So your company signed a ho-hum SLA with your tenants. It outlines the level of services that are expected and details around your company’s standards to preserve and maintain the property and its related services to the occupants. You’ve set the parameters of your responsibilities and deliverables and the tenant is reassured and content to enter an agreement. Sounds like the basis for a good and fruitful partnership, no? Not if you can’t guarantee all those services you outlined are being met.

Think about this: if a tenant asked for data proving that you’re meeting expectations, could you produce it? Unless you have a robust work order software system in place, and a staff who takes it seriously, then probably not.

Typically after the lease is signed, most property managers don’t give it much thought unless they notice a decline in tenant satisfaction, or worse, fewer lease renewals. Unfortunately, by this time a substantial amount of damage has been done. There isn’t much that can be said that will undo the negative impression your tenant may have of your staff’s actions (or lack thereof).

Perhaps the SLA outlines a timeline for responding to occupant concerns. Our Service Responsiveness Survey indicated that 74% of the “top performers” in property management have set standards or performance targets for responsiveness and completion times. Yet, far fewer actually track response and completion times, and even fewer take informed action based off that data.

So what can be done? How can you put the SLA in SLAM DUNK?

1. You can start by implementing a real-time, highly configurable work order software system.

2. You can improve that by finding one that is actually easy to use and can provide that extra layer of insight.

3. Don’t stop there – proactively measure and analyze the information the system provides you.

4. Using dashboards and rich reporting, assess your service quality and operational performance.

5. Now it’s time to answer: How well are you meeting your SLAs?