As a community manager, staying up-to-date with the latest technology is essential.  That way, you can meet board and resident expectations as they evolve.  If your team is currently losing time to outdated software or handling tasks in many applications, it is a sign that it is time to change your software.  With efficient community management software, you can reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and improve your team\’s workflow.

When migrating to new community management software, it is natural for your team to feel concerned.  Though you may face some challenges, such as learning a new system or how it will impact residents, the rewards of change far outweigh the risks.

In this article, we talk about eight common myths about changing community management software.  Then, we will talk about how you can overcome these challenges.

1) Learning new software is too time-consuming.

As a community manager, you manage many communities and handle daily tasks. Learning new software can start to feel overwhelming. Some software platforms are challenging to use, demanding more time and effort from your team.  

We recommend ensuring software providers can offer the following services:  

• Easy to use software to communicate, create tasks, respond to resident or board requests, and more.  
• Help set up your communities and answer any questions you have. 
• Flexible support options such as email, phone, videos, and help articles so you can get the help you need when needed.
• Support should be part of your ongoing subscription, so you don\’t have to worry about paying extra.

Pilera’s property management software is one of the easiest-to-use platforms in the industry.  We help you avoid the headaches that come with new software implementation.  In addition, Pilera provides onboarding, training, and ongoing support at no extra charge. 

2) We’re already using our email service provider. Why use a communication platform?

Effective communication with residents, board members, vendors, and staff is vital to your operations.  Many managers use their company\’s primary email service provider to communicate with residents.  Relying on your company\’s email provider for communication can feel overwhelming.  Searching for emails takes too much time.  It can also take hours to update your email list whenever a resident\’s contact information or preference changes.  Communication software helps you cut down on manual tasks while keeping residents informed. 

Your technology provider should offer the following capabilities to enhance your communications:

• Phone, email, text, and postal mailing to cater to broader community demographics. 
• Distribution groups update when a resident\’s contact information changes or they join/leave the community.
• Message delivery confirmation to know if a resident opened an email or received a text. 
• Reverse 911 functionality to send out emergency blasts by phone or text. 
• Language translation so you can ensure every message is received and understood.

With Pilera\’s automated communication platform, each community saves an average of $4,927 per year over traditional methods.  You can reach an entire community or group of residents the way they want – through phone, email, text, and postal mailing.  Translate emails and text into more than 100 languages, and send phone calls in Spanish.  Pilera also tracks the delivery of each message you send and tracks email replies in a message inbox. 

Download Whitepaper: Understanding return on investment for your community’s technology

3) An all-in-one solution is the best option.

There are many accounting software platforms in the community management industry.  Accounting platforms specialize in account receivables, payables, budgeting, and forecasting features.  Many accounting platforms also include basic management features.  These may include work orders, ACRs, violations, and other features.  Although an all-in-one system may sound attractive, most providers started with accounting and built the management piece later.  That means you will likely miss out on the more advanced communications and operations features that management platforms focus on. 

Even though using two separate systems means splitting your budget between the two, you can benefit by gaining a return on investment in the long run.  By integrating your accounting software with a management platform, your team can enjoy the strengths of both systems.  Through accounting software, your team can track the financial health of your communities.  Management software helps you improve customer service, operations, and resident satisfaction.  

Pilera has 2-way integration with some of the best accounting platforms in the market.  Pilera enhances the accounting features you love with advanced communications, client support, operations, and resident engagement features.  Through the integration, you can save time, reduce manual errors, and improve data accuracy.   

4) Implementing new software will disrupt residents.

Another concern we often hear is that switching to new software will cause disruption for residents, and they will have to learn how to use new software.  Is the change going to cause an influx of residents calling in? How will residents perceive this change? 

Change can be daunting, especially for residents. But, an easy-to-use portal and seamless sign-up process can bring a sense of calm to the transition process. 

Look for a provider with the following capabilities: 

• Access to community information anywhere and on any device.
• Simple resident registration
• Convenient online payment options
• Features that get your residents coming back for more, such as discussion boards, documents, events, and a marketplace.  
• Residents can easily manage their data.
• Self-help videos and instructions for residents to use the resident portal.  

Pilera’s onboarding team has helped ease transitions from single associations to management companies of more than 50,000 units.  PAS, a California management company, transitioned thousands of residents from their previous platform to Pilera.   

\”Pilera\’s support has been exceptional. Having us migrate from one platfrom to the other without that support, we would not have looked as good as we did. It gives our company a finished polish.\”

Carlos Molina, CTO
Professional Association Services, Inc.

5) Already using spreadsheets to track community data

Many managers use spreadsheets to organize and track their tasks, including work orders, resident contact information, violations, and support issues.  Yet, managing several spreadsheets over time can be overwhelming.  Since spreadsheets don\’t readily facilitate manager collaboration, tasks can easily slip through the cracks.  

You can organize your team\’s work under a single roof with community management software.  Community management software helps you to manage community tasks and resident requests.  Features such as comments, documents, and real-time updates help your team to work better together.  You can respond to resident requests faster and even empower them to check the status of their tickets.

With Pilera’s community operations software, your team can work together on and manage work orders, architectural control requests, rule violations, and tasks.  Our clients increased efficiency by 25% and saved $5,000 per staff member per year with our ticketing system.  Features such as email reply tracking, audit logs, documents, and comments give your team visibility into each task.

6) Software has too many features that we don’t need.

Every HOA community has unique challenges to solve every day. When transitioning to new software, you may be concerned about software providers requiring you to use features you don\’t need.  

Some software providers offer one or two pricing plans, often leaving communities overpaying or needing more value.  

When evaluating software providers, see if they will offer solutions that fit your community\’s needs: 

• Customized software packages – Do software providers allow you to select which products/features you want?
• Start slow as you go – If you don\’t need all the products a provider offers at the get-go but see potential down the line, do they allow you to choose what you want now and scale later?  Your software platform should be customizable, allowing you to add new features as you grow.

Pilera works with thousands of HOAs, condos, co-ops, and apartment communities. Each has unique challenges and needs. Our a-la-carte pricing model enables our customers to choose the products that are right for them.  

7) New software will change how we currently operate.

Another myth about transitioning to new software is it will change how you operate. Community management platforms should help you organize your existing processes. Software shouldn\’t change how you operate! 

Here at Pilera, we recognize that each community operates differently. We designed our software to give you flexibility in creating, managing, and overseeing your tasks:

• Enable different products and features based on your community\’s needs.  
• Distribution groups enable you to combine units and people to send a message to. 
• User roles help you control who has access to send messages, create tasks, manage documents, and more. 
• Categories enable you to organize the type of work orders, RFPs, support tickets, ACRs, violations, and tasks you manage to identify patterns or trends.
• Ticket permissions give you control of whether residents can view work orders, ACRs, support, violations, and their associated comments. 

8) Our current process/software is good enough.

Is your current HOA management process or software just functional, or is it helping you create more efficiency for your team? 

Suppose you are spending too much time on manual data entry, constantly chasing your team members for task updates, struggling to identify community issues, lacking an overview of your team’s work, dealing with constant complaints from board members, or fielding too many calls from residents. In that case, it may be time to consider switching software. 

By changing to community management software that automates tedious tasks, improves collaboration with board members, and creates self-sufficient communities, you can deliver a better resident experience and boost efficiency for your team. 

Pilera has helped community management companies and associations regain efficiency by 25% and reach residents 30x faster.  Additionally, each community saves over $4,900 over traditional communication methods such as company email service providers and postal mailing. 

Conclusion

Changing software can be scary, but it can be worth it for better efficiency, growth, and client satisfaction.  As you check which community management software is the right choice, consider the following criteria for a successful transition: 

1. A software that is easy to learn and offers onboarding, training, and self-help options. 
2. A communication platform that keeps you organized saves your community money and improves resident satisfaction by offering many ways to stay informed. 
3. Leverage the strengths of both your accounting platform and management platform to monitor financial performance and deliver an excellent resident experience. 
4. Ease the transition for residents to your new platform with a simple registration process and easy-to-use features. 
5. Replace static spreadsheets with an online system that helps your team stay focused and improves collaboration. 
6. Select a platform that lets you choose which products your communities need.
7. Software that enhances your processes without changing how you operate.
8. Software platforms that help you automate tedious tasks and empower you to improve the client experience.

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. To learn how Pilera can help to improve efficiency and reduce costs, book a personalized demo. 

The property management landscape is becoming more competitive with new players entering an already saturated market and companies struggling to gain new business.  To maintain a sustainable business model and generate revenue, it’s important for management companies to focus on finding fresh new leads that are in need of the service you provide.  In this blog post, we’ll focus on four significant ways to boost lead generation and stand above the competition.

1) Be visible on search engines

When developing or updating your HOA, condo, or rental company website, it is important to make SEO or search engine optimization a priority.  Search engine optimization is an important effort that leads prospects from searching for specific information to your website, discovering that you have an answer to their question and eventually, you can help solve their challenges.  For management companies that service one or more geographic locations, implementing local SEO is critical because association boards and apartment managers will search for a management company in their vicinity. Here are a few SEO tips to help guide your efforts:

• Focus on the keywords that are most important for prospects to find you and implement it in your content, page titles, descriptions, links, and images.
• Implement local keyword search into your SEO strategy.  For example, if you’re a condo company that manages high-rises in Seattle, make sure that your site is discoverable for the keyword.  Pudget Sound Condo Group, for example, does a good job with their local search efforts. They’ve added relevant keywords in its page title, URL, and description – thus, they are on the first page of Google’s search engine.
  
• If your budget allows, spending marketing money on online search ads such as Google Ads or Bing allows you to improve your company’s visibility.  Again, if you’re a local management company, keep in mind how a local HOA board or apartment manager would search for you.
  

2) Make digital marketing a priority

Digital marketing is an important effort that allows companies to increase their reach by sharing knowledge and expertise.  HOA, condo, and rental management companies can benefit from digital marketing by building credibility over time. Digital marketing includes a variety of tools all meant to support your efforts in moving prospects along the sales funnel – blogs, email marketing, social media, search engine optimization, and online advertisements.

Here are a few ways to engage in digital marketing:

• Add a blog to your website and write content frequently.  Write about the challenges community associations or apartments face and how to solve them (such as board meeting efficiency, keeping residents engaged, the impact of drones, and the list can go on).
• Build an email list to send newsletters or company updates to.  If you are providing new services such as in-house maintenance, that’s something worthwhile to share with your audience.
• Create your presence on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Share your blog articles, company updates, new staff joining, tips, and more.

3) Network and share your expertise at industry events

Networking at events helps you to make connections and build relationships with prospects.  There are many trade associations that operate on a national and state-level such as Community Association Institute (CAI) for HOA’s and condos, and National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) and Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) for apartments and rentals.  These trade associations provide a multitude of services that empower management companies to succeed. They provide opportunities to attend industry conventions, luncheons, and other events that are great for networking, sharing your knowledge with others, and learning the latest trends.   Other ways management companies can utilize their memberships in trade associations include purchasing a booth or sponsorships, speaking at conventions or teaching classes, or providing expertise at luncheons that laser-focus on an important topic such as emergency preparedness or handling community relationships.

4) Leverage modern technology solutions

Community management software is not often considered a lead generation tool, but from the experience of our clients, I’d argue that it can become a very powerful asset that gives you a competitive edge.  When board members or apartment managers seek a property management service, they are looking for the whole package. If you don’t provide the services they’re looking for due, and if part of that reason is that you’re using an inefficient software platform, your prospect is more likely to go with another property management that uses a more powerful software platform.

Obtaining new sources to generate more quality leads is a very important goal of growing your property management portfolio of community associations and/or apartments.  A combination of these four strategies enables you to not only generate new leads but move them along the sales funnel to becoming a customer and building a sustainable property management business.       

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management suite that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Book a demo to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company. 

Community associations are constantly growing, with more residents desiring a sense of community and shared responsibility. Communication with residents is critical to ensure a community runs smoothly and improves the resident experience. Residents expect to receive information about HOA dues, meetings, events, policies, maintenance, emergencies, and other important community information at the tip of their fingers. With many businesses using texting/SMS to connect and engage with their customers, should your community start using text messaging too? In this article, we’ll describe the 4 ways text messaging benefits your community. We\’ll also briefly talk about the benefits of HOA texting software.

Vital in sending emergency or urgent notices

There\’s no time to waste when there’s an emergency or a situation where residents need to be notified at short notice, such as roadblocks or maintenance work.  While email and phone calls are effective methods, there’s nothing as immediate as a text message.  Where it may take days for residents to receive physical mail or a few minutes to send out a voicemail, they\’ll receive text messages instantly. 

It’s important that your communication software can handle sending a large volume of emergency messages at short notice.  Pilera’s communication platform is designed to stand the toughest tests.  Our platform has fault protection and retry algorithms to ensure fast and reliable delivery.  Features like reverse 911 functionality allow you to send emergency text messages to residents, bypassing their communication preferences.  

Cost savings

Traditional communication methods, such as postal mail, can become expensive over time.  More modern means like texting can improve operations and staff efficiency. Because text messaging is much quicker and easier to implement, it can save communities hundreds or thousands of dollars annually. With HOA texting solutions, it takes only a few clicks to message a group of residents or your entire community. Features in Pilera, such as templates and unit-based distribution groups, save you time when messaging the same group of individuals.

Convenience

According to Pew, 1 in 3 Americans prefers to receive text messages from a business, irrespective of the message.  Studies also suggest that 85% of individuals prefer a text message over a voice call.  Most adults own a mobile phone, making text messages the most preferred way to receive a message. HOAs can use text messaging by encouraging residents to choose how they want to hear from you. With Pilera, residents can receive messages like text, email, phone, or mail. Additionally, Pilera\’s language translation capabilities allow residents to choose from over 100 languages to receive their text messages.

Highest open rate

Ensuring residents receive your messages on time is vital to your community’s communication efforts.  Postal mailings often take time to reach residents, and even so, residents may not open their mail consistently every day. Email sending is a cost-effective way to reach your residents; however, 20-30% of them are opened. Text messages, by far, have the highest open rate than any other medium of communication. 99% of text messages are opened and read within three minutes of receiving them, making them one of the most effective ways to reach your residents. 

Your communication platform should confirm that your residents have received your message.  In Pilera, confirmation delivery analytics on whether someone opened a message will be available to you after you send a message.  

Improve your communication efforts with HOA text messaging software

Although various modes of communication, such as postal mail, email, and phone calls, all have advantages, text messaging is a faster and more direct way to reach residents. It’s a cost-effective alternative to postal mail.  With the highest open rates of any mode of communication, you\’ll see increased resident engagement and improved operations.

Pilera\’s automated communications platform lets you quickly send text messages and know with confidence that your residents have received them. If you\’d like to learn how Pilera can improve your communications today, email us at [email protected] or request a demo.

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier property management software that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. May we help your community achieve these success stories? Contact us so you can see how Pilera’s community management suite can increase work efficiency for your company.