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Case Study Four: Impact of Property Manager and Maintenance Supervisor Experience
- Situation: A large community’s occupancy and operational issues required a more experienced staff, so the existing staff was rotated to a community that better suited their experience base.
- By addressing key issues this community was able to leverage results to improve satisfaction and renewal likelihood.
- The initial annual survey results identified critical issues, most notably regarding the responsiveness, dependability and work quality of the office and maintenance staff.
- As research would forecast, excessive outstanding maintenance problems led to the staff receiving “warning” scores, and the high level of outstanding requests led to the “very likely” to renew percent to be well below the SatisFacts Index.
- Upon reviewing the initial survey results and deciding that this challenging community required a more seasoned management team, the Manager and Maintenance Supervisor were transferred to a less challenging community and a very experienced team was rotated in.
- The impact became apparent with the re-surveys one year later:
- Scores and renewal likelihood skyrocketed, as residents noticed the change in service quality.
- All service-related satisfaction scores increased 12% to 34%.
- Coupled with the 10 point drop in outstanding service requests, the improvements led to a 4 point increase in renewal likelihood.
- The net impact of a potential 4% turnover reduction at a 300 unit community is considerable: 12 fewer move-outs at the conservatively estimated cost of $3,000 each leads to a $36,000 positive impact on the bottom line.
Five Point (1-5) Scaled Satisfaction and Yes/No Questions |
| |
Year 1: Score or % Yes |
Rating |
Year 2: Score or % Yes |
Rating |
% Improvement |
| Apartment - Appearance, condition |
3.46 |
Warning |
3.72 |
Average |
8% |
| Office - Courteous, professional |
3.97 |
Average |
4.46 |
Superior |
12% |
| Office - Responsive, dependable |
3.45 |
Warning |
4.04 |
Superior |
17% |
| Maintenance - Courteous, professional |
3.55 |
Average |
4.04 |
Superior |
14% |
| Maintenance- Response time |
2.85 |
Red Flag |
3.81 |
Average |
34% |
| Maintenance – Work quality |
3.19 |
Warning |
3.85 |
Average |
21% |
| Maintenance - Problems still exist |
47% |
|
37% |
|
-10% |
| Renewal Likelihood - "Very Likely" |
39% |
|
43% |
|
4% |
| Overall |
3.51 |
Average |
3.92 |
Average |
12% |
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