Once we determined that our emergency maintenance dispatch services would be heavily used during the storm we took some steps to make sure we'd have enough agents on hand over the Christmas period to handle all the calls, reduce queue times, and efficiently dispatch all the emergency calls.
Challenge
Communities needed critical assistance as the holiday storm swept the nation.
A major winter storm swept the nation during the holiday week of December 22, 2022. Dangerously cold temperatures, power outages, flooding, and inclimate snow storms hit communities hard and caused thousands of flight disruptions.
Rental communities impacted by the storm had a high volume of emergency maintenance requests to address and needed support to keep residents informed and safe. They needed the ability to seamlessly manage inquiries, communicate with their residents, connect with maintenance professionals, and resolve critical issues.
“The most common tickets were for plumbing-related issues including burst and frozen pipes,” stated Phil Massam, Senior Product Manager for the emergency maintenance services as part of RentEngage. “These accounted for 47% of the calls between December 23rd and 26th. 34% of calls were for electrical issues during this time.”
Solution
Instant support and seamless tracking
Clients work with our onboarding team to determine what issues constitute emergencies. In this way, trivial issues are not dispatched overnight and therefore properties avoid overtime or callout charges, and maintenance technicians are not called out for nonemergency issues in the middle of the night.
Properties and renters relied on 24/7 support from the RentEngage. emergency maintenance service to resolve critical issues that arose from the storm.
When residents called in to report outstanding issues, live agents were available to immediately address calls. Within minutes they could determine the urgency of the ticket, document the issue for the property team and dispatch emergencies directly to the maintenance team. Maintenance tickets were automatically sent to the client via email or an integrated PMS (property management system) to ensure all issues were tracked in real-time.
To assist leasing teams with delegating tasks, the RentEngage. emergency maintenance service also prioritized tickets that needed an immediate response.
From there, maintenance techs could communicate directly with residents to request photos or video of the issues, without the need to share specific phone numbers. “This is important,” Phil noted, “because maintenance technicians really don’t want to be overwhelmed with calls directly from residents when issues arise.”
The web-based RentEngage. application allows maintenance technicians to see ticket details, and contact the resident anonymously. Technicians can also ask the resident to share a photograph or video using the application, which can help the technician diagnose the issue.”
Non-emergencies were documented for the team to follow up with during normal business hours.
Results
Record-breaking support for communities resolved emergency requests.
In the event, our RentEngage. team handled 3.5 times the regular maintenance call volume over the 4 days, December 23rd to the 26th. Call queue times remained satisfactory to our clients and within our RentEngage. terms of service!
During this critical time for properties across the nation, the RentEngage. emergency maintenance team resolved 31% more tickets than the previous record set in 2019. On December 24, 2022, the team handled 1,345, also breaking the previous day’s record of 1,086.
Over four days, the call center team bolstered support for communities, handling 4,419 tickets on behalf of Rent. clients. This is more than 3.5 times higher than the average number of tickets handled during a four-day period.
We’re here to support your communities.
The safety of your residents is our priority. We’re here to help with Live Agents available around the clock, automated email sends with each ticket submission and seamless communication between maintenance teams and renters.
Explore RentEngage. to learn more about resources available for property teams.
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