HOA Property Managers Need Call Centers to Service Clients

I'm surprised that HOA management companies have a cold voicemail answering the phones at their offices and then forward all messages to the Community Manager! Consider another option: Home owners call a toll free number and speak with a live client services representatve who's trained to handle basic inquiries such as accounting questions, web site log in problems, and sending out forms. . .

HOA Property Managers Need Call Centers to Service Clients

It continues to surprise me that HOA management companies have still failed to adopt call center technology to help serve their customers.

I can't tell you how often our sales team gets calls from Board members saying that their existing community manager is "never available to take their calls and that the community manager is unresponsive to the home owners in the community." Trying not to ridicule the other HOA management company, our sales staff explain that without a call center function no HOA management company can provide immediate communication to the hundreds (or thousands) of home owners that a single manager is responsible for.

Imagine for a minute the typical staffing model of HOA management companies. They have community managers that are responsible for communicating with the Board, ensuring that each association's vendors are doing their work, that the financials of the association are correct, that the association has insurance, that architecture/design change requests are processed in a timely manner, and the the association is inspected regularly for compliance issues. Nine times out of ten all these responsibilities fall on the shoulders of an assigned community manager (did I mention most community managers have 10-12 associations assigned to them at any one time!).

Now let's consider a better model . . .

Home owners call a toll free number and speak with a live client services rep who's trained to handle basic inquiries such as accounting questions, web site log in problems, and sending out forms.

If the caller has a more complex question that the client services rep is trained to handle, the call is transferred to one of our community specialists in the office where the home owner lives.

At the same time, our PFM offices use a compliance inspector to ensure that all communities look their best at all times.

This model frees up the community managers to handle the most important aspects of association management: 1) coaching the Board, 2) overseeing the association's vendors, & 3) proactively working to increase property values and sense of community in the association.

Of course, without the call center this entire process wouldn't work. Thus, I'm surprised that HOA management companies have a cold voicemail answering the phones at their offices and then forward all calls to the Community Manager!

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