Executive Summary
Roxana Perez, the property manager at Brickell Bay, along with the board of directors needed a way to streamline manual tasks to become more efficient in their operations. While they saw the value in implementing a system like Condo Control for day-to-day tasks, they hadn’t considered just how important the online platform would be to the community during an emergency. Condo Control proved to be instrumental in the wake of Hurricane Irma, and aided in their response to challenges such as communication, remote access and security.
About Roxana
Roxana is the property manager at Brickell Bay, located in Miami. Her duties include administrative tasks, day-to-day community management, as well as many other operational responsibilities required at Brickell Bay. Roxana works tirelessly to deliver a high standard of service that promotes a functional, engaged, safe condo community.
Background Information
Brickell Bay is perfectly situated within Brickell, close to the coastline and only minutes to downtown Miami. Brickell Bay is home to 214 units with approximately double the number of residents. The vibrant diverse neighbourhood of Brickell has attracted a mixed demographic, from young professionals to empty nesters.
Challenges
In order to provide Brickell Bay residents with a higher level of service, it was important for Roxana and the board to look at current operational challenges and evaluate how they could be automated and streamlined. Major challenges included:
Communication
Updating the Brickell Bay residents with important information has always been pivotal in maintaining a functioning condo community. At Brickell Bay, communicating with residents was a very time-consuming manual task that took up unnecessary resources. There was no quick way to reach out to all residents in an emergency situation. This was a concern for both management and residents.
Working remotely
Roxana is often being pulled in many directions and not always available on site. In order to keep productivity high and be able to deal with urgent requests and emergencies outside of business hours, Roxana needed a simple mobile solution to access, review and approve processes remotely.
Security & concierge
Security is of utmost importance to the Brickell Bay community. Many aspects of the security staffs’ daily activities were logged manually. This didn’t allow for easy reporting, which made it difficult for Roxana to make informed decisions on security-related incidences. Roxana was unable to easily review historical data that would help manage high-risk situations. In addition to this, the concierge was having trouble keeping up with number of package deliveries and notifying residents of their arrival. This was manual and time-consuming task and proved particularly difficult during extreme weather which often causes confusion and a backlog in deliveries.
The Solution
Brickell Bay had only recently implemented Condo Control to assist the property management team with their daily operations when they were hit by Hurricane Irma. While Roxana and the board saw value in the system prior to the hurricane, this was solidified during and after the unexpected natural disaster. Condo Control helped Brickell Bay manage their major challenges with:
Announcements
When it was announced that Hurricane Irma was approaching the Miami coast Roxana was quick to start sending out notifications to residents to keep them up to date with what was going on with the hurricane. “I use the Announcements feature very frequently, it was extremely useful during the hurricane,” said Roxana.
In addition to this Roxana used this mode of communication to send out safety tips and procedures quickly and easily to residents’ emails making them feel more at ease with the looming natural disaster. The residents were extremely grateful for Roxana’s proactive approach to keeping them updated. Residents can now rely on quick and efficient communication in other emergency situations that may occur.
The community still uses this feature heavily. In 2021, 131 announcements were created and 41,149 emails were sent!
Mobile app
Prior to being notified of Hurricane Irma, Roxana had already planned a vacation. Initially, this worried Roxana as she felt a responsibility to stay and support her condo community during this disaster. However, upon the realization that she could conduct many of the same tasks using the Condo Control smartphone app she was very relieved. “The mobile app is very useful in emergency situations,” Roxana confirmed.
Roxana was able to keep residents updated on the hurricane as well as reassure residents of safety precautions, remotely. Residents were extremely delighted by the continued support from Roxana even though she was not physically available on site.
Security
All security-related incidents are now being logged online. With this digital footprint, Roxana and her security team are able to run and analyze security reports. From these reports, they are able to create informed solutions to common issues within the Brickell Bay community. They are also able to review historical logs pertaining to certain events. This is especially beneficial in preparation for future natural disasters.
Concierge
The concierge staff at Brickell Bay now log all package deliveries through Condo Control. A notification is sent instantly to the package owner for quick pick up. If a package is not picked up after a set amount of time, reminders are also sent to the resident. Storage and organization of packages is simple and can be listed in the system. This streamlined process proved instrumental in the efficient handling of deliveries post-Hurricane Irma, which caused many delivery delays. “Residents truly enjoy being instantly notified of a delivery, especially when there have been unexpected delays.”
Results
Since the introduction of Condo Control at Brickell Bay in 2017, Roxana, the board and residents have all noticed a significant improvement in day-to-day activities and the community as a whole. Here’s how:
Roxana
- Productivity has increased as many manual tasks have now been streamlined
- Regular communication is easier and takes less time and resources to reach all residents. This is extremely important in emergency situations
- Critical announcements can be sent remotely from the CC mobile app allowing greater flexibility
Board Members
- Have peace of mind that they are well equipped to assist their community in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency situation
- Are highly engaged with regular updates and notifications straight to their email
- Have easy access to documents and reports online that assist in making better-informed decisions
Residents
- Are extremely grateful for regular updates, especially during the hurricane and feel more prepared for future emergency situations
- Are more empowered to process requests with management online
- Engage more with other community members and discuss important topics in social forums
Final Words
“I would definitely encourage other property managers and board members to implement Condo Control. The interface is very user-friendly, their customer service is great and it simply makes communicating with residents much easier, especially in emergency situations such as Hurricane Irma. Overall, I think whoever uses Condo Control will enjoy it as much as I do.”