About APG
Australasian Property Group (APG) is a property‑consultancy firm best known for designing and managing Specialist Disability Accommodation across Australia and New Zealand. Their portfolio includes 42 managed properties (with four more under construction) and a fast‑growing roster of residential investors who expect white‑glove service long after hand‑over.
The Challenge
APG’s growth was outpacing its tools. Three separate pain points were hurting the bottom line:
- Lead Capture Chaos – Enquiries arrived via web forms, Facebook and Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, phone, and email. Staff copied everything into a generic CRM by hand—often a day late.
- Project‑Build Bottlenecks – Each new build required the same 35 trade and compliance tasks (HVAC, accessibility fittings, final inspections, etc.). Spreadsheets and reminder emails couldn’t keep teams or subcontractors in sync.
- Post‑Handover Drop‑offs – Once tenants moved in, maintenance requests still came by email. Tickets slipped through the cracks; APG lost three rental clients in one year—about AUD 90 k in recurring fees and vacancy costs.
Churn, sitting at roughly 7 %, had become the single number the executive team watched with a knot in their stomach.
The Solution (A Step‑by‑Step Journey)
- One Inbox for Every EnquiryA messaging hub pulled in website forms, chat‑bot interactions, social media DMs, email, and WhatsApp. Leads were auto‑tagged and routed to sales — no copy‑and‑paste, no delay.
- Self‑Building Project TemplatesFor every new property, the system spawned a 35‑item task list with owner‑approved deadlines and role‑based alerts (builder, HVAC contractor, compliance officer). Drag‑and‑drop Gantt views let PMs spot clashes before they happened.
- Ticketing That Talks to People, Not Email ThreadsTenants now raise issues through a simple form (or by texting a bot). Each request opens a ticket, assigns an internal owner, and logs time‑to‑close. Managers see aging tickets in real time, so nothing festers.
- Event‑Powered Email AutomationAPG hosts investor briefings and open houses twice a quarter. Registration, reminders, and follow‑ups now run themselves—freeing the marketing coordinator to plan the next event, not babysit the last one.
The Result
| Metric | Before | After | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Client churn | 3 lost clients / yr (≈7 %) | 0 lost clients | AUD 90 k protected revenue |
| Properties under management | 39 | 42 (+4 in build) | Growth without added headcount |
| Lead‑to‑CRM delay | Up to 24 hrs | Instant | Faster first‑response times |
| Maintenance response SLA | Untracked | 100 % tickets acknowledged < 2 hrs | Tenant satisfaction up, vacancy risk down |
Every 1 % of churn APG now prevents safeguards ≈ AUD 12–15 k in annual fees and avoids the hidden cost of re‑tenancy. Keeping churn at 0 % is no longer a wish—it’s a dashboard metric visible to every team.
Lessons & Takeaways
- Automate first contact. Speed‑to‑lead isn’t a marketing vanity metric; it’s the first promise you keep.
- Template repeatable work. If you do the same 30‑plus tasks on every project, let software hit “copy.” Humans should solve exceptions, not remember checklists.
- Support is the new sales. Post‑handover care protects more revenue than any ad campaign. A ticket you don’t track is a client you choose to lose.
- One core KPI beats fifty nice‑to‑haves. APG rallies around churn; yours might be margin, uptime, or NPS. Pick one, make it visible, and watch behaviour change.
When operations run themselves, growth stops feeling risky. APG’s story is proof that a few well‑placed automations can turn “sorry we missed that” into “of course, already handled.”
