Meet Breck Austin

Tech Questions Answered

By Erica Rascón on Apr 18, 2019 in People

When you think about your senior residents and their families, do you think of words like “tech savvy,” and “forward thinking?” You should. Breck Austin, VP of operational services with Clearwater Living of Newport Beach, understands the importance of exceeding clients’ growing tech expectations. His organization has identified software that allows the company to advance with the times.

We sat down with Austin to learn how the organization uses RENTCafé and Senior CRM to make life easier for residents and staff.

Q: What are one or two business objectives you’ve been addressing over the last year?

A: At Clearwater Living, our objective is to enhance residents’ experience in the senior platform. So one of the things we look at is technology. We look at how do we make ourselves more relevant? How do we make the residents’ experience relevant? We use a variety of things that we are addressing, from technology down to our philosophy of care.

Q: How did Yardi technology help you accomplish this?

A: Yardi technology was the best thing that ever happened to us in a growing state. It provided one single integrated platform that allowed us to address the growing need of the family’s involvement and their need to know what’s going on, transparency, to our consumers. So, it’s no longer just a resident living in our community. We’re addressing the family members or those that are responsible for members of our communities. The ability to communicate with them through technology, Yardi provided that outlet for us. And it’s integrated so that it addresses all areas of our touch points and building on the connections with our residents.

Q: What Yardi products have been most transformative for you and why?

A: Two products that have been transformative to the Clearwater Living business model… Senior CRM, which is our first initial touch point to the consumer that’s coming into our communities. And one of the things that CRM does is allow us to start the resident record and all of the information pertinent to that prospect coming into our community at one touch point. And then it lives through the life cycle of the activity that is on the sales process. The second platform that helped us at Clearwater is RENTCafé. It’s a one stop shop for our residents and family members to be able to access information from billing, to programming, to work orders, and making sure that they are getting the services that they are paying for. And that’s one of our goals is to ensure that we create value to the to the resident to the family.

Q: How has technology impacted your world?

A: Yardi technology has impacted my world, Clearwater Living’s world, and the senior platform space all together. Technology needs are driven. As all of us have experienced, we’re now using phones and apps for banking, calling up food orders on Uber Eats, and making a transaction through text. Being able to keep up with that in the senior environment has always been a challenge because technology was not there yet from a software perspective. And with the Yardi platform, we now have the ability to just—we look good! We look good to the consumer because we have web-based app access for our families and residents.

Q: How have you expanded resident services with RENTCafé senior living?

A: We’ve expanded resident services with RENTCafé by allowing residents to pay the rent online and be able to see what their account balances are, and report work orders through the system. We’ve been able to have a touch point with the family and, or the residents much quicker and sooner than without RENTCafé.

Q: How do online portals help families and residents keep in touch?

A: Online portals keep families and residents in touch at Clearwater because we are able to address the need of the consumer that is so fast moving in this world. People need their online access to everything. Our ability to do it through the Yardi RENTCafé is perfect because then we have instant communication when there’s something going on at a community with a resident or if a family member needs to be involved.

Discover how tech can help you exceed resident’s expectations. Watch the full interview with Austin at RealEstateQuestionsAnswered.com.