Three ways you can reduce costs in tenant management
People’s awareness of the relevance of the digitization has increased strongly in the real estate industry over the past two years. At the same time, there are many different digital solutions in various areas – from smart home services, to temporary rental platforms, to solutions for BIM and digital tenant apps. Proptech.de counted 289 PropTech companies in Germany alone in April 2019. This raises the question of where to look first and what really pays off?
Evaluate the use of digital solutions from a business perspective
The answer becomes clear when you take a business perspective. The use of digital solutions should be judged by whether they directly or indirectly support performance goals. Indicators such as net yield or market values, as well as underlying KPIs such as vacancy rates, average length of tenancy, tenant satisfaction or lower administrative costs.
Or to put it simply: For real estate owners and portfolio holders, all digital solutions which either increase revenues and/or reduce operating costs in the long term are of interest. In the following, we will look at how you can reduce administrative costs by using a digital tenant app.
Reduce costs in operational processes with digital tenant apps
Digital tenant apps support the administration in making repetitive processes more effective while at the same time promoting personal contact with tenants. The app can be used to digitize common tasks such as documentation, ticketing and communication.
1. Reduce documentation costs: uploading instead of sending
Whether care instructions, floor plans, operating cost bills or the cleaning schedule – documents relevant to the tenants can be stored digitally on the tenant app. If something changes or a new document is available, it can simply be uploaded and added. The tenant is automatically notified. This saves time on the one hand and money on the other. If we assume that approx. five letters per rental unit are sent per year, an administration with 1,000 units can save €4,000 per year.
“With the digital communication over the Allthings App we spend much less money on postal charges, which, in addition to saving time, helped us save hundreds of francs a year,” says Christian Sulser, real estate manager at Weber Verwaltungen AG.
2. Reduce costs thanks to digital ticketing: proactive updates instead of reactive phone calls
If the hot water stops working or the elevator fails, all tenants call at once. Instead of merely reacting to incoming messages, property managers can use the digital tenant app to proactively inform their tenants of events that affect the entire property. At the same time, tenants can conveniently submit their requests around the clock via the app’s Service Center by smartphone or laptop. The manager receives a notification that a new issue has been reported and can process it in its own time via the associated ticketing system.
This saves time, which can drastically reduce the communication overhead for inquiries by post or telephone, as Christian Sulser confirms: “The Allthings App helped us to bring our operational efficiency to a completely new level. In the last two years we have been able to centralize communication with most tenants, resulting in 90% fewer telephone and mail requests.”
3. Reduce communication costs: reach all tenants with one message
Information relevant to all tenants can be posted on the pinboard of the tenant app. The letter, which would otherwise have been sent 25 times individually to each tenant with exactly the same content, can thus be saved. Tenants can answer in real time and ask questions if necessary. Thus a new, modern and direct communication channel between tenant and administration is created. At the same time, tenants are offered a platform for exchanging information with each other. Although this doesn’t have a direct effect on administration costs, it ensures a good living climate and thus increases tenant satisfaction.
Digital tenant apps save resources
All in all, digital tenant apps help to save resources and ultimately reduce staffing. Alexander Heinzmann confirms this in an interview with the ZVW. The managing director of Wüstenrot Haus- und Städtebau GmbH, which manages around 10,500 residential and commercial units, says: “Our administrators should be on the phone to answer questions, always on site, but also answer emails promptly. We asked ourselves how we could reconcile all this. In the end it was clear that this was only possible with an internet platform that would relieve the administrator of the need to provide answers to routine questions.” The customer can now retrieve relevant information from his smartphone, tablet PC or laptop from anywhere and whenever he wants. “This saves resources and ultimately personnel.”
Step by step into digital tenant management
At Allthings we place great value on accompanying our customers step by step towards digital tenant management. This includes Allthings Essential, a solution that concentrates on the basics – such as digital documentation, ticketing and communication. Once these core functions have been integrated into existing processes, our platform can be flexibly expanded to include third-party services, interfaces to existing systems and a wide variety of tenant services. In this way you secure competitive advantages for yourself today and in the future.
When it comes to reducing operating costs with the help of a digital tenant app, some of the leading medium-sized and large housing companies in the industry work with Allthings (including Credit Suisse, Privera and Nassauische Heimstätte).
Are you interested in finding out how we can reduce your company’s administrative costs? Then test our tenant management platform Allthings Essential now for free. Find out more about our solution here.