Maintenance request

The request is the tenant’s words. The work order is what you do about it. One request can become one work order, several, or none if it turns out to be a question.

The first reply matters most. A tenant who hears nothing for a day assumes nobody is coming.

Requests arrive in every shape: a text with a photo, a voicemail at midnight, a portal form with half the fields filled in, an email to the wrong person. A good intake asks the same few things every time: where, what, since when, whether anyone is at risk, and when someone can get in.

An example

Ana texts that the kitchen sink is leaking under the cabinet. The reply asks whether any water is near an outlet or a light, and where the shut-off valve is. Her answers make it urgent rather than an emergency, and the request becomes work order #2071 for a plumber.

What a complete request includes

• The address and unit
• What is wrong, in the tenant’s words, with a photo if possible
• Whether anyone is at risk, and whether water, gas or power is involved
• When someone can enter, and any pets or access notes

How Now Ours handles it

Ours answers tenant calls and texts at any hour in your company’s name, in English and Spanish, asks the safety questions you set and logs the case in your software. The tenant maintenance request form lists the fields to ask for.