty fixtures don’t just negatively affect tenants’ quality of life, they’re also costly to your budget and reputation.

One way to meet the expectations is to solve their problems quickly, or prevent them from happening in the first place. 

In this post, we’ll discuss how to implement a preventive maintenance plan into your residential property management for a happier, more functional and more profitable portfolio.

So here’s five things you can do to properly implement a preventive maintenance plan for headache-free property management. 

1. Create a checklist of regular maintenance tasks
   
   
2. Keep track of system and appliances
   
   
3. Encourage tenants to report maintenance issues
   
   
4. Establish a network
   
   
5. Inspect, inspect, inspect

But first off, what even is preventive maintenance?

Put simply, preventive maintenance is the regular inspection and upkeep of a property. It prevents small issues from turning into larger, more expensive ones.

From cleaning gutters and checking for leaks to replacing worn out appliances before they break down—a good preventative maintenance plan that can save you time and money while boosting tenant satisfaction (which means less complaints for you to deal with).

General benefits of a preventative maintenance plan

• Extend the lifespan of your property's systems and appliances.
  
  
• Address issues before they become major problems and prevent unexpected and costly repairs.
  
  
• Preventive maintenance improves the overall tenant experience by preventing disruptions and inconvenience. This pays-off in the form of increased satisfaction, higher tenant retention rates and less complaints.

But we get it, it’s not that easy.

More often than not, maintenance and repairs is something of a black box—issues get reported, but can’t be properly tracked. This leads to delays, poor tenant satisfaction and a whole lot of unnecessary stress.

But it doesn't have to be that way. With a good plan, and a little help from technology. Here's 5 tips for creating a property management preventative maintenance plan.

1. Create a checklist of regular maintenance tasks

The list may include cleaning gutters, replacing worn-out or damaged window screens, trimming trees and bushes, checking and replacing smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms, repainting or repairing roof tiles.

Whatever it is, keeping track of potential problems before they happen can prevent costly and time-consuming repairs coming to haunt you, and your tenants, later down the line.

2. Keep track of system and appliances

Heating systems, air conditioning, plumbing, electric or lighting of shared spaces all need regular check-ups and maintenance.

Make sure you have maintenance workers, internal or external, who check these systems regularly and keep them in good condition.

Use a tenant experience app to log these check-ups, and make them easy to access for future use.

3. Encourage tenants to report maintenance issues

Your tenants bear the brunt of maintenance issues.

After all, it’s their living quality that’s affected. It’s therefore important to provide the means to easily report, track and resolve repair requests in a timely manner.

A tenant experience app with a clear and intuitive ticketing system enables a transparent and straightforward issue reporting workflow that gets repairs done quickly.

This greatly enhances your ability to solve problems, which in turn impacts positively on tenant experience and retention.

Solve problems with Issue Reporting from Chainels

4. Establish a network

When things go pear-shaped, it’s good to have the right contacts at hand to respond quickly.

That’s why establishing relationships with reliable vendors and contractors for various maintenance and repair needs is so important. Just like ghostbusters, you’ll always know who to call.

Good property experience software often allows you to keep a database of contacts in one simple dashboard, meaning you don’t have to search sporadic contact lists or emails to get contact details.

5. Inspect, inspect, inspect

Did we mention that you have to inspect?

Have your maintenance staff regularly inspect appliances, fixtures, and general infrastructure of your property to spot problems before they arise.

This is the most effective to prevent issues that impact tenant satisfaction later down the line. 

Implement preventative maintenance for better property management

Implementing a preventive maintenance plan into your property management can improve tenant satisfaction, increase retention rates, and save time and money.

By creating a checklist of regular maintenance tasks, keeping track of systems and appliances, encouraging tenants to report maintenance issues, establishing a network, and inspecting regularly, property managers can prevent small issues from turning into larger, more expensive ones.

With a good plan, and a little help from technology, property management can be less stressful and more profitable.