QRmaint helps with property management

Pawel Migacz, Managing Director of Krakow- based FriendHouse Apartments, has recently implemented the QRmaint application and could not have been happier. – We save time and money simply because the management of major and minor repairs is now much more efficient and faster – says Pawel.

Short-term apartment rental as a management challenge

The Krakow- based company: FriendHouse Apartments, has been operating for five years and is today one of the largest companies in Poland dealing with short-term apartment rental. The beginnings were modest- starting just with a dozen apartments, over time the number has grown to over 100. By the end of 2020, the management intends to double this number. With such a large number of properties, which in addition are scattered around the city, the issue of renovations and/or attending to a failure quickly, becomes a huge challenge. It is about the comfort of our clients and the image of the company.

– When we have a hundred apartments where there is a new person living almost every day, dozens of failures and incidents occur on a regular basis. We cannot allow our guests to wait for the tap or the light switch in the bathroom to be repaired, therefore organizing the work of our service people is a key issue – says Paweł Migacz, Managing Director at FriendHouse Apartments.

That is why the company has recently decided to implement a professional application that has a real impact, is saving time of all employees by managing their work so that the properties can be ready for the guests to arrive as quickly and efficiently as possible.

– The implementation of the QRmaint application turned out to be the solution for the greatest challenge, which is the instant damage control. The next step will be to use it to support the work of those of our employees who are responsible for managing the cleanliness of our apartments. We are also testing it in terms of communication with our guests. In one of the buildings where we rent flats, guests can report failures or any disturbances themselves, with the use of the QR codes- says Paweł Migacz.

 

 

The service team can finally catch a breath

Thanks to the implementation of QRmaint, the company’s service team knows what needs to be done within the next few days. Matters which are urgent and need to be prioritized appear on their individual accounts within the application, which they can use on their smartphones. A status is assigned to each work order: either “in progress” or “completed”. Now the company’s administration knows at what stage the repair is or simply what the progress and the estimated completion time are. If the maintenance work is not completed, you will know the reason- simply because the service person is required to enter such information within the system – e.g. “the wall has been plastered and still needs to dry before it can be safely painted”.

Thanks to QRmaint, reporting problems is so simple that any employee can do it. It is usually the cleaning service employees who are usually the first to discover the damage and now they have the access to the app as well. Each place can be described in detail in the application: furniture, kitchen appliances, lighting – anything that can break (each kettle, lamp, chair) – receives their unique QR code. If someone notices the damage, they simply scan the code with their phone and the problem is reported. The service team can plan their arrival and repair. Additionally, thanks to the system, every employee, be it a service or a cleaning person, can see what work needs to be done at any given apartment. This is clearly marked and described in the app. That way, each place is truly “cared for” individually.

Sadly, not all guests behave in accordance with the generally accepted societal norms. Occasionally, they may for instance even deliberately cause damage to property, sometimes major enough that it significantly exceeds the rental fees. In such case, the employee reporting the problem, can also take a photo of the damaged item and attach it.

– We have had situations in which in which someone had spent the night and left behind major destruction: literally broken table legs or seriously damaged kitchen appliances Such disturbing situations are now, thanks to the QRmaint also less of a problem – says Maciej Kaszuba, the technical manager at FriendHouse Apartments. The photos immediately show you the facts, you know what needs to be repaired and what tools to use. You can also start contacting the former tenants to hold them accountable for the losses.

 

Time is money

Everyone saves their time with this application: it is a win- win all around. Calling and reporting problems to the reception desk is no longer needed, and the technical department can coordinate the work by themselves. Furthermore, self-reporting of the issues by the cleaning service takes a lot of work load off the reception.

– Previously, it would frequently happen that within several minutes, we would receive literally dozens of e-mails from the guests. All of them needed to be attended to all at once; one had to coordinate the service person’s arrival and oftentimes materials or items required for to carry out the repair. Our service folks had to waste so much of their time commuting back and forth because it was not easy to coordinate their work in different parts of the city. The entire communication was by phone. There was always something to be coordinated: the cleaning service often was unable to properly identify or describe the damage to the maintenance team and so we would send a service professional to the site completely unprepared. Everything took twice as long – says Pawel Migacz.

– It is a thing of the past today. The comfort of our work has increased tremendously.

All of our team members have access to the application- about 30 people in total: the service team, the cleaning team, the reception and the managers. Everyone is able to add their own comments in the application. Logging in is easy and the interface super intuitive. And that does matter when many employees at our company are aged 50+ or ​​do not know the Polish language very well. Even those of our employees who are native Russian or Ukrainian speakers and might not have a perfect grasp of the Polish language, are able to report a problem with the use of this application. All they have to do is scan the code and take a photo.

– The fact that the training takes about half an hour is self- explanatory and the best proof of how intuitive the system really is. Let me give you an example: Mieczyslaw, our 71-year-old service man, mastered the operation of the QRmaint app in two days! – adds Maciej Kaszuba.

 

There is no going back

The Managing Director of FriendHouse Apartments adds that he would prefer not to go back to the system used by their company previously.

– We used to work with Google spreadsheets which, with a dozen or so users who had no contact with the computer on a daily basis, caused many errors when entering data. Every day we had to deal with updates and setting the schedule, which created many more, entirely redundant sheets. And the worst part: the file would take a long time to load. We were wasting time and money – says Pawel Migacz.

Today, the day to day operations at our company are quite different. The simplicity of the application gives the company’s management peace of mind; they know that each of their employees can handle it and will know what to do- it takes two clicks to access the calendar. Thanks to the use of schedules, the reception staff no longer needs to call and ask the cleaning team members if the room is ready for the new guests to arrive. Now all you have to do is look at the application.

 

Challenges for the QRmaint team

It is by working with a client who has specific needs that allows us to grow and adjust the application individually and tailor it as much as possible. While working with Friendhouse Apartments, the main challenge was to figure out whether the system would work with the daily changes and upgrades typical for the short-term rental business. It turned out that the outcome exceeded our expectations and we now know that the system will work well for the hospitality industry as well – summarized Daniel Kielbowicz, Key Account Manager at QRmaint.

 

To meet the needs of our clients, we are constantly working on further improvements of the QRmaint application. If you happen to have an idea how you would like to use our CMMS system but have not found such feature as of yet, please do get in touch with us:

contact@qrmaint.com