Maxus Properties x HappyCo: Improving Community Operations Since 2016

Faster Turns, Improved Maintenance & Sustainability Monitoring Adds Up to Bottomline Benefits

‍“The time-savings is substantial,” said Schnabel. “Before HappyCo, turning a unit required multiple visits from onsite personnel to first assess repair and replace requirements, and then determine the best course of action. Now with HappyCo, every inspection can be immediately accessed from a desk or on the go. Our teams have eliminated unnecessary clarifying conversations and multiple unit visits because they can log right into Manage and see any inspection photo. We save about a day of labor for every move-out. We’ve also saved on our move-ins, approximately 10 to 20 minutes per inspection, or $50,000 to $70,000 annually.”

Beyond time savings, moving to mobile has minimized the headaches and physical space required to store the multitude of paper documentation required for turn. “The biggest relief of paperwork has been definitely our turns,” said Anthony Crafton, Lead Maintenance Manager at Park Edge Apartments. “When you’re turning a quarter of a property per year, that’s several hundred pieces of paper you have to use and store. Keeping everything on the cloud opened up a lot of file space. I no longer have to keep all that paper for five to seven years documenting what we’ve done. It’s on the cloud now.”

"The time-savings is substantial. Before HappyCo, turning a unit required multiple visits from onsite staff to assess repair and replace requirements, and then determine the best course of action. With HappyCo, they log right into Manage and see any inspection photo, eliminating those extra visits."
Rae Schnabel, Former Director of Sustainability & Special Projects Coordinator at Maxus Properties

Monitoring green initiatives and maintenance efficiency and are other key benefits of moving to mobile. According to Schnabel, “From a sustainability standpoint, using HappyCo is going to help us reduce our water consumption because we now have more accurate leak logs.” And HappyCo is the clear leader when it comes to improving the life of a Maintenance Supervisor. “The biggest thing HappyCo has helped with is not carrying around a briefcase full of documents,” said Crafton. “I have every document that’s in our corporate system on my phone any time I need it. Like today, when I’m running here to there, to there, I’m not digging through my office saying, ‘Okay. Where’s that leak log? Where’s the water intrusion? Where’s this or that?’ It’s always right there. So, I would say it’s definitely kept me out of the office more and allowed me to actually get from one place to the other a whole lot quicker.”

Another critical efficiency saver is customizable forms. “The way HappyCo really compares, and even stands out is most forms are generic,” said Crafton. “You have three bedrooms, two baths, whatever it may be, kitchen, living room. With HappyCo, there is no more generic.” With HappyCo’s customizable forms and on-the-fly editing, Crafton has the ability to adjust forms as needed, when he’s inspecting the unit, unlike most competitive mobile forms on the market today, and this saves critical time running back to a desk to adjust a form, or simply failing to document the discrepancies. “You edit the form right then. You do it right there in the unit. So your numbers are always accurate.”

Mobile Forms Process Ensures Damage Charges Are Documented and Billed

‍Prior to implementing HappyCo, inspection checklists were rarely completed as instructed, and often the details were entirely missing. “I always ran into these issues where the guys would just fill out the form by writing a line across it,” said Moreland. “I always questioned whether it was done or not. With the Happy app, I now feel more confident in my guys. The app walks them through the apartment, room by room, so each section is completed. If there are any issues or questions, they take photos and then I can pull up those photos right on my phone and determine right then what we need to do.”

Damages often went undocumented and unbilled before Maxus starting using HappyCo according to Crafton. “With pre-turns, HappyCo helps a lot,” said Crafton. “We now go apartment by apartment and take pictures of anything that needs fixing. Before HappyCo, if a resident had punched a hole in the door, the maintenance guy simply fixed it and went about his day. Now we take a picture; it’s uploaded to the cloud; we radio the office, and the office attaches that expense right then to the resident’s charge sheet. We now made that extra $1,500 we weren’t making before.”

More Transparent MIMO Processes Lead to Happier Residents and Fewer Disputes

Since implementing HappyCo, resident disputes across Maxus properties are much fewer, and the new inspection process to document move-out conditions using Inspections has improved resident relations. “Having HappyCo has made it a lot easier for my residents to be aware of what charges they can expect by doing both the pre-move out and move-out inspections,” said Samantha Smith, Assistant Manager at Park Edge Apartments. “Everything is there in black and white with pictures, so there’s no guessing about what a charge refers to. It definitely creates a much better process.”

‍“The disputes with residents upon move-outs have gone down dramatically.” said Moreland. “Most people used to argue with us because it was a delayed process to get the inspection reports. But now with HappyCo, we walk through each room and we take photos of everything now. So there’s no room for dispute. The photo is the answer. So I really have not had any disputes since using HappyCo.”

Move-in documentation with HappyCo has also improved transparency with residents, increasing their confidence in Maxus. “Move-ins have gone much more smoothly for us because the residents feel more confident with us as a management group, because we take photos of everything now,” said Felicia Etayem, Leasing Agent at Park Edge Apartments. “So if a resident has a concern with something in their unit at move-in, we take a picture of that issue, so at move-out they know they’re covered.” Rebecca Hawkins, Leasing Agent at Rosehill Pointe Apartment Homes, agrees: “Being able to take photographs during the move-in process is a game changer; the residents moving in absolutely adore that. It’s gonna be part of their permanent record.”

"Move-ins have gone much more smoothly for us because the residents feel more confident with us as a management group, because we take photos of everything now. So if a resident has a concern with something in their unit at move-in, we take a picture so at move-out they know they're covered."
‍Felicia Etayem, Leasing Agent at Park Edge Apartments

Regular Inspections For Property Systems and Amenities Limits Liability

‍Property systems and amenities across a residential community are numerous, and without careful monitoring, legal liability can skyrocket. To ensure resident safety and avoid negligence claims in case of an accident, it is critical for property personnel to keep well-documented records with timestamped photographs. This applies equally to security cameras, exterior and interior lighting, pools, snow logs, mold removal and more.

“The benefit of the snow removal log is we are required to document it every day, whether there’s snow on the ground or not,” said Moreland. “Here in Kansas, you could have snow one day and it could be gone the next day, but the problem is we have a lot of refreezing. The key is to document every day in case something happens. Before HappyCo, if an accident happened and the resident reported it to us a few months later, I’d have to go through all the papers and hope we had that date recorded. Now, in the Happy app, it’s done right away, first thing in the morning, — this is what we did, this is how much snow we removed; this is how much fell.”

With the exterior and interior weekly light checks and monthly security camera checks, HappyCo reminds property personnel to inspect at regular intervals. “It falls onto my shoulders to make sure the cameras are working,” said Moreland. “Sometimes you come in to look at a camera feed and you realize your hard drive has been down for a little bit. Now, with HappyCo, we go through a process; it’s a simple process but it’s something that’s easy to forget. And the Happy App is good about reminding me of that.”

One of the most important amenities, a community pool, requires multiple checks per day. According to Crafton, “We check the pool three times a day. We’re open 24⁄7 365 days per year. Before HappyCo, that was a lot of pages that got wet, got dirty, got crumpled. Now it’s all on a cloud and everyone can see it. When the pool inspector comes in, if he wants to see a paper copy, we pull up the report, hit print and it prints from date to date. There’s no discrepancies or the possibility we could have simply penciled in the numbers at a later date. No, it’s timestamped. It’s set in stone.”

“HappyCo helps us from a liability standpoint,” said Crafton. “It really helps the residents’ peace of mind — for example with mold inspections, residents see us entering data into a system instead of just chicken scratches on a piece of paper. They can sign the inspection if they want. They get emailed copies after we’re done with it, so they get that constant interaction from us.” In addition, mobile inspections makes each staff member accountable to what they report on much more than a paper-based system could do. “My name’s on that report now,” continued Crafton. “I’m going to make sure that the problem is taken care of because I can’t just go throw the inspection away like with a paper checklist and say I was never there.”‍

Maximizing ROI and Driving Product Adoption

‍HappyCo has improved operations across Maxus Properties — from greater corporate visibility to faster turns and improved maintenance efficiency; to ensuring damage charges are documented and billed; to more transparent processes for happier residents and fewer disputes; to reducing legal liability across the entire portfolio. “HappyCo has improved our operations significantly,” said Schnabel. “With the accuracy and the visibility that we have in the inspection reporting and dashboards, we can see what is going on at any property at any time, and that’s an amazing thing.”