In a residential laundry setting, mistakes and mishaps are bound to happen. If not addressed quickly, resident complaints can build up and become much more difficult to handle. It can sometimes feel overwhelming trying to address certain issues and prevent them in the future. In this blog post, we will give you three tips as a property manager for fielding complaints in your community. We will cover steps residents can take to prevent issues, how to keep communication clear and consistent, and how to use maintenance insights and data to improve laundry room services over time.
1. Preventative Measures in Laundry Room Services for Residents
To prevent complaints before they occur, it can be important to have residents understand ways they can assist themselves. It’s immensely more likely that residents or consumers will attempt self-service before reaching out to management to file a complaint. In an article from the Harvard Business Review, customers are much more likely to use self-service options, even when support is readily available to them. Though companies expect customers to gravitate towards live service, trends in recent years have consistently proven otherwise.
It is very effective to have signage and information readily available to your residents in order to help them troubleshoot their issues. You should have QR codes with links to help pages in order for residents to solve problems on their own. Automatic Laundry, for instance, has ways for residents to solve problems on their own. For example, our website has FAQ’s about common errors regarding laundry machines and payment methods.
2. Effective Resident Communication
Sometimes, a complaint is unavoidable. Mistakes happen, and it’s important to be mindful of how you can become more approachable as a property manager, especially when issues are brought to your attention. One major point to consider when improving your communication with your residents is having a system for submitting service requests. If you own multiple properties, will you have one centralized location for complaints to be shared? Is there a feasible way to track these complaints moving forward?
Once the complaint arrives, you should attempt to help as soon as you can. Keeping a professional and respectful attitude toward your residents is going to vastly improve your relationship with them and provide them with a reason to keep their laundry within the community. According to an article from the American Coin Op, small business owners claim that customer expectations are what create complaints. Whether it’s a machine being out of order or their money being swallowed by a malfunctioning refill station, residents complain about not having their expectations met by any given customer service experience. The most important thing about customer complaints is not necessarily explaining why the problem exists, but rather listening to your residents. Residents prefer to be heard above all else when it comes to customer service complaints. Listening to them, reacting to their complaints, and addressing the issue creates a bond between you and your community that is irreplaceable. Being patient with your residents is what makes your laundry room services all the more appealing.
3. Keeping Up With Maintenance and Data to Improve Laundry Room Services
You’ve gone through preventative measures, dealt with the actual problem, and now to the present. What can you do as a property manager to prepare your laundry room services for the future? After dealing with a customer complaint up close and personally, now you should measure them and track them. After receiving a complaint from one of your residents, using the report to monitor trends for future complaints is going to help you determine what needs improvement. Using this prior data to your advantage when resolving complaints can improve your overall business model.
Using several features of the washing machines at your disposal, you can accurately track spending data and repair status. Automatic Laundry machines can track spending data and revenue. For example, if your resident provides a complaint about a card-refill station swallowing money for a laundry card, you can access the revenue data within the machine and see where the issue is. LaundryConnect™ not only tracks revenue and generates these easy-to-read reports, but it can also notify you of malfunctions and service errors. Using Internet of Things (IoT) technology, machines that require service automatically notify the service department to begin repairs. Having these systems in place is not only going to help your laundry room run more efficiently, but it is also going to prevent complaints from residents in the future.
In an article from Planet Laundry, one of the biggest methods of preventative maintenance can be done inward, with reflection on what works for your business. Using these data spreads and previously resolved complaints, spend some time thinking about what the next best action would be for your property. Determine whether or not you need to restructure your laundry room service to meet the needs of your residents.
Conclusion
After tackling ways to speak to your residents, methods to improve your services, and preventing issues wherever possible, we hope this blog post has adequately prepared you for any future hiccups you may encounter. We want to encourage you to reach out and connect with your residents, so you may better understand one another and overcome issues that arise together. Contact Automatic Laundry for more information on how we can help you grow your community today!
