Wise Living, a leading build to rent (BTR) operator and ARLA member, manage in excess of 2,000 units across the UK. Driven by a desire to rationalise all users across the business onto a unified platform, Wise Living went to market, surveying several leading providers and selecting MRI Software as their technology partner of choice.
The key requirements of Wise Living were similar to many other BTR operators that MRI Software work with.
- Integration of leasing processes: Wise Living wanted to ensure that their lettings team were fully integrated into their system workflow. Previously, users relied on email and spreadsheets to communicate with the accounts team, leading to inefficiencies and siloed data.
- Customisation and reporting: Wise Living had a need for a highly customisable system capable of holding bespoke data points to satisfy demanding internal and external reporting requirements.
- Resident experience: Enhancing the resident experience through digital self-service capabilities was key.
- Market confidence: Finally, Wise Living wanted to ensure the system they selected was prominent in the sector, to imbue investors and potential clients with confidence in their delivery.
MRI Software met this decision criteria and began software implementation with Wise Living in January 2024. Following the successful implementation of the MRI Living property management suite over a period of three months, the BTR operator is now up and running, carrying out key leasing, property management and accounting activities.
The MRI Living suite is an end-to-end residential management solution. Its three key components of leasing, customer engagement and property management and accounts are served by sector-leading software in the form of MRI Qube Property Management, MRI Sales and Lettings, and MRI’s customer portal MRI Engage®. Each solution can be deployed together or individually to suit the needs of any operator in the BTR space.
For the initial onboarding, MRI’s tried and tested training-led methodology was deployed, with users attending a series of functional training workshops. Moving on from this phase, Wise Living then worked with MRI Software’s team on data import activities and consultancy sessions to optimise the platform ready for go live. Both teams worked proactively to ensure the correct resource from each side was allocated to take part in the implementation stream activities. This resulted in an accelerated go live timeframe which kept within their initial budget. Charlotte Armstrong, Operations Director of Wise Living commented “Joanna, the MRI Consultant was amazing, she really understood our requirements from a financial perspective; she helped put in place processes for us and documented these which was great.”
Wise Living are already seeing benefits of the solution across several specific processes. By bringing the leasing team onto an integrated platform, all users can now access the data they need from a live system.
By eliminating the wasted time spent emailing or searching for data in spreadsheets, we think the leasing team is around 10% more efficient. Our leasing team have also been happy with the checklist function in MRI Sales and Lettings, allowing us to easily see where we are in a leasing process. The whole process is now much smoother.
Charlotte Armstrong, Operations Director at Wise Living
With the implementation of Qube Property Management, Wise Living in a short space of time have realised further time efficiencies, replacing once manual processes with smart automation.
The team love the receipt matching function, which is very easy and quick. MRI were really helpful and matched our template to the bank format so importing is easy. Where we used to have to go to a different part of our old system to manually correct non-matching items, MRI can do this from within the receipt process, saving lots of time. Our daily receipting process is now auto matching about 98% of the time.
Amy Ingers, Operations Manager at Wise Living.
In line with Wise Living’s desire to enhance the resident experience, MRI’s customer portal technology is an integrated part of the MRI Living software platform, helping the BTR provider to elevate customer service as well uncover further efficiencies for the company. “The Engage portal is a big step change from our previous tech stack. This is a game changer for us in terms of self-service and will help reduce the volume of emails and calls,” said Charlotte.
Long term use and return on investment of software is only as good as the support and expertise that is built into the service. Wise Living is supported by a UK-based team of 12 people available via MRI’s support portal, telephone line or email.
The support team have been really helpful. If there is anything we need urgent help with, the team escalate it straight away and we have really enjoyed working with specific members of the MRI Support team.
Charlotte Armstrong
“It has been a pleasure working with Charlotte and Amy from our first engagement, through to implementation and now that they are live. They both understand the value that MRI Software can bring to their team and have been strong champions for the solution throughout the process. I look forward to a long lasting and close working relationship with them both.” – Michael Connolly, Account Executive at MRI Software.
About Wise Living
Wise Living provides high-quality, purpose-built family housing for the private rental market. It aims to revolutionise the private rental sector by challenging existing standards, creating and nurturing communities, and ultimately driving better living standards for tenants.
The team at Wise Living have over ten years proven expertise in delivering over 7,500 SFH BTR properties across the UK. This experience makes them uniquely placed to provide all services seamlessly from under one roof – from identifying the ideal sites for renters, delivering the scheme throughout the build phase and ensuring all the properties are let and managed whilst delivering a fantastic customer experience.