Maintenance operations hide more costs than most multifamily operators realize. Wasted staff time, preventable dispatches, and slow responses that lead to costly damage can quietly erode NOI month after month. And when residents feel the impact of those inefficiencies, satisfaction and retention suffer, too.

This quick, self-guided assessment helps you uncover those hidden leaks — and shows where smart automation can deliver real savings. It's designed to help you: 

• Estimate staff hours lost to low-value tasks
• Flag preventable dispatches and delays
• Spot opportunities for AI and automation
• Benchmark your team's overall efficiency

For a quick audit, you can click here to check out our interactive maintenance operations calculator. 

This assessment is also available for free download as an interactive PDF workbook. 

STEP 1: Map Your Current Workflow

Understand how requests move through your system — from inquiry to resolution. Start by answering these questions:

• How do residents submit requests? (Portal, phone, text?)
• Who triages them? (Onsite manager? Central team?)
• How are requests prioritized? (Who decides? Is it tracked?)
• Who gets dispatched and how? (Internal techs vs. vendors?)
• How is status communicated to residents? (Portal, phone, text?)
• What tracking/reporting exists? (Portal? Spreadsheets?)

STEP 2: Quantify the Workload

Estimate the size and complexity of your maintenance workload by reviewing your tickets from the past 6-12 months. Keep in mind you don't need perfect data to gain meaningful insights.

STEP 3: Identify “Avoidable” Requests

Not every ticket needs an on-site response or maintenance technician. Some issues can be resolved with simple instructions relayed to the resident. Review recent tickets and ask:

• What % of tickets could be resolved without an on-site visit to the unit?
• What % of tickets have a delayed response due to missing or unclear info from the resident at they time they submit the ticket?
• What % of tickets involve unnecessary human staff follow-up, such as questions about building policies?

STEP 4: Pinpoint Friction Areas

Find the choke points in your workflow — and in your resident experience. Ask your team and residents:

• Where do requests/tickets get stuck? 
• What slows down ticket resolution?
• If you have a resident portal for ticket submission, do most residents use it? Or do residents tend to circumvent it (e.g. calling your staff directly)?
• What do residents complain about most?
• Which resident support tasks feel low-value or repetitive to your frontline staff?

STEP 5: Estimate Cost of Inefficiencies

Some costs are easy to spot. Others quietly erode your bottom line. To get a clear picture, you can:

Use our interactive calculator to quickly estimate your current costs and potential savings, or work through the formulas below to calculate them manually. 

Basic Cost Formulas:

• Minutes per request × # of requests = total admin time per month
• Total admin time × hourly rate = cost of coordination per month
• % avoidable × vendor cost per ticket = wasted vendor spend per month

Don’t forget the hidden costs — even if you can’t quantify them precisely:

• Resident churn and reputation risk
• Opportunity cost (e.g., time not spent on higher-impact work)
• Staff burnout and turnover
• Preventable unit damage from delayed responses
• Loss of operational knowledge due to poor documentation

STEP 6: Evaluate Maintenance Ops Software & AI Fit

Now that you have baseline data, ask the following questions of any maintenance vendor you are considering working with (including ASSIST):

Need Help Interpreting Your Maintenance Assessment?

Schedule a complimentary strategy session with our team. We’ll review your assessment together and spotlight the most impactful AI opportunities to elevate your property operations.