A Closer Look at Operations
Facilities Maintenance
Preventive maintenance and repair requests are completed by our skilled on-site technicians and are scheduled and tracked through Property Boss, our integrated property management software system. This ensures that no PM tasks are missed and that residents’ requests are responded to within 24 hours (or faster, depending on urgency). Your facilities last longer and your residents are happier.
Custodial Services
A clean environment is necessary not just for health reasons, but also for residents’ sense of peace in their homes on campus. The COCM team uses a comprehensive set of checklists to guide our work, ensuing that all areas and surfaces are cleaned and the appropriate frequencies per industry standard.
Marketing and Leasing
It’s not about balloons and cookies, it’s about the value of living on campus and properly positioning communities in a student housing program. We work with our partners to ensure each community on campus is properly positioned to serve its target market, then develop a promotion strategy. COCM’s corporate-based Site Marketing Coordinator provides leadership, direction, and creative assistance to our on-site marketing teams. Market studies, advertising strategies, social media plans, and traditional marketing materials are developed and customized for each location targeting students, parents, and community members. The marketing plan and budget are presented to our partners annually for review, discussion, and approval.
Occupancy Management
Are the right students living in each on-campus facility? Are processes and procedures designed to maximize occupancy? Are wait lists being culled regularly to ensure a new resident is ready to sign a lease when there’s a cancellation? Are rates set appropriately to maximize revenue for each unit type based on market demand? Are residents properly incentivized to return? The answers to these questions can be more complex than they seem. The COCM team develops a location-specific occupancy management plan each year to address these issues and maximize occupancy, not only in the facilities we manage, but across the entire campus.
Capital Planning
We want our partners to have a facility they’re as proud of in year twenty as they were in year one! COCM will assess lifespans of building systems (i.e. roof and HVAC), furnishings and fixtures (case goods, surfaces, lighting, etc.), and equipment, create a long-term replacement and renewal plan, and develop a capital budget and reserve funding strategy to ensure sufficient funds are available to meet the plan’s needs. This is re-visited annually and presented to our partners for input and approval. We’ll also manage the approved capital projects if desired.
Emergency Procedures
COCM’s corporate leadership and site teams stay up-to-date on all current trends, information, regulations, protocols and requirements related to safety and emergencies in student housing. We’ll develop a site-specific set of emergency procedures and safety policies and will update it regularly to help make the community safer.
Financial Management and Reporting
You’ll always know where your project stands. COCM’s approach is transparent and we provide regular income statements and variance reports to ensure you have the information you need at your fingertips. There will never be any surprises, as our manages will keep you fully informed of the community’s financial performance throughout the year. Our accounting team ensures everything is in order and that all financial records are available to our partners, owners, and auditors whenever needed.
Insurance Coordination
With our combined buying power, COCM is often able to help owners save money on insurance. Regardless of where purchased, though, our owner services team will coordinate with all parties to ensure the community is properly insured and that risk is reduced as much as possible.
Residence Life
COCM offers full residence life program development and implementation. Many management companies offer a “canned” residence life program that is rolled out in almost identical fashion across their entire portfolio. Because we know residence life is a mission-critical university function, we don’t take the easy way out. Instead, our professionals, who have backgrounds in residence life and student development, will work with your campus student affairs team to create a custom program that gets residents involved and connected to campus, supports the challenges they face, and matches your institution’s learning outcomes. Once designed, our on-site team will implement the program, ensuring that your students experience campus life the way you want them to.