Give leasing professionals first-hand experience with the maintenance team so they can better understand what a successful work order entails.

In many cases, it takes some work for residents to prepare for a maintenance call. After they call or email the request, it usually takes time for them to straighten up their apartment home.

So, it’s easy to understand why residents would be frustrated when they return home and find a note from maintenance saying that it was unable to identify a problem. When this happens, the culprit could be a poorly written service request, according to Lori Hammond with Property Management Minutes.

Hammond suggests making the leasing team a part of the process and teaching them how to write service requests.

“A day of job-sharing could be an eye-opener for the leasing team,” Hammond writes. “Partnering with a maintenance technician, with service request in hand, demonstrating the difference between a well-written service request is a learning experience that won’t be forgotten.”

When preparing the service request, Hammond says it is important to remember to get permission to enter the apartment, ask about the presence of pets in the household and take down a contact home number.

“A call either from the leasing team, maintenance supervisor or technician to clarify the service request demonstrates a desire to provide satisfactory customer service,” Hammond writes.