software for strata. proudly built in adelaide, australia.
resvu pty ltd · abn 39620204337
What impact has a pandemic had on customer service delivery?
As with most industries and sectors, the recent events of 2020, in particular remote work, have shown us just how important digital technology has become. We’ve found being able to quickly communicate and source feedback from residents is now a key priority for most strata companies. The end result of better communication however is improved service delivery and reduced phone calls & emails, so it’s a win for all.
What are some benefits one could expect to see?
The most significant and immediate improvements companies will experience are proactive communication channels, tracking of tasks through the company and end to end maintenance management tools that automatically update the requesting party on the status of the work, significantly minimising back and forward follow-ups. In addition, the engagement and community building aspects that digital platforms provide, drive a greater competitive advantage.
Have you seen any examples of this first hand?
One that comes to mind was a recent customer’s comments around the improved efficiency of maintenance request management. With an end to end digital maintenance platform, you’re able to automatically update all key stakeholders throughout the journey from submission to completion of the work.
In this case, the contractor received the work order from the strata manager (via the residents’ request) and the contractor was able to update the work order status in real-time so that all parties, including the resident, were up to date on the status of the works. Not one phone call or email enquiry was made requesting an update on the works because all parties were constantly updated.
What future changes can we expect to see in five years time?
With around two-thirds of strata companies planning to increase investment in customer service technology, we are sure to see a big push towards front-end resident service delivery. Mobile technology will become commonplace and almost expected as a standard tool from residents. I’m excited to see the improved efficiencies take place so that strata managers can get some time back in their days all whilst managing a happier client!
Amanda Farmer from Your Strata Property is joined by Tom Welsby where they discuss how the clever collection and analysis of data can result in better decision-making and more vibrant communities.
You can listen to the podcast below:
https://yourstrataproperty.com.au/?powerpress_pinw=395934-podcast
Major Feature Releases
Account Integrations
We’re excited to announce our integration with both StrataMax and PropertyIQ strata trust accounting systems. By partnering with these industry leaders, we can provide our whitelable customers with even more power to streamline their business and help to maintain consistent strata roll information.
Whitelabel customers can now import all their sites and users who are registered under their StrataMax or PropertyIQ platform. We look forward to releasing more powerful features in the not so distant future!
User Email Subscriptions
Users and admins now have the ability to decide which email alerts they receive from the platform. To learn more, be sure to check out our article on managing email preferences.
Account Statistics
The statistics page of account management now reports on the following metrics:
- Issues Resident Requests
- Actioned vs Un-actioned Resident Requests
- Time Taken to Complete Requests
- Issues Maintenance Requests
- Work Orders
- Quote Requests
- Revenue from Bookings
- Revenue from Requests
Other Features Added
- Added rotate video screen option in Digital Concierge in noticeboards
- Easier ways to assign committee members
- Bookings that require approval are now highlighted
- Builders Defects show time log against each request
- Archive and Delete tabs added to policies and procedures
Congratulations to Tom Welsby winner of the First National Real Estate Innovation Award
The award celebrates young people who have demonstrated innovation in entrepreneurial thinking; in the workplace; through development of services and products with leading edge technological content; renewable and alternative energies; economic participation and the creative industries.
Tom Welsby founded Resvu, a multi-awarded App to promote and build communities within residential sites and apartment buildings around Australia. The App provides multiple products – CommunitiLink engages residents to connect with management 24/7; CommunitiLocal supports local businesses, promoting their services to residents within a one-kilometre radius. FMLink is for facilities managers of large sites, whilst FMLink Inspector offers benefits to service providers.
The following was taken from the 7NEWS Young Achievers Instagram/Facebook page. More information about the awards can be found here.
New Features
A big focus this past month has been developing global management solutions for our whitelabel clients, as well as improving the user experience for all admins . Let’s have a look at the new features and changes released this month.
Global Management
- Communications can be sent to all or select residential sites. Simply navigate to Company Dashboard > Engage > Account Engagement. Here, you can create communications as you would inside an individual site, and choose which sites to send it to.
- Clubs, Events & Surveys can also be created under this same section and promoted to multiple sites.
- Maintenance Templates are now available to be copied to all or selected sites. This is a great feature to use when rolling our new sites and can be accessed by going to Company Dashboard > Manage > Global Building Settings > Maintenance.
- Site Updates include the ability to add notification settings, custom request templates, site venues and useful links to all your sites. Simply go to Company Dashboard > Manage > Settings > Bulk Site Updates.
Site Codes
You can now view and edit the site codes for each site under managements.
Company Dashboard > Manage > Sites then click the three dots next to the site. Select Change Site Code where you have the option to add a custom or random site code.
Invite Codes
You can now distribute invite codes for admins to sign-up, rather than adding their details manually. Also available is the ability to track who signs up using this code, create multiple codes, and delete codes.
To use this feature, first enter the site you wish to invite the admin, then navigate to Users > User Management > Invites > Add Invite Link
Requests Section
Maintenance, Builders Defect, Access, and all Custom Requests have been moved to the new Requests Tab.
Minor Updates and Changes
- New UI/UX Layout: Re-design Menu System
- Digital Concierge, User Experience Improvements
- Move Surveys into Communicate
- Company Dashboard > Community Events – No RSVP section
- Settings > Notifications – Custom request emails link issue
- All tables should have loading screen working now
- Updated the term ‘Clubs’ to ‘Social Clubs’
- Audience selector now has address details for each user
Committee Hub New Features
Topic Types
Committee hub discussions can now have topics assigned to them. For example, you can currently choose between “general” or “Voting”. This is a handy feature to quickly see the different types of topics that are available.
Resident Requests
Residents can now send direct requests to their committee through the resident application. Committee members can view, update and respond to these requests through the admin panel.
Invoice Approvals
Site admins can now upload invoices to CommitteeHub for approval. Admins can notify committee members of new invoices and place expiry dates on voting.
All committee members will be able to vote and approve these invoices through the new CommitteeHub section of the residents application. This way, committee members don’t need to become admins to access these features.
To learn more about setting up CommitteeHub and giving your committee members access to these features, please read our help centre tutorial.
Account Management Statistics
- Now Show’s SMS, Email & Push Notifications over a period of time
- FMLink statistics on the Account View
CSV Imports
Admins now have the ability to import a CSV file of users. You can learn more here.
Miscellaneous
You can now view all your sites ‘Site Codes’ by going to Account Management > Sites
Bug fixes
- Better validation in bookings
- All displayed dates are now AU format
- Booking form disabled in some cases
- Dashboard error when displaying previous emails in some sites
- Booking popup, approve user wasn’t working
- Bookings display – Fixed date timezone problem when bookings made close to midnight
- CommitteeHub Emails showing [Object Object] in email
- Events not sending notifications. Event adds but no notification sent
- Notifications from Community Events / Account Management
- Event Sending Notifications to all – Not Selected Group
The Strata world has embraced an increase in competition as a result of the growing development sector, however, the ability to provide stand-out competitive advantages to win this business has remained stagnant, and we have all seen the price war that’s resulted. Follow these avenues to gain a competitive advantage for your site.
Engage Residents
Forget the days of paper noticeboards and manual bookings, give your strata company or site the edge with a resident engagement platform. This allows customers to easily communicate and interact using a mobile app, and staff members to manage sites online. With custom branding you can show clear justification as to why you are a market leader in engagement, proactive communication and customer service.
Capture Data
Using a digital engagement platform, you can easily collect and analyse data, providing your company with a high-level analytics overview showcasing how clients are interacting with the platforms. Use this data to preempt flight risk, gather feedback on new implementations, or simply understand the KPI performance of your staff when attending to digital maintenance reports.
Build Revenue Channels
Use these tools to deliver customised product and service offering to your clients such as insurance, utilities, concierge and more. Couple this with the ability to connect your trusted suppliers to your client base and you can capitalise on multiple revenue models built simply from connecting trusted resources to your clients.
Global Management
With a digital platform, you can communicate with select sites or your entire client base at once. To make the most of this, ensure you distribute company update newsletters, urgent alerts to a specific suburb of sites, managing income across your revenue models or invite your client base to a company education event.
With over 100,000 Strata, Community, Masterplan, and Student living customers, the Resvu Platform caters directly to management companies and property developers looking to drive business growth through high-quality customer service and proactive communication.
For strata and facilities management companies, the benefits of successful customer engagement are enormous—yet maintaining consistency and a level of automation as your businesses grows can be difficult.
Customer experiences in residential communities are enhanced through proactive communication, resulting in a higher level of retained and new business.
With community engagement and facilities management software such as that developed by Australian-based technology company Resvu, your business can deliver strong engagement to customers—and the benefits it will bring as a result.
Social events
Social events are a great way for residents to get to know each other and bond over mutual interests.
Events such as sales launches, community family and friends events or residents’ club gatherings, along with new and upgraded communal facilities are all opportunities to increase community engagement.
To ensure your residents receive invitations—and attend—events such as these, a dedicated community platform is a must.
The Resvu Platform, a whitelabel resident engagement and communication software provider, allows you to deliver events to all or select sites within your portfolio.
Committee and board management tools
Because your committee represents your residents, it’s important to provide them with the best tools possible to ensure decision-making efficiencies and reduce email and phone traffic: both your service levels and relationships will benefit as a result.
Using the CommitteeHub feature within the Resvu Platform provides both management and members with a new level of efficiency and time-saving capabilities across all discussions, documents, voting and specific resident requests, all within one easy-to-use application.
▲The Resvu Platform, a whitelabel resident engagement and communication software provider, allows you to deliver events to all or select sites within your portfolio.
Social clubs
Allowing residents to communicate with management and the committee can help drive a community—and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.
Residents who can engage with community peers through mothers’ groups, dog walking, book and community garden clubs will feel a sense of connection to your community—so their ability to access and keep up-to-date with these clubs is crucial.
With your custom-branded native mobile app in their hands, being a part of the community has never been easier for your customers.
Feedback surveys and newsletters
Keeping residents engaged isn’t a one-way street: it’s important to gather feedback and opinions on on-site related topics, as this feedback can offer valuable insights into where developments and communities can improve.
For example, gathering suggestions on paint colour for the foyer, or following up from a recent event to gather resident feedback is easily done through the Resvu platform.
Another good way to increase engagement is having committee members or building managers release a monthly or quarterly newsletter, showcasing any news, changes or developments to the residential community.
▲ To ensure your residents receive invitations—and attend—events such as these, a dedicated community platform is a must.
Rewards and loyalties
By utilising the local businesses around your area, developments and masterplans can provide residents with great deals and benefits for purchasing in their neighbourhood.
The Resvu Platform allows you to connect local business, key community partners and your preferred contractors with residents in nearby developments, providing access to up-to-date rewards, highlighting the exclusivity of the building and providing residents with ongoing value.
Further, rewards and loyalties can help create and support a thriving community both within and around a development by promoting and supporting local business.
Two-way communication
If a site is expected to have maintenance or other facilities management tasks performed, it’s good practice—and good manners—to inform residents.
With a resident engagement platform such as Resvu, building managers can easily send out a scheduled notice to a site’s digital noticeboards and the residents’ phone app—along with a push notification, email or SMS.
Residents are certain to appreciate being forewarned—they will have time to make any alternative arrangements and won’t be surprised by any window-washers or closed facilities.
Ensuring residents are provided with up-to-date information regarding significant events or issues that occur will go a long way to engaging residents.
At the end of the day, enhancing customer experiences in residential communities through a communications platform such as Resvu will benefit both your customers and your business.
Is your move-in process taking too long? If so, here’s what you could be doing wrong (plus some tips on how to improve).
Waiting until they arrive
Potential residents can (and should) become a part of your community before they even sign a single document. By doing so, you’ll be making your development or site even more appealing, increasing the value perceived and received by residents.
To do this, keep in contact with all prospective residents who tour your site through residents relationship management software. Invite these prospective students to site-specific events or open days so they can get a feel for the community, as well as get to know their potential peers.
Once your student settles and formally becomes part of your community, you can continue to engage with them and other stakeholders about, upcoming social events, local business offers, important dates, and much more, all whilst maintaining the strongest possible community connection.
Deliver Proactive & Informative Communication
Forget about the days of being continuously perceived as the person who only delivers the non-sexy and sometimes ‘bad news’ such as rent notices, noise complaints, and facility shutdowns. Instead, using student engagement software like Resvu, you and your company staff members can be proactive in your communication and engagement approach at all times, driving enormous improvements in brand awareness and student satisfaction. In other words, use software that allows you to be on the front foot, not the back.
An example of this could be setting automatic notifications for your residents in advance of any construction or maintenance to ensure there are no surprises when there’s a window washer greeting them in the morning! Another could be an invite to an education session for students or reminders about any upcoming social events or club information, which leads us to the next step.
Host Events and Promote Social Clubs
Examples of events that increase community engagement are hosting tours, community family and friends events, new and upgraded communal facilities, student club events and even tallying RSVPs to an upcoming meeting.
Whether you have a new or existing site, it’s crucial to host events for your students to interact with each other and build those strong relationships needed to get through their time studying.
Gather User Feedback for Future Decision Making
The enormous benefit of continuous and proactive student feedback is that it provides a wealth of data that you can use to make more accurate decisions on your future capital projects, facility maintenance, cleanliness and overall student satisfaction. This is a step that is commonly missed by business, not out of choice, but because there is simply no platform making this data readily accessible or sourced.
Be sure to send out surveys after each event to get your residents thoughts on how it went, or check-up periodically on the sites clubs to see if they could use any help – you’ll never know unless you ask. Tools like the CommunitiLink Resident App by Resvu make collecting and processing these results super easy.
With these results in hand, you and your site’s decision-makers can now make informed decisions about where to best allocate resources to meet your resident’s needs. Tools like CommitteeHub make discussion and voting on these topics streamlined, eliminating the need for traditional email and even meetings!
Utilise Technology to Manage All This and Make it Efficient
Arguably the most important step in this guide, many companies these days are making the most of innovative and affordable software systems to manage the engaging community-building aspects of their site, and much more for that matter.
Specifically, your student accommodation site should be exploring technology along the lines of:
- Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM)
- Communication Software
- Digital Notice Boards and Concierge Screens
- Event, Club and Request Management Systems
- Local Business Directories
- Facilities Management and Maintenance Platforms
With a platform and applications covering all the above for admins, committee members, student residents, community partners, local business and the overarching company or developer, Resvu brings all stakeholders together in one centralised software system. We’re helping sites like yours build and strengthen their student experience. If you’re interested in seeing how the Resvu system can help your business or development, contact us today.