Those who attended or watched the 2024 Candidate Forums heard me mention Customer Service multiple times.  It may be my hospitality background kicking in, however, I feel that true Customer Service is lacking in multiple areas of our HOA.

Enabling NPS

NPS stands for Net Promoter Score, which is a common metric used in customer experience programs. An NPS score measures customer loyalty by looking at their likelihood of recommending a given business.  In our case, the Business is our HOA, and the interactions our residents have with Committees, Management, Vendors, and the Board itself.

Many residents have been voicing displeasure with experiences with these entities, yet we do not seem to be capturing any information at the time of interaction as to how we could improve it.  NPS can start with a single question such as “Based on this most recent interaction, how likely are you to recommend X to others”.  Having this basic metric can help the Board identify pain points being experienced, and direct attention to those areas to solve them.  This isn’t complex, nor does it require an extreme amount of tooling or cost.  It simply is a bookkeeping and reporting measure.

NPS is already done today with some of our Parks and Rec events.  My boys love the “Kids Night Out” events hosted from time to time.  In our parent survey, Parks and Rec asks how likely we are to recommend Kids Night Out to other residents (btw, we wholeheartedly do!).  This simple metric is used to inform the Parks and Rec team about event programming and give feedback to the Special Events Committee on what is seen as successful.

I would want to see some form of NPS enabled at every resident interaction to help us improve Resident Experiences.

ARC & Covenants

Design guidelines should be easy to follow, straightforward for the user, updated when needed, and consistently applied.  One of the biggest frustrations I hear consistently coming out of our Architectural Review Committee (ARC) procedures is a lack of application of our Rules and Design Guidelines.  ARC and Covenants are some of the most basic, and likely most frequent points of customer interaction our HOA has.  Why are we not measuring it and looking to improve the process?  Our Management company, at the direction of the Board, should be assisting all Committees in ensuring residents have a positive experience, even if they disagree with the outcome.

We should complete an end-to-end map of both ARC and Covenants to identify points of resident interaction, frustration, process inefficiencies, and potential areas of financial savings.  Besides increasing customer service experience to residents, we can use this as a examination to find time savings which ultimately cost us more in Management/Staff time.

Develop Trust and Respect

Board Members, Residents, and Management Staff can all benefit from developing a trusting and respectful relationship. When residents trust and respect these groups, they may be more likely to ask important questions, request assistance and work together to solve problems.  At the most basic level, Board Members need to have strong customer service skills within the Board itself to develop Trust and Respect.

The Board Itself

It’s no secret that many residents are not pleased with the direction of the CROA Board.  It’s one of the main reasons I am running for election.  Strong Customer Service skills require that representatives remain calm, polite, and collected, no matter what situation they are being faced with.  Difficult conversations and differing opinions are what make Boards strong.  Being able to have a positive outcome, show commitment, and get behind decisions that are made help move the Board, and the Community, in the right direction.