The team here at ServusConnect is excited to announce that Harbor Group Management has joined our portfolio of valued clients! Harbor Group, based in Norfolk, VA, owns and operates over 40,000 units of residential apartment communities, valued at over $4 billion. 

Harbor Group is a significant win for ServusConnect as we continue to grow our client base of regional and national multifamily operators, expanding our market presence and fueling our growth heading into 2021. 

Similarly, selecting ServusConnect is a strategically important technology deployment for Harbor Group, enabling them to modernize maintenance operations and improve efficiency at every HG community. Additionally, ServusConnect’s Resident Engagement capabilities will ensure HG residents continue to receive the maintenance quality-of-service they have come to expect as the company continues to scale into new markets.

A Deeper Analysis

Ok, now that we’ve gotten the press release out of the way, let’s get down to the real question, “What led up to this decision?” (if I were reading this blog that is what I’d like to know :-). 

It’s a great question for sure and the answer lies in the depth of diligence Harbor Group took throughout the process.  Most of our clients and prospects come to us with similar variations of these issues and/or needs they are trying to solve for:

  1. We’ve got a backlog of service requests we’re struggling to keep up with.
  2. We don’t know what our maintenance teams are doing on a daily basis.
  3. We need to remove the time-sucking bottlenecks from our maintenance workflow.
  4. We need to do a better job of communicating with our residents about items related to maintenance operations.
  5. Whatever it is, it’s gotta be easy!

Harbor Group Management shares these priorities and challenged us with questions that were much more analytical in nature, like:

  1. Based on actual data from testing at a community, what impact does ServusConnect have on effectiveness and efficiency of our property teams?
  2. How can SC improve our residents’ maintenance experience, not only today, but in the future?
  3. Prove where and how SC can recover operational maintenance costs and pay for itself in the first year (or less).
  4. How can SC streamline regional & national management’s ability to assess operational health and effectiveness of HG’s assets?
  5. If SC was deployed and went away, would our property teams go on strike until they got it back?
  6. Can it scale with us as we grow by 10,000-20,000 units per year?

The Result

We’re super thankful to have “passed diligence”. Through hundreds of man-hours of testing, feedback, “spreadsheeting”, and Zoom meetings between the respective teams, these and many other questions were proven out.

In the process, we got to know each other pretty well. That said, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge a couple of people from the Harbor Group Management team who played a huge role in diligence and getting the deal over the finish line. Much thanks and gratitude to Jeremy Voigtmann, Managing Director, Commercial and Construction Management and Bob Lee, Director of Technical and Safety Services, who both invested countless hours in the process, not to mention their commitment and desire to make substantive improvements to Harbor Group Management’s operations!

What’s Next?

We’re thankful to survive the sales cycle, but let’s face it, not every client needs to go through this level of diligence to justify bringing on a new technology – they just need to know someone else did! 

In subsequent blog posts, we’re going to highlight some of Harbor Group’s diligence findings in hopes that these can help other multifamily operators short-circuit the process and start experiencing the value of ServusConnect in weeks, and not months or years. 

While we look forward to working with their 500+ maintenance techs and launching 120+ communities, if we can help or if there anything you’d like to learn about us – reach out! We’d be excited to hear from you! Schedule a demo today.