Client Spotlight

Inspired Property Management: Rapid business growth

How Inspired Property Management has worked with MRI to support their expanding business

 

Inspired Property Management is a privately owned property management company, providing professional property management services since 2009. It has a team of experienced property managers who assist with all aspects of leasehold property management services covering residential, commercial, block and estate management throughout the North and South of England.

No room to grow

Inspired Property Management was established with three directors and one member of staff. As a new agency, the company didn’t have a property management software solution in place. Instead, the team were relying on a basic accounting system on an Excel platform, and raising demands manually via Word. This was not only time-consuming for staff, but also meant it was difficult to scale the business at the required rate.

David Poppleton, Director at Inspired Property Management, recalls: “We very quickly reached around 15 sites and discovered that we needed to make the jump from simple software to a comprehensive property management solution. Our work time was just too intensive with an archaic system.”

“To send out 20,000 demands a year without the software, we would need an additional seven members of staff, which equates to £150,000 a year.”

Searching for a system

Inspired wanted a fully integrated property management system that improved the process of raising demands. One of the directors had used MRI Qube Property Management (Qube PM) at their previous company and highly recommended the solution. As a result, they invited MRI (then Qube) in to demonstrate.

“Once we saw a Qube PM demo, we knew we had to have it! However, the initial outlay was too large for a company of our size. Instead of purchasing it outright, we leased the software for a number of years first. While it was a significant investment, we never thought twice about making that leap. The potential to expand the business using the software was huge.”

Implementing Qube PM

Going from a simple system to a complex implementation could have been a daunting prospect for a new business. However, Inspired worked closely with a dedicated consultant to make the process as smooth as possible.

“By the time we started implementation, we were up to 20-30 sites. We kept our old system running simultaneously in the background for about seven months, but put each new site straight into Qube PM. This worked really well.”

Now, the agent manages 300-315 properties through using the solution.

Winning business

In terms of customer service, Inspired has found the Qube PM Tenant Portal incredibly valuable. The Portal provides its clients with a ‘self-service’ facility for accessing their account details, where they can view their balance, payment history, service charge statements, check the status of outstanding maintenance work and make payments.

An additional benefit for Inspired has been the ability to use the Tenant Portal as a sales tool. By re-branding the Portal, and promoting it via their own branded marketing collateral, the team has attracted a significant amount of business.

“When we bring a client in and show them the Tenant Portal, it gives us a huge advantage over our competitors.”

David also points out the advantages of broadcasting to clients using Qube PM. He said: “Managing agents are rarely praised in the industry. It’s a common belief that clients only hear from their agents when they are being billed! With the Tenant Portal, our property managers can broadcast to their leaseholders and communicate with them once or twice a week. It is this level of service that Inspired Property Management is known for.”

Ultimately, Qube PM is business-critical for Inspired Property Management. “I couldn’t foresee growing at this speed without Qube PM. It simply wouldn’t have been manageable, particularly with the time of writing out demands. Additionally, the team are absolutely reliant on the Maintenance Module. If it was taken away from them they would be lost having to go back to Excel!”

A final word

David is delighted with his experience of Qube PM: “Perhaps the best part of working MRI Software is that first and foremost they are genuinely nice people, and the service they deliver is exceptional. Things don’t always go as planned, but dealing with them is an absolute pleasure, and customer support is very helpful and knowledgeable. Some of the staff have used other systems in their previous roles, but they’ve all said they would never look back from Qube PM.”

To find out more about how MRI’s software solutions can help you, please get in touch today.

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