Customer Partnerships
Presenter
Mike Russell, CPPS
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Why is it Important ?
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External Customer
• Ratings can impact business growth
• Provide input on how your system compares to others
• Assist with continual system improvements
• Provide guidance on what does and doesn’t work
• Help communicate importance of property management to Sr.
Leadership !!!!!!
•
Internal Customer
• Support proper handling of assets
• Report movements
• Assist during inventories
• Provide support during audits
•
Bottom line internal customers become additional property
manpower !
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Understanding Your Customer
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Define who your customers are
Understand their needs and unique requirements as it
applies to property management
Determine their personality traits, likes, dislikes and
generational uniqueness’
Are your external customers located in the area or out of
state?
• This might impact the number of face to face
meetings and how reviewing status.
Are they willing to meet occasionally, quarterly or
annually?
Are they willing to participate on improvement project
teams?
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Developing Customer Focused Strategy
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Develop and communicate a clear, concise Vision
statement
• To be an Industry Leading Property Organization
providing superior customer service and asset
accountability.
Define a process for identifying opportunities for
improvement, steps for corrective action, deployment and
monitoring
Identify internal and external communication barriers
Survey your team and customers
• Questions related to expected performance,
expectations.
• Compare results
• Identify gaps differences
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Developing Customer Focused Strategy
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Analyze staffing to ensure you have the right team
members in the right positions
Create a structured training plan to enhance current skill
sets
Define checks and balances ensuring your performance
aligns with your plan and expectations
Communicate with your customers frequently using various
methods:
• Brief telephone calls
• Emails
• On-site briefings
• Newsletters
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Developing Customer Focused Strategy
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Validate your strategy
• Review your plans and criteria and ask,
• Does our plan meet customer expectations?
• Are we adding value in our customer and
companies eyes?
• Have we met or exceeded customer requirements
and expectations?
• Utilize cross functional teams to evaluate your
approach and strategies to ensure your goals are met.
• Review your plan with your customers and ask if your
plan meets their needs
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Joint Audits
•
What’s the value
• Provides opportunity to resolve deficiencies as a team.
• Establishes expectations for both company &
customer.
• Clear understanding of what’s expected
• Builds customer confidence
• Active customer participation
• Indicates you value your customers opinion's
• Builds trust, cooperative environment
National Property Management Association
Customer Partnerships
• Building Customer Confidence
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Annual briefings include
• Outline past years accomplishments
• Improved asset loss ratio
• Property Awareness improvements
• Deployed process improvements / results
• Internal audit results
• Findings and action plans
• Annual metrics review
• Current year goals
• Process improvements
• Training to upgrade skill sets
• Internal audit schedule
• Request customer participation
• System upgrades
• Request customers evaluation and suggestions
National Property Management Association
External Audit Preparation
• Audit Preparation Step 1
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Key to successful audits
• Preparation
• Indicates excellent organization & knowledge
Where do you start
• Understanding audit scope
• Developing audit schedule
• Ensures
• Adequate time to complete audit
• Subject matter experts are available
• Key program support teams are available
• Clearly defines audit criteria
National Property Management Association
External Audit Preparation
• Audit Preparation Step 2
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Notify Stakeholders
• Schedule face to face meeting
• Review with stakeholders
• Audit scope
• What questions customers may ask
• Potential findings and audit impact
• FAR and special customer requirements
• Defines expectations
• Ensures consistency
• Prepares SME’s & support personnel understands
the process
National Property Management Association
External Audit Preparation
• Audit Preparation Step 3
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Prepare Customer Audit Notebook
• Value
• Provides quick reference guide
• Presents an organized approach
• Customer can utilize notebook within final audit
report
• Notebook includes
• Overall Policy, procedures, work instructions
• Property plan
• Property awareness tools and plan
• Property guides
• Internal audit procedures and metrics
• Inventory plan and metrics
• Financial reports
• Current improvement deployment plans
National Property Management Association
External Audit Preparation
• Audit Preparation Step 4
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Prepare Audit In-Brief
• In-Brief should include
• Review audit schedule & support personnel;
• Cover past years accomplishments
• New procedures
• New metrics
• New ILP’s
• Ensure your customer understands continual
review and improvement approach
• Review current goals for the coming months
• Planned process improvements
• Expected results
• Training to improve skill sets
• Outline issues or concerns which maybe found
• Share system short falls
• Detail current improvement plan
National Property Management Association
External Audit Preparation
• Audit Preparation Step 4
• In-Brief should include
• Engage your customer
• Their assessment on data presented
• Feedback on how you can improve
• What they feel you missed or should consider
• Ensure customer understands you value their
opinion's
• Customer should walk away feeling as a team
member
• Not an outsider
National Property Management Association
External Audit Preparation
• How does this approach compare to your
companies?
• Would you consider this approach?
• What is your current customer relationship?
• Will the information presented help you establish
or improve your approach?
National Property Management Association