You’ll inevitably be responsible for managing maintenance request forms at some point in your career. These can be tricky to handle, as they often require a delicate balance between meeting the requester’s needs and maintaining the property or organization as a whole.
This guide will provide 11 tips for managing maintenance requests effectively and ensuring that everyone is happy with the process!
Table of Contents
Tip 1 – Establish a Clear Maintenance Request Process
The first step in managing maintenance requests effectively is establishing a clear and concise process for submitting and handling them. A smooth process will ensure that all requesters know what to expect and can easily follow the steps required to get their maintenance needs met.
Try using a maintenance request form or templates like our Maintenance Work Order or a custom template using our app, 1st Reporting. These solutions will help you smoothly manage maintenance requests, but the app will also generate automated reports to help you track breakdown trends and other reported incidents or breakdowns.
Tip 2 – Communicate Expectations Upfront
It’s essential to communicate your expectations for maintenance requests to all stakeholders upfront. It includes setting clear deadlines for work request submission and outlining the methods by which they will be reviewed and processed.
Doing this will avoid any confusion or frustration later on down the line!
Tip 3 – Set Up A Request Tracking System
In order to manage maintenance requests effectively, you’ll need to have a system in place for tracking them. It could be as simple as using a spreadsheet to track all incoming requests, or you may want to invest in a more robust maintenance request software solution.
Dealing with more than one type of report, you’ll want to consider a reporting app like 1st. It’s handy when you need to utilize multiple form types or even custom forms branded for your business. The offline capabilities make it usable on your phone or tablet, even when the internet is down.
Whichever method you choose, make sure that it’s easy to use and that all requesters know how to access it!
Tip 4 – Review Requests Regularly
Your business needs to review maintenance requests regularly, ideally at least once per week. This practice will keep things moving and ensure that no demand falls through the cracks. Similarly, all maintenance needs are being addressed in a timely manner when you regularly review to ensure no issue is left unsolved.
Regular reviews of current maintenance request forms also allow you to understand the requestor’s needs better. Similarly, collecting requests and reviewing them in an organized manner allows for vital managerial triage decision making and will enable you to start repairs on the most concerning issues.
Tip 5 – Prioritize Urgent Requests
As you are aware, it is helpful for you to maintain a sort of triage regarding maintenance request forms. Some maintenance requests will be more urgent than others, so it’s essential to prioritize those accordingly.
You should address urgent requests as soon as possible, while you can schedule non-urgent requests for a later date. For example, suppose a service item requires working order equipment and the equipment is currently malfunctioning. In that case, it can save much grief to prioritize the equipment repair response based on the urgency of the equipment need.
There are always some grey areas when it comes to managing maintenance priorities. Therefore, it is wise to establish a clear definition of what constitutes a maintenance high priority action. For example, you might define an urgent maintenance request as one where the facility, process, or equipment is not functioning without repair, and business operations are affected. However, the definition will vary depending on the nature of your industry and scope of operations, so ensure that you create your own description to suit your individual business.
Tip 6 – Delegate Where Possible
In order to manage maintenance requests effectively, you’ll need to delegate some of the work involved. You might even require outside help like contractors. Naturally, it will depend on your relationship and responsibility with either a team member or tenant, depending on the nature of the facility and request.
Delegating requests via maintenance request forms could include assigning someone to review all incoming requests or appointing someone to oversee the maintenance request process.
By delegating tasks, you’ll free up your own time to focus on more pressing matters, such as managing the maintenance work order process itself or handling an influx of more requests and request forms.
Tip 7 – Keep Everyone Updated
Throughout the process of managing a maintenance request, it’s essential to keep all stakeholders updated on the status of said requests. It includes requesters, property managers, and anyone else who may be affected by the maintenance work being carried out.
Maintaining strong communication regarding the particulars of the service request allows you to maintain strong relationships with customers, tenants, or whoever is involved in the handling maintenance requests process.
Tip 8 – Follow Up After work Completion
It’s not enough to merely have a maintenance request form and perform maintenance. You should always follow up after any repair request. Once the maintenance work has been completed, it’s essential to follow up with the requester to ensure that they’re satisfied with the results.
The follow-up process is an excellent opportunity to get feedback on the basic requirements of the process and make any necessary improvements for future maintenance requests. You might even want to use a custom maintenance work order form using a mobile form automation software like 1st Reporting.
Tip 9 – Document Everything
It’s essential to document everything when it comes to maintenance records. That’s one of the reasons we built our downloadable Maintenance Work Order template – to help streamline maintenance request form processes.
The documentation includes keeping records of all incoming requests and documenting all work that was carried out.
When you collect requests and document everything, you’ll have a clear record of all maintenance work that has been carried out and can easily track any trends or patterns over time!
Tracking trends over time can become quite a tedious task, mind you. However, solutions like 1st Reporting bypass the hours of combing through old maintenance request form templates to find that needle in a haystack.
Did you know that 34% of equipment breakdowns occur due to aging equipment? If you document everything about your equipment maintenance, you should be able to track and predict equipment failures much more straightforward. (source)
Tip 10 – Observe Trends For Preventive Maintenance Superiority
A maintenance request can come in at any time. But can you retrieve a submitted maintenance request form at a later date? If you have difficulty retrieving a filed work request, your request form filing process may be broken, and tracking trends is nearly impossible.
Utilizing a robust reporting software system is an excellent way to mitigate information loss over time. Take the 1st Reporting app, for example. The app can track reports over time to provide you with automated reports to identify trends in your maintenance requests.
A Reporting App Worth Trying At Your Business
The 1st Reporting platform is so robust that it allows you to create a custom maintenance request form. Better than that, it will enable you to complete all the details right there in digital format. And with offline access to the app’s functions, you can record data even without an internet connection (it will upload the data once a connection is established).
Try the 1st Reporting app today and see how our reporting solution can help your business!
We hope that these tips will help you manage maintenance requests effectively and ensure that everyone is happy with the process. If you have any questions or suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact us! Thank you for reading.
If you enjoyed this article, check out our other blog posts or downloadable templates on similar topics, such as A Maintenance Work Order Template You Can Use Today.
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