LeadSimple Blog
How to Create Great Property Management Processes
How do you know when a process is “good enough”? What are the signs of a great process? Learn the 8 signs of a great property management process and how to make them a reality.
LeadSimple Blog
How do you know when a process is “good enough”? What are the signs of a great process? Learn the 8 signs of a great property management process and how to make them a reality.
So, you’ve created a process in LeadSimple and are ready to launch it into the world. (Haven't created a process yet? Start here!)
But you’re hung up on the question: “Is it good enough? Is it ready? Is it perfect?”
How do you know when a process is “good enough”?
Here are 8 signs of a great process.
Let’s go into each of these in more detail.
Haven’t launched your process yet? That means your process isn’t yet a good process. 😉 It’s not doing anything for you while it sits in production.
Don’t get hung up on whether your process is perfect. Believe me, “real life” in property management will break it, and you will need to come back to it again in the future. Put some time and effort into it, get it to 80%, and then just get it out there.
If you have active processes, but your team isn’t using them, that’s indicative of a different problem.
It could be a people problem or a process problem.
If it’s a people problem and they are resistant to the processes, you need to enroll your team.
💙 Sell the vision of processes and systems to your team - you are helping them do their jobs, taking stress off their plates, and enabling them to actually take time off.
💙 Encourage openness and team wide input on improvement of the processes - make it a team wide effort to improve efficiency and build a supportive infrastructure.
💙 Provide additional training and support to get the team comfortable with the processes.
💙 Lastly, measure and report on the performance of your team as it relates to those processes. More on metrics below.
If the process isn’t being used, it might be too complex, inaccurate, or simply reflect what you think is the reality but isn’t.
The team that does the work knows the most about what actually happens and when, as well as how.
Work with your team to make sure the process reflects reality, while still asking the question “is this how we should be doing it?” Rework the process as needed.
Simple yet powerful.
You need to keep those two things in balance.
Don’t make your processes so basic that they don’t support your team, but also don’t overthink or over complicate your processes. Remember the 80% rule.
Select the most common situations to build in with conditional logic and let the list of all other possible variations go. Remember that in LeadSimple, you can add one-off tasks and notes to a process to handle unusual situations.
Don’t miss out on the value of email templates, task instructions, and due dates in your processes. These are incredible time savers and ensure that the process is completed on time.
Build out your email templates and be sure to include merge tags for property information and other custom data. Build out your task instructions with links, videos, and lists to make it easy to complete the tasks. Make sure your task and process due dates are accurate to ensure the process runs smoothly and tasks are completed on time.
Inaccuracy makes documentation obsolete.
There are key signs that your team isn’t fully using the process or is working around the process.
There are two things to do to solve this:
You know you have a good process if you are hearing audible relief from your team.
“I don’t have to keep everything in my head anymore.” “I love how it keeps track of things for me.” “It saves me so much time.”
Track 1-3 key metrics for each process and report on them regularly. These metrics should be around efficiency, overdue tasks, client satisfaction, inbound ticket volume connected to that process, and turn and vacancy times.
Make changes to the process and watch the data to see how it improves.
Look to the future. Mentally double or triple the amount of processes run through that process type. What does that do to the sheer amount of work to be done to manage that process? Could the process handle it?
Where would the wheels fall off first?
Do you need to cut out some unnecessary steps or data entry to speed up the process? Do you need to build user roles into the process so you can split out the work between multiple teams quickly and easily in the future?
There you have it! Now get in there, review your processes, and make them great!
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Aimee is the Content and Customer Education Manager at LeadSimple. She creates training, educational, and other content to help clients achieve success in sales, operations, and the health of their business. When she isn't working, she enjoys the outdoors, crafting, family time, and learning new skills.
Sales doesn't have to be an afterthought, and your processes should be automated. With LeadSimple, you will have a seamless handoff between sales and service teams, and help you turn cold prospects into raving fans by delivering a great customer experience.
