Good Property Management Needs Secret Shopping

In most property management structures there are some list of rules or protocol. This list maybe written, or just in the head of the person at the top of the company. In property management, the bottom line goal is always to make a profit from your property or business. You are also in charge of the overall maintenance and the look and feel of the property. So in property management, what do you do when someone on your team is not fulfilling the rules or responsibilities that you as a property management owner have clearly laid out?

For example, most property management structures do some form of performance management. What is meant by that is that most managers lay out a clear expectation and they follow up to ensure that employees are following those expectations. If you do not have some form of performance management structure within you business, then you are throwing away your money. Some people within your property management structure are not abiding by the rules and are continuing to work for you taking away your profits. Anyway, back to the point. In this example, a company is using performance management through monthly mystery shopping. A mystery shopper came into their business and pretended they were actually looking for something. They were testing the ability to take care of the customer. The goal for this property management structure was to score a 90 percent or higher after they were evaluated by a secret shopper. The top quality associate received a 65 percent.

Remember, this associate is top of line, will soon be promoted, and usually gets the customer taken care of. When confronted with this score, his response was simply, It is better than a 45 percent, which is what he received last time.

If you were in this property management structure what would you do? The associate did not seem to mind that he did not pass his mystery shop and said it was better than his last performance. Would it seem like this associate does not care or that he is looking toward the future and builds off the past?

Just think about it for a moment. In your own property management structure, does someone on your staff perform as the example lists above? Is there an employee that is doing more damage than good in your property management structure? This associate had a stern talking to. That associate has been there for over a year and knows how to take care of customers. The associate was upset at first and then realized that he knows what he is doing, but chose not to do it. So when you are trying to performance manage your staff on your property, make sure that everyone knows what their job responsibilities are. Then from that point on, your staff is just choosing not to do their job versus not knowing how to do that job. If they continue to choose not to do their job, then that is when they are promoted to customer.