Its 8:10 am, and I am walking around with a broom and dustpan picking up the remnants from last
night's smoke breaks. Then I gather the Coke bottles and yesterday's newspapers for recycling
and throw away the candy wrappers left by kids. This is the normal routine every morning for the
Maintenance Department at the Kona KIA apartments in Albuquerque, and today I am an assistant-for-
a-day, a chance to experience what really happens at Signature Community.
At first, the CEO in me wondered why Maintenance is cleaning up the grounds when we have
housekeepers that could do it, but then I experienced the benefits that make these rounds essential to
the Signature culture. We witnessed first-hand the report we received about kids playing with fire in
the parking lot and couches being dumped in the alcove area. We met many residents on their way
to work or to drop off the kids at the bus stop. It was a lesson I could only appreciate in person that
this is an essential Signature Community Team Member customer service element that should not be
replaced by a gardener with a leaf blower. This is one of the many things that will change my overview
of front-line customer service over the next 8 rigorous hours.
Next stop - the daily huddle. Although the format is a bit different from what I'm used to at Corporate,
it's very similar. We share good news, observations, goals, and hurdles and end with a cheer. Then
we are off to fix the toilet in Apartment 305. When we get there the resident, Mrs. Martinez, is happy
to see us. Corey and I quickly assess the situation and decide that her toilet needs a replacement wax
ring. (Actually Corey took charge while I tried to catch my breath from running back and forth between
the maintenance supply shed and the apartments.) No problem, we have one with us. Off goes the
toilet, down goes the new ring and the toilet goes back in again. Now we just need to tighten the bolts
and we are done, but we discover that the bolts are rusted out and too short to fit. So we head back
to the supply closet to find the right size replacement bolts and then back to Mrs. Martinez's apartment
again to finish our job. Corey tells me this is pretty standard operating procedure. In an old building
you often have to deal with the unexpected. If I learned anything, it was that my job was to find a way
to make it work. Before we leave Mrs. Martinez we record that we need to fix the support system on
the sink before it falls off the wall and to fix the entryway window before it cracks and hurts someone. It
seems as if there is always something to "make work".
The next stop is the supply shed once again. On Juan's night patrol the other night he recorded 3
outdoor lights that need to be replaced. So we grab the ladder and replacement lights and head over
to the problem lights. Corey sets up the ladder, climbs to the top and starts removing the old lights.
I see that the lights don't look too old so I ask why we are replacing them. It turns out the lights we
bought 3 years ago where made in China and the bulbs they use (which were burned out) are not
replaceable, so 3 year-old lights are now being replaced by more expensive ones that use energy-
efficient replaceable bulbs. So much for the 10-year bulb life we keep hearing about. Along the "make
it work" mantra, these new lights don't fit the same bolt placement so it's down the ladder and back
to the supply shed for more parts. Before we go back up the ladder we see a paper posted to Mrs.
Smith's door, which doesn't look normal to Corey. He likes to check in on Mrs. Smith every few days
because she is one of our elderly residents, so we knock on her door to check that everything is OK.
That is when the Signature Community culture hits me big time. Nowhere in our 200-page team
member handbook do we outline that our maintenance team members should "check in" on older
residents, but here we are banging on her door to make sure everything is all right. This is when I am
reminded about what really makes Signature different. We have team members like Corey and Linda
and others out there looking out for our residents and making their lives better by living in a Signature
Community. Fortunately Mrs. Smith was OK, so we continued our day making things work. Every
time a resident passed by, Corey knew them by name and apartment number. This is what makes a
Signature Community.
While we were fixing those 3 lights Corey must have received about 5 calls and answered each one as
he was perched on top of the ladder. (This is something that we need to fix at Corporate.) We finish
our lights and then charge on to a few more apartments before we head out to a different property to
meet the Sherriff for a lock-out. Wow! All of this accomplished and its not even 11:30 yet. When is
lunch?
That was my morning as part of the Signature Community Maintenance Team in Albuquerque. Or
what I really should say is I was part of the front-line of the best customer service team in the apartment
industry. After the lockout I get to be Property Manager under the guidance of Linda for the rest of the
day.
My first duty as Property Manager is to show an apartment at our sister building, Theta Apartments,
down the street from Kona. We drive about 10 minutes to the building and wait for the prospect to
show. And then we wait, and then we wait some more. It turns out that the prospect never shows up
and never calls to cancel. This I can understand from experience since I was on the leasing side
of the business for a number of years when the company started. It feels like a great waste of time
when we wait for a no-show, but it is still imperative that we show up for every appointment (even for
the "lookers"). The next part of my day of property management is spent entering resident information
into our Yardi accounting system. I witnessed first-hand how slow the process is and realized the value
of the automation that we are currently rolling out companywide. I also had the opportunity to spend
time with our credit applications and review the credits scores of our new residents.
After that I headed to my second rental showing of the day. I toured a walk-in prospect around a 1-
bedroom apartment and told him about the Signature Community benefits. It was great to see first-hand
how our Community offerings separate us from our competitors. Lucky for me, and more to the value
of Linda's ability to sell Signature, we hooked him and he and his fiancé will be moving in next month.
After my leasing call it was time to tackle payables. It seemed as if our scanner was broken, so the
team came up with a brilliant outside the box idea of faxing to our e-fax account which then converts
the bills to PDF and allows import to the Yardi system. It was eye-opening to see how much time the
system takes and the amount of information needed from each invoice (some of which isn't always
available). This system definitely provides benefits to us and our investors, and it is important for me
to make sure the offices realize the value of the new system that we recently put in place. About 2
hours later (it would have been 4 hours if Linda didn't help me out here), I was finally done entering the
payables invoices for the week. Luckily for me it was my last job of the day and I got to leave early
(5:30 pm while everyone was still there) to move on to the next Signature market.
During my stay in the office I got to experience all the odd calls that come into the office and how Linda
and Andrea figure out solutions on the fly and keep everything humming along. Again, I am amazed at
how well so many things are handled because we have great people that are empowered to provide
solutions, not because we have a magical rulebook.
When I boarded the plane at the end of my trip I kept wondering how we can make our Team Members
lives easier and more productive. After thinking about it for the next few weeks I realized that the best
way to do this is to just keep hiring great people who continue to enhance the Signature culture. The
one practice I saw that could use revision is that we try to give direction from across the country and
set rules in a system that really doesn't fit well into a cookie-cutter system. What I see now is that we
need to make sure to fulfill our promise of giving the best people the best tools possible to do their
jobs. Instead of creating one set of rules nationwide, we need to allow the field to develop site-specific
rules that corporate can support when needed.
Thanks Corey and Linda for bearing with my inability to screw a bolt while on a ladder, having no idea
how to fix a toilet (I mainly got in the way) and my lack of Yardi accounting skills. Your patience helped
me learn some valuable information.
Thanks to all the Signature Community for not just following rules but making the rules. And please
share your ideas and needs with us so we can keep you properly tooled.
