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- What is essential in a property management automation platform?
- What doesn't necessarily matter?
- What is just nice to have?
These are questions you should start to ask when looking for an automation platform for your property management business. As the automation pioneer for the property management industry, we've had some time to learn from our clients about what it is that actually makes a difference in their day-to-day operations.
We've compiled this list of four things every automation platform needs to have to be a good investment of your time and resources.
A good platform needs:
- Actionable reporting
- Integrative communication across software
- Enough utilization to reduce your need for subscriptions to other services
- To be built by someone who understands the unique needs of property management companies.
Let's take a look at why these elements are so critical to your success.
Automation Must Have Actionable Reporting
We made this one the top of the list because it is the most important: your property management automation system has to provide you more than automation for the sake of automation. Transformative automation will help you get the data you need to:
- Optimize staffing levels
- Track employee productivity
- Predict market changes
- Improve processes.
You should also be able to track marketing ROI, customer lifetime value, and other critical KPIs.
Without a level of reporting that can help you manage your business, sure, you might save time by implementing automation—but how much? In what departments? Where is help still needed? Who is falling behind?
Your automation system should answer these questions—and more. If it doesn't, you'll probably end up moving to one that does down the road, so you need to ask yourself whether you want to disrupt your business twice to get to where you could have started. Be sure it is an automation SYSTEM: Saves YourSelf Time, Energy, and Money.
Your System Should Work With Your Property Management Software
You still need your property management software, so the best automation system is going to share information back and forth with the software you currently have. This ensures it can always automate based on the most up-to-date data.
Sure, you can have programs that don't integrate with the software you already have in place. However, when they don't work with your management software, you'll end up having more work to do to make the automations function as they should, or you're going to miss out on features. Neither option is ideal.
Instead of working in a system that requires a manual transfer of data, choose one that has software integrations to make life easier, and to ensure your property management automations are more accurate.
This is especially important when you're automating something like collections; the last thing you want to do is send a notice to a renter that just paid the night prior!
Your System Should Eliminate the Need for Some Others
No one wants to add more noise to their technology mix. The point is to save you time, energy, and money—which means using an automation system that can replace multiple 'one-off' programs. If your automation system can't do this, it very well might end up adding more work than it saves by creating a need for additional data entry, cross-checking between systems, and other miscellaneous work.
On the other hand, when your automation system replaces multiple other programs you see even greater time savings. If your team has to work from 10 browser tabs a day, it might be time to look into how much time and frustration they could be saving through consolidating some of these programs.
Your System Should Be Built by Someone Who Knows Property Management
If your automation system was built by a group that has worked in the industry and run a property management company, you're going to be better off than using an automation system built to apply to a wide variety of unrelated fields or programs built for property managers by someone who hasn't worked in the trenches. You need to understand the business to truly understand how to help those businesses level up.
Our staff here at Geekly Media consists of property management veterans who understand the struggles property managers face regularly. Our mission is to automate and grow property management businesses to improve our clients' quality of life. At the end of the day, if we aren't making your job easier and less of a struggle, we aren't happy!
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