The subject of respect and understanding within block management. I believe that respect is the key to customer service excellence, but it goes both ways.
I would hope that we always treat people, friends, clients, suppliers – everyone with kindness, courtesy and respect. I was brought up to always treat people the way I wanted to be treated—with respect and kindness, but I’ve found that sometimes this isn’t reciprocated.
A respectful attitude goes a long way with your customers. When you are effective and efficient with communication and are giving your attention to the customer that needs you, you will increase the chances of that customer having a pleasant experience.
As a company, Fraser Allen Estate Management have grown considerably over the past few years, but with that success, we have had a very steep learning curve.
Learning from our mistakes
At times, we have taken on too much, we have over promised and although everything we do is with the best intentions, we have found that it has become even more important to create boundaries, which in turn manages the expectation of the client.
We try our very best to be proactive by undertaking regular site visits and informing clients of what we are doing and when. However, a lot of our role is based around reactive work and sometimes this comes with frustrated or unhappy residents. We really wish we had a crystal ball to be able to predict what will happen, but we do rely on residents at times to let us know. This way, any issues can be rectified quickly, outside of our site visits.
Understanding your goals
We also want to understand the goals of the client and residents – not just the way they’re operating, but why they’re operating that way.
What are they trying to achieve? What’s important to them?
Clients and residents may not want to receive weekly communication from you, or to be informed of a repair across the other side of the building. However, some people will want to know everything that is going on, along with financial reporting. It’s important to understand the needs of the client straight away.
Work with integrity
Always do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.
Integrity is one of our core values and during our expansion, we have found ourselves not working to our own time scales and this goes against everything that we stand for.
It is important to us as a company to ensure consistency and reliability to our clients in all aspects of the business.
Going Forward
Respect needs to be earned, not expected nor demanded.
We are excited to be working with some new clients and moving the business forward in the way it was also intended.
