Understanding and tracking these KPIs can help you identify what you’re doing right and where you need to improve
Key takeaways:
- The community management industry brings unique challenges
- Setting goals can help you rise to the occasion
- Developing ways to measure and track your performance can drive improvement
- Community management software can help you measure success
Taking on a role as a community manager isn’t for everyone. These careers are fast-paced and full of daily challenges as you navigate relationships and maintain communities for your residents.
These challenges also make the job rewarding for the right people. Completing a challenging task and succeeding in your role can bring a sense of pride. It can also provide more tangible rewards as you make a name for yourself in the industry and attract new clients.
Setting goals and measuring your success is vital as you begin and grow your business. Here’s how.
Setting your community management goals
Tracking your success begins with setting goals. These objectives give you something to strive for while you develop in your community management career.
Examples of goals you might set include:
- responding to all inquiries within a specific timeframe
- keeping occupancy rates high
- reducing maintenance costs
- growing your revenue
- decreasing turnover time
Set realistic goals and ensure they’re achievable for you and your team. You can always update your goals later if you’re seeking further improvement or feel like your current goals aren’t lofty enough.
Measuring your successes and failures
How can you tell if you’re doing a good job or not? Consider the following four factors:
1) Financial
From a financial perspective, you can measure success by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). Your KPIs allow you to quantify performance using numbers and compare them to your goals.
Some metrics you might want to track include the net operating income of your communities, your average arrears, and your average maintenance cost per property. Keeping your expenses down and collecting rent and dues on time every month will create a positive net operating income for the communities you manage.
Tracking these financial metrics involves keeping a log of money coming in and money going out. You can use a spreadsheet to gather this information, although community management software can simplify the process.
2) Tenant satisfaction
Keeping your tenants happy is a crucial aspect of community management. After all, the more comfortable your residents are, the less turnover you’ll experience.
Measuring tenant satisfaction can be challenging because it isn’t as obvious as income and expenses. You can keep track of any complaints you receive, however, and give tenants multiple ways to contact you so you’re aware of anything they feel needs improvement.
By frequently speaking with tenants in your communities and encouraging feedback, you can better track their satisfaction. You might not like hearing about the negatives, but doing so allows you to make adjustments that will increase your tenants’ satisfaction in the long run.
3) Operational efficiency
Maximizing your operational efficiency is vital to your community management success because it keeps expenses down and leads to better outcomes for your residents. Measuring your operational efficiency involves looking at things like staff productivity and resource allocation.
One way to become more efficient is by developing relationships with local vendors to handle jobs within your communities as necessary. This means employing less full-time staff, which can help save you (and your community members) money.
Developing some clear community guidelines can also help in this regard. Residents will learn what to expect and the consequences for failing to follow the rules. This will help you limit the time you spend dealing with conflict and allow you to focus on bettering the community as a whole.
4) Maintenance and repair performance
Your ability to handle all the necessary maintenance and repairs within your community can help drive better results in other categories. Your residents will be happier, and you’ll experience less turnover if you properly maintain properties and common areas, leading to better financial outcomes.
Measuring your maintenance and repair performance comes down to tracking how long it takes to address and resolve requests. You might also see fewer repair requests by regularly performing necessary preventive maintenance.
Tracking your performance is as simple as measuring how long it takes from repair request to repair completion. Your residents will appreciate the effort if you noticeably reduce repair times.
Keeping an active log of all your metrics ensures the information you need is readily available. You might also invest in community management software that can assist with the data collection process and automate many of your routine tasks (thereby increasing efficiency).
Using community management software to your advantage
Community management software helps you measure success by tracking your KPIs and helping you compare them against your goals. These programs allow you to instantly input all your data, storing this vital information in one location.
Some software even collects rent, sends reminders, communicates with residents, and tracks your maintenance schedule, freeing you up to handle other tasks. You’ll need to look at how you want to use your community management software and review your options before selecting the program that best suits your needs.
Being successful as a community manager
Your success as a community manager depends on your ability to measure and improve your performance. Fortunately, the availability of community management software makes that easier than ever. Some specialized software even assists with vendor relationships and management, which is likely a critical factor in most of your goals.
VendorSmart is a vendor-management platform that helps you find, hire, and measure third-party workers’ performance in your communities. The team behind the platform will also vet these vendors for compliance beforehand, so you can spend your valuable time working for your residents. Contact VendorSmart today to learn how we can help you increase efficiency, boost tenant satisfaction, and put your community management company on the path to success.