When a tenant hands in a termination notice, the property manager usually says they never saw it coming. In most cases the warning signs were there, but nobody saw them because nobody cared to do any tracking. You don't have to be the surprised property manager. That's why we recommend a satisfaction scorecard.
A satisfaction scorecard lets you catch those signs while you can still act. If a tenant’s renewal intent drops from 8 to 5 on a 10 point scale between January and July. This leaves you only a few months left to find out why.
The Four Domains of a Property Manager's Scorecard
Domain One - Physical environment
These metrics are your purely operational ones:
- HVAC complaints per tenant per month. Look for patterns.
- Maintenance response time. Look for the average hours from request to resolution. Seek same-day acknowledgment and next-day resolution for non-emergency issues.
- Common area cleanliness. Score it based off weekly self-inspections.
- Infrastructure downtime. This includes elevators, parking, and access control incidents per quarter.
Domain Two - Management responsiveness
A tenant who raises an issue and hears back the same day will feel heard. A tenant who has to follow up multiple times will inevitably feel ignored. And these tenants are paying too much money to feel ignored.
- Inquiry response time. Same-business-day acknowledgment is the goal.
- Resolution rate. The percentage of issues resolved within the timeframe you committed to.
- Proactive contact. How often tenants hear from you about something other than a problem or a bill.
Domain Three - Amenity engagement
Engagement is difficult to garner and also the most invaluable of all domains.
- Event attendance rate. The math is attendees divided by total tenant headcount. Target 25% or higher for lunch programs. You can measure this by tallying the tickets filled by the vendors.
- Amenity awareness. The share of tenant employees who can name at least two building amenities. This quarterly survey question tells you whether your communication is reaching anyone.
Domain Four - Renewal intent
The other three domains predict this one. Measure it at least six months or before any significant lease expiration.
- Renewal likelihood. Ask “How likely are you to renew your lease at this location?” on a 1–10 scale at the six-month out mark.
- Building Net Promoter Score (NPS), twice a year. Ask “How likely are you to recommend this building to a colleague or business contact?”
- Exit interviews. Hold one with every departing tenant. Write it down and feed what you learn back into programming and service decisions.
The Scorecard
How Often To Run The Scorecard
- Monthly: physical environment and management responsiveness metrics.
- Quarterly: amenity engagement.
- Twice a year: the renewal intent and satisfaction surveys. Run them in January to set a baseline and in July, while there’s still time to act before Q4.
- For ownership: send a summary every quarter. It ties amenity spending to retention in numbers, which makes a stronger budget case than anecdotes.
In the end, look for movement and trends. Green to yellow in any domain means it’s time to talk to that tenant. Red for two straight quarters is a retention emergency, but that's okay, because now you know what to work on. Alternatively, the other option is being clueless when the termination notice arrives.
Struggling with amenities to put you in the green? Let’s talk about why.
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