A look inside the daily life of our administrative team…
By: Kate Merrihew – Director of Education and Marketing
Rooster crows and the administrative team wakes up and prepares to take on the day.
Ok, there’s no rooster but there’s certainly a strong cup of coffee and orders, orders, orders.
Orders come in the night and litter their group email boxes. Order forms, through portals or directly from the appraisers all need to find a home. They spend the first part of the day sorting and deciding who each belongs to. Sometimes this can take a while. First thing on their minds is getting back to the client ASAP because even as they are entering the orders, they are receiving new ones.
The team goes through the admin folder and gets a chat started so that no one has duplications. URGENT OR RUSH as directed in the subject line go first. Read: If you want your urgent or rush order to be treated as such, make sure to mark it clearly at the beginning. They receive an average 50-100 emails in the admin box but another 50ish coming in throughout the day.
In a perfect world, when the administrative team reaches out to assign an appraisal, they would receive a response within 30 minutes to an hour because that gives them time to finish an appointment. Then they’re in the office again and looking at the emails and screenshots of the property to help get responses back quickly.
As each team member receives notice from their wonderful appraisers, they filter out according to the responses.
“I can do it! Here’s my fee.” – They love it.
“I can’t do it BUT this is the due date I CAN do and the fee.” – They still love it.
Silence… or “I can’t take this one.” – Naughty List.
The appraisers can also accept or give conditions within the portal! It’s best to forward the original email of the order to the admin box because screenshots of orders always miss key info.
Sometimes, the team will get questions about where it’s best to communicate and their answer is EVERYWHERE. They like when appraisers put notes regarding communication in the portal first and then ANOW so that it can be referenced when clients inevitably call and ask what’s up.
**Quick note about portals in case you are new to the scene. Portals represent where clients/AMCs push through orders to have quality control so that we aren’t directly dealing with clients. This keeps everyone updated – inspection dates and notes – time saved on all ends. It also provides communication to track down the orders.
(AMC) = Appraisal Management Company – middle man to help “fraud issue” (thanks 2008!) – sometimes a hindrance but a necessary evil.
Hey, remember those inevitable calls? Yes, those are also happening throughout the day. “Where’s my report?” “Have they even seen the property yet?” “Did the appraiser get to my revisions?” “Can you believe the Braves won the world series last year?”…they never get that last one. Appraisers hate these calls just as much as the administrative team however, the appraiser generally knows the answer to the questions. The administrative team is sometimes fumbling through notes to find a shred of info on report whereabouts but in this story, SUCCESS! Appraiser C, their favorite appraiser, has entered notes in ANOW that read “spoke to the tenant and will be seeing the property this Thursday. Notes are in the portal regarding return time definitely by 4/10.”
The team breathes a sigh of relief and goes to heat up lunch.
After a delicious and fulfilling lunch, they return to that beautiful inbox – generally hosting 20-30 new emails just waiting to be sorted and entered. Sometimes, the team gets an email that is also addressed to an individual appraiser. They will not touch those emails but will wait for the appraiser to acknowledge receipt and decide how to move forward. Karis (once the report is assigned directly) specifically copies all emails to the appraiser and the administrative team ignores those.
They see that Appraiser G has completed a couple appraisals yesterday but has not marked them complete. Uh oh, Appraiser G – you need to mark those complete RIGHT AFTER DELIVERY because the direct deposit doesn’t flow into accounting for bulk posting. AKA: we won’t get paid. They must call Appraiser G.
They see that Appraiser X has communicated with Appraiser Y to take a job that he can’t complete himself, but Appraiser X did the right thing. He emailed the administrative team to let them know about Appraiser Y taking it on AND sent all previous communication with the client as well. Appraiser X always sends all communication to the admin box even is he’s not taking the order. Thanks Appraiser X!
Finally, the inbox is temporarily empty. Orders were received in the proper format and clients are appeased. The day has flown by and the administrative team is ready to pack up and go home. Ready to rock another day!
PS: Speaking of administrative team…
MEET MAKELLA MARTIN –The first voice you hear for the DS Murphy office and administrative assistance for DSMA and DSMV.
Hello, My name is Makella Martin and I’ve been in the office administrative profession for over 6 years.
I have a beautiful four year old daughter names Blakely and a fiancé of 13 years named Zack. We also have a handsome pitbull named Luda. I’m a Georgia girl through and though and very family-oriented.
I look forward to meeting everyone and being a part of the D S Murphy team.