Mystery shops are crucial in the multifamily industry because they help teams understand the customer experience from beginning to end. These programs help make business decisions and fill any gaps in the process. Together, BetterBot and Ellis Partners, which was acquired by Grace Hill in 2022, have created a solution that helps property management companies more thoroughly evaluate a prospective consumer shopping experience.
BetterBot compliments leasing teams by working with them to create a seamless experience. By using AI and lead nurturing, prospects are never missed. Organizations can rest easy knowing that each potential customer is attended to.
Together, BetterBot and Ellis Partners have a combined solution that helps property management companies more thoroughly evaluate a prospective consumer shopping experience.
“Mystery shopping is a key component to giving multifamily companies a comprehensive overview of the customer experience, highlighting a leasing team’s strengths and giving insight to areas that require improvement,” Kendall Pretzer, CEO of Grace Hill. “These AI-friendly mystery shops allow for easier access to the data necessary to help teams offer the optimal customer experience. We’re excited to show our clients how BetterBot’s integration with Ellis will help them improve the quality of their service.”
In addition to assisting with the leasing process, BetterBot can now be integrated into the mystery shop experience so that every step of your processes are visible to your team.
“Utilizing AI helps take menial tasks off the leasing team so that they can focus on providing the best customer service to anyone who walks through their door,” says BetterBot COO & Founder Robert Turnbull. “Now, you can easily track the process with our mystery shop-friendly integrations that we’ve implemented.”
Grace Hill provides technology-enabled performance solutions that help owners and operators of real estate properties increase performance, reduce operating risk and grow top talent. Grace Hill carries years of real estate experience, in-depth service-level expertise and outstanding customer support that cover policy, training, assessment, survey, and data-driven insights. Grace Hill’s industry-leading suite of companies has grown to include Kingsley Survey (acquired in 2020), Elizabeth Moreland (acquired in 2020), and Ellis Partners and Edge2Learn (acquired in 2022). Today, more than 500,000 real estate professionals from more than 1,700 companies rely on performance solutions from Grace Hill. Visit us at gracehill.com or on LinkedIn.
About BetterBot
BetterBot is a team of dedicated builders, designers, and support enthusiasts focused 100% on building the best Conversational Leasing automation platform in multifamily. We believe that technology should make life easier for humans. Time-consuming, mundane, and repetitive tasks should be handled by an omnichannel automation solution so humans can have the time to engage in meaningful conversations with fellow humans.
Approximately every decade, a new user interface revolutionizes how people interact with technology. This was the case with graphical user interfaces (GUIs), touch UI (iPhone), and voice (Alexa, Siri, etc.) Conversational AI chatbots held that promise when we first started, and now they are everywhere. Bank apps, airlines, insurance companies, and most other businesses we deal with now use chatbots as a primary tool for support. Why are chatbots so popular?
Human habits have changed, and people now demand meaningful answers immediately. Old-school solutions like call centers and live chat simply cannot deliver this level of service.
Interactions have moved to mobile devices, and websites on mobile devices need help to deliver a good experience.
People prefer impersonal communication and don’t want to talk to people to get answers to transactional questions.
Knowing why chatbots are popular, how does it influence who you buy from? There are many options — free chat and widgets, paid bots, and full-stack marketing solutions. Here are a few things to consider when choosing which bot works best for your business.
Purpose & Functionality of Chatbots
Consider the purpose of the tool you are looking at. Think about why you need this specific tool. Then keep in mind how this particular tool functions. Ask yourself if the functionality fits the purpose you are trying to fulfill. Complete a demo or a trial of the product to find out how it works and ensure it has all the features you are looking for. Read reviews or chat with someone who has used the product before to see how it works in the real world. Will this tool solve the problem you are trying to resolve? Ask yourself these critical questions before making any decisions.
Integrations & Partnerships
Next, consider how the tool integrates and partners with other platforms. You shouldn’t need to limit the functionality of other tools for a new one to fit in. If a new partner asks you to limit the functionality of one tool to bring on theirs, that can be a red flag. Ensure the tools you consider integrate with your existing products to provide the most helpful functionality.
Information & Reporting
You will want to ensure that your new tools have great analytics tools. Find out if the reporting that is offered will show you metrics relevant to your business practices. Your reporting should help you decide how you do business, but that can only happen if you see the correct information to form those processes. Confirm that the tool you use is transparent about information and openly sharing that with you. If you can pull or schedule reporting from a dashboard, that is a great sign.
Value & Pricing
Find out what the pricing will be to bring on this new tool. Is this realistic for your budget? You’ll also want to consider the value you receive for the price. Can you find similar features for a better price? Many tools will offer a free trial period or a testing feature that can help determine if this tool is worth bringing on.
We know that sometimes adding new tools can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be! We recommend considering 2-3 options and comparing what they offer against the price. Often it can be helpful to create a spreadsheet that includes all the features you are looking for and mark off which ones are available on the platforms you are looking at. It may sound like a lot of effort; however, it’s better to spend time upfront choosing the right product rather than rolling out a new tool that doesn’t perform. That way, you do not have to roll out a different product quickly. Remember, your tools are there to help you and not make things more challenging. So be sure to select the best tools for you and your team.
With all the growth we’ve experienced over the last few years, we now find ourselves as one of the companies leading the AI automation charge in multifamily. While our company has changed in many ways, our primary product philosophy has remained unchanged, and we still use it as a guiding principle to decide what types of products we build. Furthermore, this guiding philosophy is a true differentiator between our competitors and us. To know BetterBot, you must first understand our core philosophy.
Chatbots are here to stay
Approximately every decade, a new user interface revolutionizes how people interact with technology. This was the case with graphical user interfaces (GUIs), touch UI (iPhone), and voice (Alexa, Siri, etc.) Conversational AI chatbots held that promise when we first started, and now they are everywhere. Bank apps, airlines, insurance companies, and most other businesses we deal with now use chatbots as a primary tool for support. Why are chatbots so popular?
Human habits have changed, and people now demand meaningful answers immediately. Old-school solutions like call centers and live chat simply cannot deliver this level of service.
Interactions have moved to mobile devices, and websites on mobile devices need help to deliver a good experience.
People prefer impersonal communication and don’t want to talk to people to get answers to transactional questions.
We build tools that serve their intended purpose
We are never satisfied with a product that works 85% of the time. We always strive to build a tool that works reliably on any given device 100% of the time. This has come at a cost because we have had products that wowed during scripted demos, and our customers would havebeen happy to try us. But we never compromised because deep down, we don’t want to build anything that has a degree of failure built in. This was the main reason why we moved to guided conversation technology. Even though we first had a full NLP bot with speech-to-text capabilities, we decided to scrap it and start from scratch. We were not satisfied knowing that some users would have a poor experience.
B2B vs. B2B2C
We are 100% a B2B2C company. Even though we directly sell to property management companies, the actual users of our product are the renters that use BetterBot to find their next home. That is why we are so obsessive about the experience that our end users will have when using our product. We always want to delight our end users, so we design everything pixel-perfect, use beautiful graphics and media and only let partners integrate with us if there are no compromises with the interface. We have iterated more times than I can count to minimize friction for our users to a point where they can use our product without typing on a mobile phone. Compared to other technology like websites and live chat, we were able to cut the time needed to get information by 50-75%.
Many other companies see themselves as B2B and mostly build features for the PMCs while completely ignoring the end users of the technology. The numbers don’t lie, which is why we significantly outperform head-to-head comparisons. Of course, we still take care of the PMCs, but we don’t compromise when it comes to the end users.
Automation is our core value proposition
Whatever we do has to have a measurable impact on the time saved for our PMC clients. We have seen firsthand that forcing leasing agents to spend time on menial, repetitive, mind-numbing tasks does not work well. Humans are waking up and demanding stimulating jobs that allow them to utilize skills that technology can’t replicate.
Saving time is the core of our value proposition, and everything we build must, in some way, savetime and, therefore, money. We will always look at activities to automate that allow the PMCs to operate 24/7. That is why we don’t primarily optimize for marketing KPIs like the number of leads and appointments with low show rates. We want to ensure we automate the work important to any given property. In a lease-up, we want to schedule as many appointments that show up, and in a fully leased property, we want to gracefully say there is no availability and put people on a waiting list. Many other solutions focus on increasing leads, phone calls, and the volume of work increases for leasing operations with little results.
The role of AI
We don’t believe in using AI to mimic human conversation. Even though the technology we use lends itself to doing this, there are practical, ethical, and even legal considerations that we care about. We always want to be honest and let people know they are talking to a bot that is there to serve them. On the other hand, we believe that AI can perform a function as long as it’s not in contrast with our philosophy. We are very proud that we developed a unique approach to making AI invisible to the user while simultaneously improving our product’s performance.
When a chatbot mimics a human, it sets the wrong expectations for the user. The user thinks there is a human on the other end, which sets the conversation’s tone. People tend to share responses in multiple paragraphs long filled with personal information. This, in turn, overwhelms even the best AI and sets up the interaction for failure. Recent advances in AI notwithstanding, we are still talking about mathematical algorithms that use language models to provide answers based on the quality of training data. If anything, all we have learned is how complex human conversation is. Conversation between humans relies heavily on nonverbal communication and, most importantly, empathy. Machines cannot replicate this. People don’t like to be duped unless they go to a magic show. How do you think someone feelswhen they find out they talked to a bot after sharing their most intimate details about their finances, health, and family? We see the notes that people leave and can say with 100% certainty people would not be sharing certain things if they knew there was nothing more than amathematical algorithm on the other side. Specific conversations have to remain between humans.
What does this say about us?
Knowing our core philosophy shows what’s most important to us — people. We want leasing teams to be able to do their jobs efficiently, which is why we’ve created a product that helps save time. We want to serve prospects and residents in a way that’s convenient for them. Our purpose is to serve the multifamily industry in an invaluable way, and we will continue to enhance our product to do just that.
Recently, BetterBot conducted a special LinkedIn live session on ChatGPT. BetterBot CEO & Founder Zlatko Bogoevski shares his insights on what that could mean for the multifamily industry. Check out the entire session and explore additional insights below.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a significant leap forward when compared to other AI language models. It gives human-like responses with extreme accuracy. It utilizes one of the most complex neural networks and is trained on an extensive data set that includes existing software code. To make it even more effective, it was fine-tuned by humans constantly to give the best response possible.
How did ChatGPT start?
OpenAI created ChatGPT; OpenAI is an organization designed to advance humanity through the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence. OpenAI was founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, among others. The most successful OpenAI products to date have been DALL-E, GPT-2 and GPT-3, and now ChatGPT.
How Accurate Is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT can be very accurate depending on the type of question. In other cases, it is way off the mark. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to tell when ChatGPT is off the mark. This can cause significant confusion and potentially even misinformation.
Is it safe to use?
Multifamily is a heavily regulated industry. That being said, there would need to be some significant guardrails in place for it to be safe. In addition, if those guardrails were to fail, it could entail legal liabilities.
Will ChatGPT replace job positions?
Chat should help make lives easier, not necessarily replace human job positions. ChatGPT will heavily automate specific tasks, but that will allow team members to focus on more critical tasks. Solving human problems requires empathy which is something that bots don’t have therefore, humans will have to be part of the equation.
In what ways can ChatGPT in help the multifamily industry?
Property management companies will become forced to adopt chatbots because it will be an expectation and likely a preferred method of finding information by prospects and renters. We are already seeing this trend with chatbots over the last few years, and ChatGPT will accelerate this trend. It will also allow properties to automate their operations even further. Easier to operate with leaner budgets. Not to mention, prospects will benefit from a better buying experience when bots are used correctly.
Does BetterBot use ChatGPT?
A commercial API is currently unavailable, but we are already building features that will benefit from chatGPT. Since ChatGPT is not immune to the potential problems inherent in other AI language models, we will carefully consider how we deploy it. As BetterBot currently serves some of the biggest property management companies in multifamily, our goal is to ensure that the millions of people using our product to find their next home have a great experience.
How ethical is ChatGPT, and how could it be affected by fair housing laws?
It will be much easier to mimic a human with ChatGPT. This will likely be regulated in the US and Europe. More guidelines are being created by the White House in the form of an AI bill of rights where bots are prevented from pretending to be human. For example, California passed the Bolstering Online Transparency Act (BOT Act), which prohibits online bots from hiding their identities.
What challenges face ChatGPT?
Most likely, ChatGPT will come with a high price tag. Not to mention, there is the likelihood of lawsuits related to how it operates and uses data in its model. Likeliness is a remarkable ability but may be litigated since it’s a legal gray area.
So what does this all mean?
As ChatGPT continues to make its way into our everyday lives, we will continue to consider its capabilities in order to improve the experience for renters.. As we’ve mentioned, one of our primary goals is to ensure our customers have the best user experience possible. That being said, we will introduce new features only when they enhance that experience. Stay tuned for more information as AI technology continues to develop!
