Automated Customer Touchpoints Set the Stage for Apartment Centralization

With many consumers crying for self-service or online-only experiences, apartment communities are taking notice and are reliably delivering information and services in this preferred manner.

For many, these automations set the stage for the centralization of property operations.

Hope Dunleavy, Enterprise Managing Consultant at RealFoundations, and Tiffanie Byrd, Managing Director of Operations at Sack Capital Partners, discussed this approach with moderator Carol Enoch, CEO of Enoch & Co., at the Apartment Innovation and Marketing  Conference in Huntington Beach, Ca.

The multifamily industry is gradually adopting self-service experiences. Marketers and property managers are aware of the solutions and opportunities but sometimes lack access to benchmarks and metrics that help them make the case for investment in these important customer experience improvements.

Those applying these automated customer touchpoints are finding them to be an essential precursor to realizing operational efficiencies and centralizing property operations.

Large purchases such as automobiles and important events such as doctor visits are becoming more popular. Zillow said that even when buying a home, 23% made their decisions not having set foot in the property.

In multifamily, half of residents chose to renew their leases online and some communities are seeing a 50 percent conversion rate from prospects taking self-guided tours.

There remains a human aspect of serving apartment residents and prospects, but it’s evolving, Byrd said.

“Good customer service is not sitting in the property manager’s office and talking for an hour to a resident,” she said. “It’s reaching them and delivering in-time information to them in the manner they prefer – whether digitally or in-person; and we’ll definitely meet with them in person if they want that.”

Byrd said her communities have tours that guide prospects via QR codes that inform the visitors during the tour.

Dunleavy said technology and apps play a role in enabling automated onsite management and it’s crucial that the company supports these processes.

“You can’t just give the technology to the associates and set it and forget it,” she said. “Otherwise, the employees might not use it properly or use it at all. It might be the greatest app in the world, but if they don’t want it, they won’t use it.”

Byrd said when these processes are put into place, it’s important for management to call on the property to see that they are using it.

“Don’t tell them you are coming, or everything will be arranged perfectly that day,” she said. “Just show up to see it in action.”