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While all property managers are increasingly seeing the value in “Smart”, wifi-enabled, property-management systems, Multi-Family and Multi-Dwelling-Unit property managers benefit the most – and the fastest – specifically from Appliance Diagnostic Software. The more properties you have, the more cost savings, time savings, and complaint reductions you immediately achieve with Appliance Diagnostic Software.
Multi-family property managers know that one of the most important, yet unknown, aspects of their role is appliance maintenance. Appliances are an essential part of any property, and when they break, it can be costly and frustrating for everyone involved. Property managers need to be prepared for all types of appliance emergencies, from a simple fridge repair to a full-scale stove replacement. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all guide to appliance maintenance; every property and set of appliances is different. When it comes to appliance maintenance, there are a lot of unknowns for multi-family property managers. Unlike a homeowner who may only have one or two appliances in their home, managers are responsible for maintaining dozens - if not hundreds - of appliances across an entire property. And while regular maintenance can help avoid costly repairs or replacements down the road, it's often seen as a necessary evil that's frustrating and costly.
Maintenance, repair, and energy costs of appliances are the worst of your unknowns, as there are increasingly more components of appliances that could fail at any time, and appliances are the highly-abused front-line of daily customer engagement; There is little to nothing you can do to control how a tenant uses (or misuses) any or all of your appliances. Add the current challenge of finding property-management labor, and the unknowns of appliance problems will again rise to the top of time, costs, complaints, headaches … stress.
As property managers know, when an appliance in one of their units malfunctions, it can be costly and time-consuming to have it repaired. Many times, they are unsure what is causing the problem and whether the repair will be a lasting solution. Often this means taking the appliance apart piece by piece to try to find what's wrong. They are able to quickly identify the issue and make predictions about how well the repair will hold up. With an appliance diagnostic software, technicians can skip that process and go right to the source of the problem. This not only saves time but can also reduce costs, as technicians are better able to diagnose problems and fix them quickly.
Appliance diagnostic software can be used on a variety of appliances, including refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, and even HVAC systems. The software works by connecting to the appliance and running a series of tests. These tests can identify potential problems and help technicians determine the best course of action. In some cases, the software may even be able to provide step-by-step instructions for repairs.
The benefits of appliance diagnostic software are clear. By helping technicians identify problems quickly, the software can save property managers time and money. Additionally, by providing detailed repair instructions, the software can help ensure that repairs are done correctly the first time.
No longer able to survive the skyrocketing costs of repairs, parts, and unreliable maintenance labor, multi-family property managers are quickly adopting management systems and integration of “Smart Home” appliances for the one underlying need of control. In addition to reducing costs and time of unknowns, it’s a game-changing reduction of frustration to make your maintenance budget more predictably accurate.
Let’s look at the main benefits of Appliance Diagnostic Software. “Energy Efficiency” and “Labor Efficiencies” are given, but how?
Monitoring, diagnostics, maintenance, troubleshooting, remote control, and alerts … all begin with the most powerful step of connecting your appliances to an appliance-management software platform, and to any larger property-management system you choose. It may sound intimidating, but most appliances today are already made “smart”, and ready to plug into a wifi-based management system. GE SmartHQ Management is at the forefront of “smart made simple” appliance management, such that adding smart appliances to the wifi-based platform will capture the essential make/model/serial data and warranty of each appliance ‘plugged in’ to the connected network, and therefore the maintenance requirements and ideal operating specs (temperature, etc.) of each unit.
This is why the benefits of appliance management come immediately, and on a large scale, for multi-family property managers. By purchasing the platform and connecting wifi at your properties, the previously enormous task of creating your appliance database is automated by software identifying them on your network.
Next come the benefits of monitoring, diagnostics, remote control, etc. But when all of your appliances are connected, they don’t need individual rules and settings. One system-wide set of rules for diagnostics (for each type of appliance) will apply the correct diagnostics and testing/monitoring routines to each appliance according to its specs.
Appliance monitoring is the workhorse of reducing your most variable maintenance, repair, and replacement costs. When your Appliance Diagnostic Software serves as a gauge of status, usage, and alerts on all appliances, the high cost of a surprise failure (and the resulting time of managing tenant complaints and communications) is reduced to a more predictable minimum. Diversity of your tenants’ lifestyles becomes less of a driver of maintenance costs because appliance usage is monitored real-time, all the time, so the resulting on-site, preventive-maintenance tasks are reduced to as-essential. Consider the benefits of having these components monitored, 24/7:
Especially when the reliability and cost of repair and replacement become unmanageable as variables, system-wide monitoring makes “smart” essential.
There is so much more benefit to “remote control” than on and off. By taking advantage of the capabilities within GE SmartHQ, a multi-family property manager immediately get exponential savings of time and cost by extending the life of appliances, but also by improving the satisfaction of customers and justifying higher rental rates! For example …
The benefits of Smart Homes and Smart Appliances will continue to optimize profits for multi-family properties. Since the topic deserves its own attention, download your free white paper, “Smart Products: Building the Smart Home”, by GE SmartHQ Management.
GE SmartHQ Management is an industry-leading example of making “smarter easier”, and accelerating the savings of maintenance costs, repair/replacement costs, energy costs, and time. GE Smart HQ is built upon a cloud-based, wifi-connected Smart Home platform. There is no hardware required, but just providing the wifi access across your properties, and therefore quickly having access to the monitoring, remote control, and diagnostics benefits for all connected smart appliances. As mobile is essential, property managers are enabled with appliance monitoring, control, and diagnostics from the convenience of an app on their smartphones.
The rental market is booming, becoming the largest segment of growth in real estate development as well as the preference for younger families. Their expectations for smart-home conveniences, combined with increased costs of maintenance, make Appliance Maintenance Software a priority for improving profitability in multi-family property management. Fortunately, software like GE Appliances, SmartHQ Management is keeping pace to make wifi-enabled appliance management easier to initiate for faster return on investment.
To learn more about the property management software and diagnostics capabilities of GE SmartHQ Pro™ , click here for a free demo.
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