A quick look at any maintenance team’s to-do list shows the daily headaches they deal with. With 12+ years in maintenance, Ben Daniels, Service Supervisor at Watermark Residential’s Jordan Creek Apartments, knows this struggle all too well. He found his team grew frustrated with answering repeated resident questions like how to trip a breaker or garbage disposal-related inquiries.

As a result, Ben searched for ways to streamline his team’s processes. He found a powerful, eye-opening solution: Realync.

Now, residents can handle simple tasks on their own, reducing the need for service calls and preventing future issues.

Ben’s team tried giving residents lists of apartment dos and don’ts, hoping to guide them through common tasks. But no matter how clear the instructions, they wouldn’t stick. Residents are visual learners, and they need to see what maintenance and leasing teams are talking about to truly understand. Ben needed a breakthrough strategy.

It was then that the leasing team at Jordan Creek launched Grace Hill’s Virtual Leasing and Video Leasing platform: Realync. Outside of leasing needs, Ben’s team was immediately excited about its potential for maintenance operations.

“I immediately loved the idea of using video tutorials for maintenance. People are visual, so being able to show people what I’m talking about is so much more powerful than written lists or documents,” Ben said.

The first video Ben’s team created was a quick introduction to the maintenance team, showing residents who they are and how to submit service requests.

The video humanized the maintenance process by putting a face to the team and setting the stage for even more impactful content. Next, the team identified the ten most common maintenance issues and recorded Realync videos to address them.

Topics ranged from in-unit washer and dryer care to garbage disposal best practices, covering what not to put down the drain and how to reset the unit. They also created a step-by-step guide for residents on resetting a tripped breaker.

These videos may cover the basics, but for many residents, they fill critical knowledge gaps.

The impact of these video efforts was immediate for Ben and the Jordan Creek maintenance team. Since launching the videos and proactively sharing them with residents, they haven’t received a single ticket for a tripped breaker and have seen a noticeable drop in garbage disposal-related requests.

In other words, Ben’s team reduced tickets to zero for tripped breaker repairs. After watching a maintenance video, one resident replied, “I didn’t know I was allowed to do that on my own!”

By empowering residents with self-service solutions, these videos have reduced unnecessary work orders and freed up the team to focus on more complex maintenance issues, where their expertise is truly needed. Ben and his team have seen firsthand just how powerful video can be in streamlining operations and enhancing the resident experience.