1,418 days ago (April 22, 2019) I published a blog called High Tech and Higher Touch: The Evolution of Leasing. So much has happened in the last 1,418 days. We have had the world shut down, human interaction has changed, expectations of consumer habits have evolved, but one thing has stayed the same: the need for exceptional customer experience.

Our industry has made great strides around leasing centralization, where many have realized that technology like self guided tours was not created to replace human interaction, but the right technology must enhance the customer's experience.

In my previous blog, I mentioned from SatisFacts 2019 Online Renter Study, the perception of quality customer service is ranked #2 in importance regarding the leasing decision, which lets us know elimination of leasing jobs will not be a thing of the future. Self-guided tours allow us to better customize a prospects experience, ultimately complimenting the onsite team's quality customer service. This has not changed in the last 5 years, customer service is still just as important.

Moving forward, the evolution of Maintenance. Now that residents have had to deal with many changes over the last years, what is their expectation? We continue to hear about maintenance centralization; will that become equally as important as leasing in the next 5 years? The need for exceptional customer service still stands as important if not more important. With instant gratification, DIY and such flexible schedules where residents continue to balance all that is thrown their way, how can the onsite teams handle the expectations? Better yet, how can they handle the needs from residents with an astounding increase in open maintenance positions, current employees are looking for more work life balance and much more. Is "centralization maintenance" the answer? What does the term even mean?

When we think about "centralizing" anything, it doesn't mean just removing current people from their positions, perhaps we can look at this opportunity to focus more on the quality of our current employees and invest in those and allow companies to help improve the customer experience through customer satisfaction. Currently in our industry we continue to see the average response time to a service request to be a standard 24/48 hour or even 72 hour time frame. Most residents' service requests are those easy ones to fix, garbage disposal, microwave filter, the switch in the electrical box or even a blind slat replacement. In order to increase or even maintain our residents expectations we must look to innovative solutions that will allow our residents to be heard as well as meet the residents preferences.

Understanding the residents' expectations around maintenance including DIY and instant gratification and putting together the struggle of so many open employee positions, innovative solutions lead to increased residents satisfaction, which ultimately leads to a lease renewal. What we can be confident in remembering; when a resident is deciding about renewing their lease, what impacts their decision? The #2 impact, "quality of maintenance service provided scored a 4.61 out of 5, on the SatisFacts Biennial Online Survey. This lets us know that just like leasing and the options to tour in person, virtual or self guided, there needs to be an option to be able to exceed residents expectations around maintenance service. DIY, Facetime service calls and optimizing current maintenance techs time on each service request must become part of the future in multifamily. According to a 2020 Survey from Kingsely, "The requirement for social distance, as well as continued focus on worker health and safety, will remain yet for some time. To help in communication and improving work, virtual technology should be a more widely used method of performing maintenance diagnostics and troubleshooting."

When a resident reaches out for assistance within their home, we must look for opportunities to increase resident satisfaction, reduce the response time and be accepting of the new options such as video tutorial, FAQ guides, remote technicians and still the option for a tech to enter the home. It comes down to optimizing the team while giving the options the resident would like to have available at their fingertips.

My opinion 1,418 days ago still stands true, we must look at the traditional role of maintenance and view new solutions as an evolution not as an elimination to keep up with the changing preferences of renters.