How to evaluate maintenance coordination software or service

Every option for handling maintenance promises fewer calls on your phone. A coordinator, an answering service, an outsourced coordination service and software with an AI on the phone all say some version of it. The way to tell them apart is to ask each one the same questions, test it on your own work orders, and read how you leave before you sign. This guide walks through each step in order.

We make one of these options, so read the last section with that in mind. Everything before it applies to any provider, including us.

1. Write down the jobs you want off your plate

Start with your own week, not a feature list. Most maintenance work falls into the same handful of jobs, and each option covers a different set of them.

• Answering tenant calls and texts, day and night
• Asking the safety questions and deciding what is an emergency
• Reaching your on-call person when something can’t wait
• Offering the job to a technician or vendor, and chasing a reply
• Booking the visit with the tenant and the vendor
• Confirming the repair happened and closing the work order
• Keeping the property owner informed and getting approvals

Mark each job with who does it today and how many hours it takes. The jobs you mark as yours are the ones a provider has to take on for the money to make sense. The cost calculator helps put a number on your own hours.

2. Decide which kind of help fits

The options split by who does the work. A maintenance coordinator is a person on your payroll or a contractor. An answering service takes the call at night and passes a message on. Doing it yourself has no fee and keeps every call on your phone. Outsourced coordination services and software sit between them, and the comparison pages put each one next to the others on the same facts.

An answering service and a full coordination service are different purchases. The first takes the message. The second is expected to finish the job. Ask each provider which of the jobs in step 1 it does from start to finish, and which it hands back to you.

3. Ask every option the same questions

Send the same list to each provider and keep the answers side by side. Vague answers are an answer too.

4. Check how it calls and texts tenants

Any provider that calls and texts tenants for you does it under rules that apply to you as well. Two are worth asking about directly.

• AI voices on calls. In February 2024 the Federal Communications Commission ruled that calls made with AI-generated voices are “artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the law that restricts calls using artificial or prerecorded voices. Ask a provider whose AI places calls how it handles consent, and whether its AI says it is an AI.
• Text messages. The wireless industry’s messaging principles, published by CTIA, expect business senders to get consent before texting, to honor opt-outs sent with words like STOP, and to keep a record of when and how consent was given. Ask how the provider records consent and what happens when a tenant replies STOP.

This is general information, not legal advice. If your tenants are in several states, ask your own lawyer which rules apply to your calls and texts.

5. Test it on your own work orders

A demo shows the best case. Your own work orders show the cases you actually have. Ask to see the option working on real requests before anything reaches a tenant or a vendor.

1. Pick a recent week of work orders, including at least one night call and one job a vendor was slow to answer
2. Ask what the option would have said and done for each one, in order, with times
3. Check the safety questions on the night call against your own emergency list
4. Check who would have been asked before money was spent
5. Compare the result with what actually happened that week

The maintenance KPIs guide shows how to measure first response, time to visit and time to close from the same timestamps, so you can compare like with like.

6. Read how you leave before you sign

The exit terms tell you how confident a provider is that you will stay. Read them before the price.

• Is it month-to-month, or is there a minimum term?
• Is there a fee to leave, and how much notice do you have to give?
• Can you export every case, message and booking yourself, and in what format?
• What happens to your data after you cancel, and when is it deleted?
• Do your vendors and tenants keep dealing with your company’s number and name after you leave?

7. Score every option on one page

Put the answers in one table so the decision is about the same facts for each option. Fill in your own notes rather than a score from the provider’s website.

Where Now Ours fits

This is what we build, so read this part with that in mind. Ours answers tenant calls and texts at any hour in your company’s name, in English and Spanish, and says it is an AI assistant. You decide what counts as an emergency, and an emergency calls and texts the first person on your on-call calendar, then your backup after 5 minutes. It offers jobs to your own technicians first, then your vendors, and on Cautious, the default, it asks you before it picks a vendor or spends money. A job counts as done when the tenant confirms the fix, or the vendor or technician marks it done with a photo or note. Every message and booking is recorded on the case, and you can export your cases any time as CSV or JSON. It works with AppFolio, Buildium, Rent Manager, Rentvine and Propertyware. The price is $5 a door a month, and calls, texts and minutes are included. See pricing and all comparisons.