Some of the best nuggets of information I can share with you this week comes from an interesting talk I attended from Derek McCullagh the head of operations and technology in AIB and Karl Howley the chairman of itsmf.ie on Monday 5th of March in DIT. The topic discussed was the importance of adapting IT solutions for organisations in Ireland today. For those who haven’t heard of irSMF.ie, like me before Monday morning I’ve taken this quote from there company site which describes what they do best:
‘to be the premier community for leadership in IT service Management In Ireland ’
Now this applies to most companies in different industries but I will refer to the lettings and management side of things for the purpose of the blog. So let’s start with the roles service management plays in helping business’s do things:
Faster
More Reliable
More Efficient
More Cost effectively
This is the one slide from their presentation on IT services management that stuck with me most and I will explain its importance under each heading below or lettings agent and estate agent owners below.
1. From an agencies perspective imagine you can receive a rent and click one button to do the following
- inform the landlord rent is received
- inform the tenant rent is received and send them a receipt
- update their schedule of online accounts
You’re cutting out a lot of work for yourself by having a system which can perform such tasks and ensure you only have to do the basics of property management while the IT system performs the rest for you.
2. Letting a property and managing one involves a lot of paper work and reliance on sufficient management of documents and tenant/landlord information. If you’re faced with an issue from a tenant or a landlord in the office and you can’t draw on the information of them straight away it relfects poorly on you and your organisation.
Imagine turning that 5 or 10 minutes spent looking for their file whether its references or lease terms into five clicks on your desktop where you have all the information necessary to deal with the problem at hand!
3 and 4 Are closely linked and some of the more appealing points to organisational managers, how can you carry out the core processes of your business more efficiently and for a lower cost. By adapting a service solution into the lettings and management of properties its hard not to save money and be more efficient.
Using the simple example in lettings of taking a property in from a landlord for letting I will explain the benefits of using IT systems. Lets say the property is new on the market and proving very popular what is the process of letting the property:
- You take 5-10 calls in the first day you ad is live on daft and be jotting down the tenant information and appointment times as you take the calls
- You then may refer back to the landlord on potential viewings or tenants
- Once you show the property your faced with the dilemma of who to pick and acquiring all the necessary documents such as work and landlord references
Think of logging this information online into a management system for letting agents and then sharing access with your property owner so as they know you’re working your hardest to secure someone for the property. Once you meet the clients you can tell them upload any relevant information onto your data system and now the landlord can see themselves the potential tenants you have. You can communicate through your system at speed and no cost such as phone charges and the process is a whole lot easier now!
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Why letting agents must use a smart phone
by Rentview