Pacific Home Inspection & Appraisal: Using technology to improve your customer experience

At Pacific Home Inspection & Appraisal, we have a confession to make. We always have the latest nerdy gadgets. We use the latest technology around to bring you high-quality, accurate appraisals.

The appraisal process has tremendously evolved in recent years and most would say it's much more demanding. We put quality first but we know that speed is critical in the Appraisal industry and the logical place to save time is in our daily workflow. The appraisers that have steadily embraced new technology have been the ones able to use their time more effectively and bring their customers more accurate reports, better customer service and faster turnaround times.

Hire an appraiser that takes advantage of the latest technology

Innovating the ordering experience

In the past, a lot of our orders were delivered via fax and were confirmed with phone calls once we got back to the office. It might be hours before a client even knew if we could do the order. Things are quite a bit different different now. When an order is placed on the site, we get a digital notification. We often log into our site from the field and send back an email confirmation – including the time and date for the inspection if we've been able to talk to the occupant.

At Pacific Home Inspection & Appraisal we understand it's all about "cycle time". The less waiting between communications and the faster we can get things done directly effects your bottom-line. By utilizing our website we can reduce the time it takes to finish your appraisal.

Report delivery

The majority of our appraisals are delivered through email as PDF documents. Many clients prefer email because they're accustomed to receiving attachments like PDFs in their inbox. It's much more efficient than previously, before the days of email. But,we've even been able to enhance report delivery with this website.

Ever lost a file that was sent to you? Or have you ever had an attachment blocked because it was too big? We provide a solution for those problems, too. When we send an appraisal, the client is emailed a link to retrieve the PDF. At that point, it doesn't matter if all the extra photos and maps in the report result in too big an attachment. The download link is even good for a full 90 days. So if anything happens to the file, you can log back into our site and retrieve it - saving you time, since we won't even need re-send the report.

Advanced data gathering tools

Gathering the data for an appraisal is a demanding process.. We spend quite a bit of time gathering the facts on the subject property, as well as the local market data and trends. Once again, technology has stepped in to help Pacific Home Inspection & Appraisal.

We've learned that taking notes the standard way, using pencil and paper, generally takes longer since we have to enter everything back in at the office. Don't be surprised to see us with a tablet or collecting data using an application for our phone that allows us to sketch a floorplan right on the spot. Rather than using a clumsy, old tape measure, more and more appraisers are adopting accurate laser measuring devices, making even hard to reach areas accesible.

Using this technology allows us to ensure an accurate report, avoiding call-backs and revisions. Our goal is to save you time and money.

Digital work file technology

It would be great if appraisers could never have to think about an appraisal again after submitting it to the client. But one purpose of an appraisal is as a legal document outlining the condition of a property on a specific date. Therefore, appraisers are obligated to keep their reports for 5 years in case any disputes or other matters arise regarding the property.

Here again, Pacific Home Inspection & Appraisal uses all the technology available to us to improve service. We store every part of the appraisal - notes, sketches, supporting documentation, and calculations - along with an electronic copy of the appraisal, we're able to retrieve that document at any time and recall just what that job was about.

We wanted to give you a bit of insight into how we use technology daily. Investing in the right tools, along with the appraisal know-how you expect allows the appraiser to collect the right data and finish the report quickly and more accurately. The goal is to lower costs, and ultimately save you, our cilent, time and money.