Market Trends in Strata 2023

StrataMax underscores its commitment to partnering with clients by conducting a biannual Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey targeting committee members. This robust yet simple tool enables StrataMax's clients to gain insight into the views of their customers, understanding not just how their company is perceived but the reasoning behind such perspectives. By using the NPS results, clients can benchmark their performance, enhance customer retention, and uncover invaluable areas for growth and improvement.

After eight years of conducting the NPS survey for our clients, we now have a data set large enough to provide insightful analysis of the industry and compare trends for Strata Management companies.

This report presents our findings.

Methodology

Firstly, we break up the feedback received in the survey into the two main groups that NPS is interested in;

• Promoters: people who are likely to actively promote your business and
• Detractors: people who are likely to share negative feedback about your business.

Then, with the help of some sophisticated custom tools that we created in-house, we analysed the feedback and identified/categorised the feedback into the main themes.

The pie graphs below show the themes from Promoters and Detractors' feedback and compares them between 2015 and 2023.

There are three areas that stood out and contributed to the most significant shift in customer perception that we could identify over this period:

Poor Response Time

Poor response time remains by far the most common issue raised by Detractors. With increasing demands and expectations placed on strata managers, this is not a surprise. When comparing results from 2015, this problem gains more significance, rising from 26% of all responses to 31%.

Turnover

Strata Managers are facing unprecedented pressure in their jobs, which is leading to burnout and increased turnover. Our statistics show that this has a growing effect on customer dissatisfaction. Over the period, "turnover" has tripled in significance and is becoming an important factor in why people would not recommend a business.

Expensive/Not good value

Feedback from Detractors has consistently featured the high cost or expense as one of the main reasons for a poor score. However, we can see a downward trend in this area. This may suggest that clients are increasingly looking for good service above price.

Communication

When we first started our committee NPS program in 2015, a small percentage (just 3%) of feedback cited communication as one of the reasons they rated their Strata Manager so highly. Over the past eight years, this has grown to more than double to 7%. It's probably also no surprise that the reverse is true, with "poor communication" being ranked in the top five themes mentioned in detractor feedback. The trend is also supported with this percentage growing from 12% to 15% over this period.

Self Service

In today's fast-paced world, it is crucial to find methods to efficiently support owners and improve communication. By enabling clients to access services through platforms like the StrataMax portal or applications such as resvu, we can decrease the number of requests to handle while enhancing owner satisfaction through prompt assistance. Achieving this goal, however, requires a dedicated effort from front-end staff, backed by suitable marketing strategies and resources.

Request Management

Managing the types of requests that come in, ensuring the correct information is obtained and routing it to the appropriate team or resource can significantly reduce the response time required to turn requests around. There are several ways that this could be achieved with a range of different technologies:

StrataMax Portal Enquiries

The StrataMax portal allows you to configure multiple types of contact points for Owners to submit their requests. These can be configured in the portal to route to specific email addresses both internally or externally. For example, rather than receiving requests for a building manager that need to be forwarded on, these can be set up per building to go to the building managers email for action directly. Please contact StrataMax for more details.

DocMax Workflow

DocMax, StrataMax's document management solution provides configurable work flow to manage incoming requests and route them to the correct person or department. Each request type can follow defined status steps and capture the required information, allowing the requests to be handled efficiently and timely. Requests that come in via email can easily be added to the correct work queue using the Outlook add-in and selecting the appropriate profile. With Auto-fill enabled, most emails will automatically allocate the correct building where the email matches with those listed in the roll.

ResVu

ResVu is a third-party application that is both a mobile application and a browser-based portal. It provides Strata Managers with a custom-branded app for their owners that tightly integrates with StrataMax. It is designed as a communication, engagement and self-service platform. Self-service includes access to synchronised documents from DocMax, scheme information, account balance, payments via StrataPay, and even levy notices. It is highly efficient in servicing owner requests as it provides the strata management firm with the ability to create custom forms for various requests, ensuring that the correct information to resolve the request is obtained upfront and in a structured format. These requests are then managed by central dashboards allowing the appropriate team members to action the requests efficiently. All the while keeping the unstructured requests in email format from hitting the strata managers' inboxes. To find out more information about ResVu please visit their website.

Expectation Management

While there are many avenues to manage client expectations, from a technical perspective, there are two potential options for consideration. The first is the use of an Auto Reply. This has mixed feedback from our clients in general. Some feel that it is an important method to reassure them that their email was received and to set expectations on office hours and response times. While these may seem impersonal, they provide one of the few channels to communicate and reinforce your target response times and what times they can expect to get someone in "the office". The second technical approach is to use the delayed response functionality in Outlook to only send emails during business hours (even those composed out of hours) and to provide a delay in responses to emails (rather than allowing a reply to be sent straight away).