Are you looking for ways to make your apartment community more efficient and effective? This is Part 3 of our Apartment Vacancy Analysis series, which will help you find and fix the gaps across the marketing and leasing chain, and offers practical strategies and tools to help take your apartment community to the next level! Access the full table of contents available below.
🤕 Problems & symptoms of a negative resident experience
"We have a good renewal system, but still higher than normal turnover."
Resident satisfaction must become a priority if you want to reduce turnover and eliminate vacancies because falling short of the expectations you set forth for the residents before they signed their lease will weaken every other area of your operation.
How? A resident's negative experience usually leads to them leaving a negative review of your community online.
Considering that renters today crave authenticity and are more influenced by what your residents say about their living experience in your community than any of your marketing messaging, an uptick of negative reviews on highly visible online channels like Google will create a bad reputation for your community that'll ultimately hurt your future marketing and leasing efforts.
Resident satisfaction must become a priority if you want to reduce turnover and eliminate vacancies because falling short of the expectations you set forth for the residents before they signed their lease will weaken every other area of your operation.
A poor online presence indicates, at least to prospects, that the management of that community is also inadequate.
And if you're not keeping a pulse on your residents' experiences and addressing issues before they become negative reviews, then it doesn't matter how good your renewal strategy is.
More would instead move out for a better opportunity when their lease expires, which would be evident if your turnover rate is higher than usual.
🤦🏼♂️ Common mistakes apartment teams make when neglecting their residents' experiences
You rely only on your site staff's word, leaving you unable to verify from a distance whether community management is good or bad.
How can you tell from a distance that one of your properties is clean, maintenance issues are under control, and that residents are experiencing a satisfying lifestyle?
You cannot honestly assess whether or not those things are true by relying on secondhand information.
You need to trust your staff, but also verify as well.
Your site staff lacks a customer service mindset.
When residents sign their lease, they confirm their faith in your apartment community delivering the living experience promised in your marketing and personal messaging.
To do so, you and your teams must be excellent at customer service, handling maintenance requests quickly and correctly, and establishing an engaging community environment where everyone feels safe and comfortable.
When your site staff cannot consistently cater to these basic needs, it creates a negative impression on current and future residents.
🙌🏼 Best practices for establishing a high level of resident service
Get regular resident feedback.
You need to visit the community yourself and engage frequently with residents to get an accurate portrayal of your community's management.
Use resident engagement tools to get the pulse of their experiences and actively address any concerns before they result in a negative review.
You'll also be able to relay to your teams what's working and what's not—critical information that'll help your community become one where tenants have a great experience.
Actively manage your apartment's online reputation.
Whether using reputation management software or doing it yourself, collect and respond to every review of your apartment community.
You need to be active in your review channels because prospective residents see that as your community and management team caring about addressing concerns and what people say online.
When someone leaves a negative comment, use that information to fix the issue and explain how you've addressed it to the individual (and the rest of the audience).
Look at your online presence holistically.
Beyond just basics like Google reviews, you need to take a step back and look more entirely at your online presence.
Review your social media channels—are you maintaining an active presence there? (Prospects will notice if you're not.)
What about your Google Business Profile? It's one of your most essential and visible marketing sources, so it needs to be up-to-date and feature accurate information, and you can 'plus-it-up' with great media content.
Leave no stone unturned!
🛠 Tools to help improve your apartment residents' experiences
Utilize automated resident feedback tools.
We recommend investing in software like Birdeye or Opiniion, which automatically sends surveys and other feedback forms to your residents regularly to help you stay on top of their experiences while tracking how your teams are at customer service.
Get assistance with reputation management software.
Reputation management software like Widewail and Reputation Builder by GraceHill collects all online reviews of your apartment community in one platform so that you can efficiently respond to and measure your community's reputation.
Read our blogs about multifamily online reputation management for more tips.
Read our blog "Expert Insights for Improving Your Apartment's Online Reputation" for more information on creating a positive online impression of your apartment community for prospective residents.
Additionally, learn how to turn your current residents into your biggest promoters by reading our other blog, "How to Boost Your Apartments Online Reviews."
➡️ Next page: Are you accruing excess vacancy loss after units lease?
Complete Apartment Vacancy Analysis Series
Introduction: What's causing your apartment's vacancy? Here's how to find & fix it
Part 2: Is your apartment's renewals strategy causing more vacancy?
Part 3: Are your residents satisfied with their experience at your apartments?
Part 4: Are you accruing excess vacancy loss after units lease?
Part 5: Are you properly vetting your apartment's lease applications?
Part 6: Is your apartment's application process to blame for vacancies?
Part 7: Are your apartment tours helping overcome vacancy?
Part 8: Do you have enough 'good' leads to improve apartment leasing?
Part 9: Is your apartment website converting leads to leases?
Part 10: How qualified is the traffic to your apartment website?
Part 11: What about pricing?! How rents affect your apartment's performance