Get the Right Rent Manager Support, Right When You Need It

May 7, 2018

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Rent Manager

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As LCS grew from unassuming beginnings to the industry powerhouse it is today, each department within the company has matured in its own unique way. Going from a handful of local Rent Manager® customers in the 1980s to more than 30,000 hosted users in 2018, the processes and procedures for providing the best-in-class product support that our users deserve have changed dramatically over the years. The Rent Manager Product Support Department has experienced many evolutions during the 30-year growth of our company, but it was 2017 that saw some of the most significant changes come to fruition.

Prior to January 2017, members of our Product Support Team would alternate working in one of two separate groups handling customer inquiries: a live-call queue or a scheduled-call queue. Reducing customer hold-time and expediting solutions was the ultimate goal, but eventually, a better way would evolve…

A New Life for Support

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As the Rent Manager platform continues to expand, new vendor integrations and partnerships are added, and an increasingly diverse user-base and program utilization develops, it is abundantly clear that the program is simply too large for each and every support representative to possess the same intricate knowledge of every detail of the program.

It was early in 2017 that we separated the department into core knowledge groups, creating category-specific queues for all incoming inquiries cultivating our support representatives into true subject-matter experts, able to help our customers with much greater agility and efficiency. Six categories were identified to classify customer questions and refine our specialized teams, addressing: 1) technical issues and emails, 2) financial or owner-related questions, 3) scripting and metered utilities inquiries, 4) questions about web products, mobile apps, or vendor integrations, 5) 1099 help (during tax-prep season), and 6) general product questions.

This separation of subject matter gives us the ability to recruit and train a more carefully curated team, filling any identifiable knowledge gaps to fully address the specific needs of our customers. By analyzing call volumes per category or time of year, adjustments can periodically be made to the staffing levels for each team, easily identifying and filling positions with organizational adjustments and/or newly hired representatives.

Goals for the Future

To promote continued growth within the department, goals are set for each team, as well as each individual representative, using the SMART model, defining Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound goals to encourage constant learning and continual development. Keeping employee morale high within this sometimes high-stress environment, a peer-nominated Top Dog award is presented to a new team member at regular department meetings and special recognition is given to support staff during our monthly companywide All Hands Meeting featuring customer feedback from post-call customer satisfaction surveys.

As some of our company’s best and brightest product experts, we rely heavily on the knowledge and passion of this team. Rent Manager’s true first responders, our award-winning Product Support Team, are here for your every inquiry, ready to provide the best-in-class support you need, right when you need it.

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