The Covid-19 pandemic, which lasted for the second year, changed the habits of the residents of apartment buildings quite significantly. It can be assumed that the younger owners of apartment buildings and premises would be the first to change their attitude, but this time everything is different. Older residents of apartment buildings were the first to change their habits.
According to Giedrius Eidimtas, the head of Civinity Lietuva, one of the largest building maintenance and engineering solutions groups in the Baltics, the activity of older customers increased during the quarantine period using the self-service platform created by the administrator.
“Quarantine has changed the habits of all of us, including our customers, many of whom are elderly. Obviously, older customers chose to go to the supermarket less and stop queuing and pay their bills online by joining the Civinity customer self-service platform for free. Comparing the data of the last year, the number of older people using the self-service platform has increased by 20%,” says G. Eidimtas, the head of Civinity Lietuva.
Why give up paper bills and use the self-service platform?
Having just purchased a new apartment, 99 percent. settlers choose to conveniently use self-service platforms. One of the advantages of self-service is that customers see the account history of an object for the entire period that the administration company maintains its assets.
Also, all accounts are in one place, they are not lost and are available at a convenient time for the customer. Meanwhile, paper bills can get lost and the customer can’t reach the customer at all due to messy or unlocked mailboxes.
“Customers receive an invoice on the self-service platform on the 10th-12th day of the current month, and paper invoices reach the customers only on the 20th-25th day of the current month. We also note that it takes longer to deliver paper invoices during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, we encourage our customers to connect to the self-service platform and receive invoices in the electronic space,” says G. Eidimtas.
Of course, the self-service system allows you to pay bills directly for the services provided and manage the data of even several assets simultaneously online. The self-service is especially convenient for customers who have several objects managed by the Civinity group of companies. Their data can be managed with a single login code, linking them to the same payer. You can link objects even if they are in different cities.
Civinity Namai keeps its promise to customers and introduces another self-service feature. From the end of 2021, each customer of Civinity Namai can monitor how much money has been accumulated in his apartment building and his own apartment.
“We are constantly striving for convenience and clarity for our customers. Therefore, we have improved the self-service system and introduced a new self-service function, during which the customer will be able to check how much accumulated funds his apartment building has accumulated,” says G. Eidimtas.
Changes in the eyes of customers
Rasa living in Kaunas, Draugystės street. 2, she has been using the administration and maintenance services of an apartment building provided by the building administrator of Civinity Namai Kaunas for 20 years. The woman from Kaunas received paper bills for many years, but decided to change her habits and join the self-service system.
“When we bought the house, we did not have such an opportunity to use the self-service system. We all got paper bills and it was normal and it became a habit later on. Although I have heard about the self-service created by the administrator, I only joined it when the quarantine started. At first, it was unusual to pay taxes online, but now it is the most convenient way to pay taxes, ”says Rasa, a resident of an apartment building.
It is an interesting fact that 17 tons of medium-sized trees, about 26,000 liters of water, 4,000 kW of energy and 240 liters of fuel are needed to produce one tons of paper. If we take it in more detail, it takes 5 liters of water and 17 watts of energy to make one sheet of A4 paper. By using less paper, we save natural resources, use less energy and save trees that we can admire later.
Customers can avoid periodic logins to the site by using the “My Civinity” mobile application. The application includes a direct payment feature that further facilitates the management of real estate objects.
The system also shows arrears and overpayments to the customer. It is important that in the self-service, customers can easily contact the contacts of the Customer Service Center specified by the home administrator, and ask relevant questions when filling in the inquiry form.
“By expanding electronic services, we encourage customers to be even more active self-service users and find out about the condition of their home, planned work and bill amounts with a few clicks of a button. This will make managing your home data and payments much more convenient than getting paper bills. At the same time, we encourage our customers to be more environmentally friendly by reducing paper consumption, ”says G. Eidimtas.