I see the customer service issues in the real estate industry (especially property management) as being created by two issues (and disclosure: I've worked in real estate for the past 11 years, from the front desk to franchise ops manager to consulting back to the industry):
* High staff turnover
* Procedures that suck staff time, instead of supporting them
Being a property manager is, for the most part, an awful job. If you sell real estate, you deal with the owner giving you grief; when you manage a property you have the owner, the tenant, and the suppliers all wanting a piece of your time, and rarely to say thank you. Because you don't need to be a rocket surgeon to work in PM, the pay is low, and most staff are young people looking for something better. When they leave, they take with them most of the corporate memory about the tenant and the property. If you hate your property manager, chances are it's because several times in the past year you've called and been put through to a different person every time.
Lack of procedures is linked to lack of investment in this part of the business (also reflected in low salaries and high staff turnover). Most real estate offices are run by salespeople, current or former. They see one sales commission worth $000s as being infinitely better than one tenancy worth $16 / week. So they don't invest in systems, processes, staff development, or great software. This is the market hole you speak of - but while there's a gap in the market, there may not be a market in the gap...
...EXCEPT that, ironically, a rent roll is traditionally the only asset a real estate business has to sell - without it, you just have a sales team who could go next door and open up tomorrow. PM departments also provide a regular income when sales decrease, which has been the case over the past two years in most of the world affected by the recession / GFC. I don't have enough evidence to support a claim that owners are more willing to invest in their team, particularly property management, as a result of this; but I hope it's the case.