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For innovative living operators smooth operations are essential to delivering great guest experiences. As portfolios grow and same-day turnarounds become the norm, especially for serviced apartment operators, the ability to manage housekeeping and maintenance on the go is essential.
Our mobile operations app puts property managers, housekeeping teams, and maintenance staff in full control, wherever they are. Designed specifically for serviced apartment, coliving and build to rent operators, the mobile app centralises planned and reactive tasks, streamlines communication, and ensures nothing falls through the cracks across both housekeeping and maintenance.
In this article, we explore how our mobile operations app boosts team efficiency, accelerates response times, and drives higher guest satisfaction across portfolios.
The Challenge: Complex Portfolios, Higher Expectations
Operators managing multiple buildings or mixed-use properties face unique operational challenges. Housekeeping and maintenance teams must:
- Track daily tasks across locations
- Coordinate urgent fixes without disrupting guests
- Report issues and verify solutions quickly
- Maintain compliance with safety and brand standards
- Prove work has been completed and track parts and costs related to maintenance
Without real-time tools teams can suffer delays, miscommunication, and service inconsistencies. All of these factors can affect guest experience and hamper the chances of direct repeat bookings.
According to research, 86% of travellers say cleanliness directly affects their review scores, and a majority of guest complaints stem from service issues that could be avoided with better coordination.
The Solution: Property Management in Your Pocket
The res:harmonics mobile operations app was built to help operators deliver high standards consistently. By giving teams live access to schedules, tasks, and alerts, it enables them to act fast and stay informed, no matter where they are.
Unified Task Management
Our app connects directly to the res:harmonics PMS, meaning every check-out clean, mid-stay service, and reactive maintenance job is automatically assigned as soon as they are flagged by guests.
Teams can:
- View and manage tasks in real-time
- Set priorities and receive overdue alerts
- Respond to early check-outs with immediate cleans
- Reduce room turnaround times
On-the-Go Logging and Live Updates
Using our mobile operations app, staff can:
- Upload photos of completed tasks or issues
- Add notes and mark progress
- Close out jobs with time-stamped status
This improves accountability and gives operators full visibility into what's happening across properties, ensuring inspections and safety protocols are met. This is especially true of operators that use contractors for housekeeping and maintenance as a mobile operations app can help track and sign off work of third party team members.
Operational Efficiency and Guest Experience
Mobile operations apps have been shown to:
- Reduce miscommunication between teams
- Remove the need for internal phone calls
- Improve task completion and reduce manual errors
Operators can track daily productivity of contractors, prioritise high-impact work, and allocate resources based on real-time data rather than static rosters or shift patterns. Task automation also reduces barriers from manual processes and frees up man hours to focus on other key business areas.
In a high-turnover environment like serviced apartments or coliving spaces, even small gaps in communication can have a serious effect on guest experience. Mobile checklists, live dashboards, and instant updates allow operators to maintain consistently high standards across their portfolio. They also help prevent common pain points, such as units being marked clean before inspections are completed, or maintenance issues going unresolved between bookings.
With guests and tenants expecting near-instant responses and proactive service, a mobile operations app isn’t just about back-end efficiency, it’s an essential tool for delivering the kind of seamless, hotel-grade service that today’s renters and travellers expect from all accommodation types.
Benefits for Coliving and BTR Communities
In coliving and Build to Rent communities, mobile tools help maintain service quality across long-term rentals where expectations are even higher. Fast maintenance response and transparent communication contribute directly to tenant satisfaction and retention.
Surveys show that poor maintenance is one of the top three reasons tenants leave properties. Responding quickly to repair requests, keeping residents informed, and showing evidence of completed work improves retention and reduces costly unit turnovers.
In larger portfolios, maintenance data captured through the app helps identify recurring issues, plan preventative repairs, allocate resources based on actual demand and track costs associated with unit upkeep.
Software to Solve Common Operational Pain Points
Managing operations across multiple buildings or units comes with a unique set of challenges. Mobile operations apps are purpose-built to solve these issues, helping operators maintain consistent service delivery at scale, whether they’re managing serviced apartment, coliving or Build to Rent units.
1. Communication Gaps
In traditional setups, housekeeping and maintenance teams often rely on printed schedules, internal calls, or word-of-mouth updates. This fragmented communication leads to task duplication, missed jobs, and wasted time chasing updates.
A mobile ops app removes this friction by centralising communication. Tasks are assigned and updated in real-time, and push notifications alert staff to new or urgent jobs. Everyone sees what needs to be done and when, no calls or confusion required.
2. Lack of Visibility
Without digital tools, supervisors often don’t know the status of a room or task until they physically check in with staff. This creates delays, especially when managing large teams or multiple properties. A mobile dashboard provides a live, portfolio-wide view of all operational activity, including outstanding or overdue issues.
Supervisors can instantly see which rooms are clean, which jobs are in progress, and where follow-up is needed. This visibility ensures no unit is missed and allows proactive resource allocation based on demand.
3. Delayed Turnovers
In both short and long-stay properties, uncoordinated turnovers can lead to avoidable vacancy gaps. If cleaning is delayed or maintenance isn’t logged until the end of a shift, valuable time is lost. Mobile apps streamline this by enabling parallel tasking, housekeeping and maintenance can work in sync, with status updates as soon as one stage is completed.
Some operators report shaving several days off average turnover time by switching to a mobile-first operations system. The result is faster check-ins, quicker re-letting, and fewer lost nights.
4. Missed Requests
In high-volume environments, service requests from guests or tenants can easily fall through the cracks, especially if they're submitted via text, email, or face-to-face.
Mobile ops apps ensure every request is logged, time-stamped, and assigned to the right team instantly. Automated reminders nudge teams to follow up, and real-time status updates provide transparency for both residents and managers. This helps maintain service standards and avoid the reputational damage caused by unresolved issues.
5. Human Error
Busy teams working across multiple locations are prone to oversights, especially during peak periods. Whether it’s forgetting to restock towels, missing a safety inspection, or leaving a repair half-finished, small errors can add up to big complaints.
Mobile apps reduce this risk with structured digital checklists and task verification processes. Tasks can’t be closed without completing required steps, including staff and contractors being required to upload photos as proof of completion. This creates a consistent standard, even across large or rotating teams.
Building Better Stays Through a Purpose Built PMS
Whether you're managing 50 serviced apartments or 500+ BTR units, mobile tools help you scale operations without sacrificing service quality.
In a post-pandemic world where guests and residents expect cleanliness, quick responses, and professionalism, mobile ops apps are no longer a nice-to-have, they are essential.
From reducing vacancy gaps and improving communication, to boosting guest satisfaction and retention, mobile task management simplifies operations and saves crucial man hours.
Book a demo and see how res:harmonics, and our purpose built mobile operations app, helps you deliver seamless service at scale.
