As we gear up for leasing season, multifamily is strategically planning for the competition. When you are competing against properties outside of your organization, the biggest focus is going to be about providing as much value as possible for leads.
From the first interaction to the signed lease, you have to ensure your leasing agents are providing the best leasing experience. Here are Anyone Home’s top 5 priorities on what leasing technology should bring to the table:
Most owners or regional managers are familiar with the concept of centralization, which has often been associated with cutting costs for leasing, maintenance and admin work. While centralization does indeed cut costs, this hasn’t always equated to providing more value for leads and renters. When it comes to leasing, the strategy of centralizing has now evolved into what we call Centralization 2.0, also known as specialization.
Centralized technology and leasing processes can facilitate specialization, where your priority is with the technology that actually elevates your onsite staff’s efforts, giving them the best chance at success within their roles. A centralized leasing team can be more flexible from property to property and they can each focus on a specific aspect of the leasing process, such as lead generation, qualification, or closing. Each member can refine and excel at their specific role, providing a consistently valuable experience for leads.
This approach still does the job of cutting costs but adds the bonus value of improving efficiency among leasing agents while providing a better experience to leads in their leasing journey.
When it comes to your leasing agents, operational excellence is going to be about knowing what to do next instead of guessing what to do next. Your CRM should eliminate the guesswork and by doing so, leasing agents can move leads along quickly, making for a valuable leasing experience.
Make your CRM your Leasing Bible, setting it up with advanced logic that automates triggers and pathways for leads from generation to conversion. Use your CRM’s cues for separate leads, such as their financial budget, unit of interest, and move-in timeline, so that agents can easily match prospects with available units across multiple sister properties.
When leasing agents do live by their CRM, they are going to be juggling leads effortlessly. If they don’t or your CRM is causing more friction, this leaves agents guessing what to do next in which you can almost guarantee that high value leads will get dropped.
In this year’s leasing season, there’s an even greater need to move quickly with leads. Accelerating your leasing velocity will come through technology that is prospect-centric, providing them with the best-in-class experience. What “levers” can you pull to make that happen? Examples can look like:
Leads, like many modern-day consumers, aren’t just signing leases with the best property, but with the property that prioritizes them the most. Giving them the best leasing experience assures them they will get the best renter experience and your tech stacks should only elevate this priority. The better the experience your leasing agents and marketing teams can provide, the faster the leasing velocity will be for your qualified leads.
Time is money in leasing season and your staff should be able to make the most of theirs with the right technology in place. Tasks should be programmed in your CRM dashboard by priority and leasing agents should be aware of what comes next in both their task list and daily calendar, simply by logging in. With your CRM dashboard in place, agents can optimize every second spent on leads and tours.
With the mindset of optimizing time, it’s important to know problems will arise no matter what technology you use. However, customer support should be easy to access and quick to respond. Prompt resolutions and responses equate to less friction and less waiting for your onsite staff to do their job well and efficiently.
AI is not here to take the jobs of your leasing agents. In fact, we know how personal the leasing experience is for renters and this means AI is only useful when it is still providing value to leads. Chatbots serve as your digital leasing agents seeing as though your leasing agents can’t be sitting next to every lead while they search the web for an apartment.
Chatbots can engage potential renters, provide information about available units, and scheduling tours while leads are still scoping out potential new homes. Natural language processing allows Chatbots to truly sound human and provide leads with the answers and information they need in order to move forward in the leasing process. Your Chatbot can hand off interested leads with ease so that your leasing agents are focusing on the ones who are both qualified and interested in living at your property.
Anyone Home is committed to helping you provide value to your leads as this is the only path to success in the 2024 market. Our technology helps you lease smarter, giving your agents the opportunity to do their job without any guesswork or time wasted. The goal is to let your leasing agents do what they do best: selling apartments. With a stand-in leasing agent (hello, AI!) and a prospect-centric CRM, you are showcasing properties that run their operations with renter’s interests in mind. Prospective renters will only reward the properties who give them the best; we aim to help your properties do exactly that.
If you’re interested in leasing smarter with Anyone Home, BOOK A DEMO to learn more.
