Using AI for Maintenance Requests – Our Experience with Vendaroo

[Brian Teeter]

Just wanted to share a recent tool we've started using in our property management business—an AI platform called Vendaroo. We've mainly implemented it to handle incoming maintenance request calls from tenants.

Most of our tenants already use our online portal to submit maintenance issues. But as many of you probably experience, there are always a number who either forget about the portal or simply prefer to call. These calls can take up a lot of staff time, especially when it comes to triaging and documenting the issue properly.

So far, Vendaroo has been surprisingly effective. It answers the call, talks with the tenant, troubleshoots the problem, prioritizes the issue, and then creates a work order for our team to review. From there, we dispatch maintenance or the appropriate vendor.

While the system is capable of dispatching vendors automatically, we’ve decided to keep that step manual. We've learned that sometimes the AI doesn’t fully grasp the scope of a problem—or worse, it can be manipulated. We had one case where a tenant whose request had been previously denied just called in work order via Vendaroo and had it re-entered and dispatched. Since then, we’ve made human approval a required step before any dispatch.

One of the biggest perks is that it integrates with our property management software (AppFolio), logging calls and notes directly into the property file. Everything’s documented cleanly and automatically.

Overall, we’ve been really impressed. Our tenants have given great feedback, and it’s definitely freed up time for our staff.

Is anyone else using AI tools in their property management workflow? I'd love to hear what others are trying and what’s working (or not working) for you.