FAQs, aka Frequently Asked Questions, are imperative to a successful bot performance. Addressing questions that are commonly asked in the early stages of the renter’s journey can make a significant difference. Furthermore, FAQs are something that can be utilized within your bot experience, at least when you use BetterBot’s automation solution. Here are three reasons why this feature is an important one to take advantage of.

Engagement

Engagement is the top reason why it’s so important to use FAQs. Having FAQs embedded within your bot experience naturally causes prospects to spend more time within the bot. The more time they spend, the more information prospects acquire. The more information they have, the more serious they will be when deciding. Engaging customers in the earliest stages is important because it can lead them through the decision-making process, which causes the most qualified leads to be pushed through to the community — and it all starts with engagement. 

Customer Satisfaction

Customers love information upfront. They don’t want to become a detective to find the necessary information. Most prospects want to find the preliminary information on their own rather than having to talk to someone. Taking advantage of FAQs within the chatbot experience allows customers to easily find answers to what they need, causing them to be more satisfied with the experience. 

Time-Saved

Taking advantage of an FAQ page reduces incoming questions, which saves your time valuable time and increases customer service. No longer is your leasing team answering the same question over and over. Instead, many prospective customers already have the answers before they even walk through the leasing office doors. Plus, as we mentioned earlier, FAQs help unqualified leads eliminate themselves, which means your team is also saving time by only working with the most serious prospects.

Ultimately, taking advantage of your property’s FAQ section can bring some amazing benefits. When FAQ sections are embedded within the bot it creates an even more seamless experience. Find out more about best practices and what other features can be embedded within your bot. 

In today’s world, there are so many different technology options. It can be overwhelming. That’s why it’s so important to find the right stack of technologies that make sense for your communities. When evaluating what technologies make the most sense, it’s essential to consider the following types of systems: 

• Prospect Management Tools
• Resident Focused Tech
• Team Support Technologies

Prospect Management Tools 

Obtaining and converting prospects into residents can be a lot of work. This is why you need to have some sort of prospect management tools to help with the process. A few of the tools that are essential in this department include: 

• Chatbot Technology — Help prospects get information all in one place. For example, BetterBot’s chatbot offers a place for prospective renters to find information where they want, when they want, and how they want. The bot is not only able to be seen on the property website, but it can go anywhere renters are looking, including social media, ILS pages, and so much more. The bot helps relay the most important insights about the community, which weeds out the unqualified leads. 

• Self-Guided Tour Tech — Post COVID-19, more and more renters desire a self-guided interaction when it comes to touring their potential home. Self-guided tour technology allows them to set up their tour on their terms and feel safe knowing that they will have more control over their touring experience. 

• Lead Management Tools — In addition to offering chatbot technology, BetterBot offers some great lead management tools. Using BetterBot for Leads, prospects are intercepted and nurtured in ways that are more likely to result in a scheduled tour. 

• Marketing Tools — How are your prospects finding you? This is a loaded question. Marketing tools make it easier for your prospects to find you. This term, Marketing Tools, may sound broad but what we mean by this are tools that make it easier for prospective residents to learn about your community. This may mean using Google AdWords, Facebook Marketplace, ILS listings, or even geofencing services. You can use these tools to help attract your customers and get the word out about your communities. 

Resident Focused Tech

It’s essential to leverage technology that focuses on your current residents. While gaining new prospects is great, it costs more to gain a new resident than keeping existing ones. This is why it’s so important to invest in tools that will help you retain your residents, such as: 

• Automation Tools — Make it easy for residents to find information on your community website. Automation tools such as BetterBot can help residents find their portal to complete any order of business like paying rent or submitting a service request. 

• CRM — Customer relationship management tools are essential to help your team keep track of crucial information. You want to make sure you have a quality CRM that maximizes every resident touchpoint. One tool that has seen great success is Rent Dynamics CRM function. Their tools offer an easy way to manage residents while still maintaining a personal touch. 

• Resident Engagement Tools — Engaging the resident post-move-in can sound like a daunting task for property management teams. Teams have to get new residents lined up, but they also have to foster the relationship? It sounds like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be. Investing in resident engagement tools can help bridge the gap so that current residents stay interested and involved. Tools such as Updater, hOp, and RentPlus allow residents the opportunity to interact with the community with little effort on the team’s part. 

Team Support Technologies 

Finding technology that helps your property management team save time is imperative. It seems like the list of things to do just keeps on getting longer, and teams are becoming overwhelmed. That’s why it’s essential to find tools to support those teams, including: 

• Time-Saving Tech — Invest in technology that will help save your team time. For example, BetterBot saves teams an average of 57 hours per month, per property, by helping provide information upfront to prospects and residents. It also saves time by providing the most qualified prospects so that teams have time to focus on what’s important. 

• Reputation Management Tools — Online reputation is one of the first things prospects see when they find you online. That’s why it’s so important to have a reputation management tool that helps monitor and respond to online reviews. This also allows teams to learn what they can improve to make the resident experience an enjoyable one. 

• Reporting — Being able to measure results will help your teams make better decisions regarding staffing, budgeting, and planning. When looking at your tech stack, be sure to find out which tools offer reporting so that your teams can be informed about how they are performing. 

Putting together a tech stack for your communities sounds stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. When you remember to look for suitable tools, it can become liberating knowing that your teams, residents, and prospects are all taken care of. For more information on putting together a tech stack, check out our resource covering ways to know a tool is worth using. 

Artificial intelligence and other related tech like machine learning have had an incredible impact on the real estate industry as a whole. While historically slow to adopt new practices and technologies, the past 5-10 years have represented the beginning of a new era for the space. Especially in the multifamily sector, AI has a tremendous potential that’s only starting to be realized by certain enterprising companies. However, with any technology (new or old) comes a series of considerations that need to be taken into account. 

When implemented in the right ways, AI can be an incredible tool for both property management teams and renters alike. At the same time, it can also perpetuate harmful biases and compromise people’s data and security if the proper safeguards aren’t put in place. Today we’re going to take a closer look at a few of the most important factors AI companies in multifamily should consider before, during, and after developing new applications for this tech.

5 top considerations for AI companies in multifamily 

Privacy 

Data makes the (tech) world go ‘round. And as such, it’s one of the most valuable assets a company can have when developing a new AI product. Better data can improve an algorithm’s performance, and even expand its capabilities. However, the way data has historically been collected and managed has increasingly come under more scrutiny by consumers. Fortunately, developers are listening to these concerns, with 82% of developers saying that ethical concerns are now much more of a consideration than before. 

The crux of data privacy revolves around companies asking themselves what they should do, instead of what they can do with the data they have at their disposal. In the multifamily space, this could look like protecting renter information instead of selling it to third parties, and only collecting data with people’s explicit consent.  

Security

Keeping people’s information private is one thing, but being able to protect that information from cybersecurity threats is a whole other ball game. You can have the most revolutionary AI product, but if you don’t have sound security infrastructure around that product and your operations, the data you’ve worked so hard to collect ethically could easily be stolen. This is not just a matter of privacy ethics, but trust as well. Once your company has been subject to a cyberattack or data leak, it will be much harder for property management groups and consumers to trust using your product. 

Accountability

If there’s ever a question of ethics, who should a developer turn to? Creating a clear hierarchy or structure for where/how/to whom concerns should be raised is essential to building applications that ultimately adhere to compliance regulations and best practices. What’s more, establishing this culture of accountability and responsibility early on can help cement better practices as a non-negotiable aspect of your company in the long-term. Oftentimes, it’s a lack of institutional accountability – not a single developer – that’s responsible for an AI product failing to meet certain ethical standards.  

Biases

A big topic of discussion in the tech world today is centered around our own internal biases and how we can unconsciously instill those biases into AI if we’re not careful. In real estate, things like racial biases have a long, painful history of exclusion, and in order to stop perpetuating that history, companies need to intentionally craft algorithms and systems that aren’t shaped by unconscious biases. How can teams go about doing this? There are several ways to reduce bias within AI, including: 

• Understand your training data: Sometimes commercial and academic data sets include labeling systems that can bring bias into your algorithm. When choosing training data, make sure to take into account the full spectrum of your intended user-base and use-cases. 

• Diversify your teams: Including a diverse array of experiences and perspectives on your team will help you engage with your product in different ways. And with people asking questions that you might not have thought of, you might be able to catch potential issues before they arise – or expand your algorithm’s capabilities in a way you hadn’t thought of.

• Making testing and feedback routine: The easier you can make it to provide feedback, the quicker you’ll be able to take action. The goal for these products should be to evolve and get better with time and feedback, so build consistent testing and feedback sessions into your process.

Approaching AI in multifamily from a place of sensitivity and curiosity when it comes to ethics is key to building a better future for this tech in the industry. Want more up-to-date multifamily resources and news? The BetterBot blog has got you covered. 

Renters all around the United States are looking for pet-friendly apartments. An American Apartment Owner Association study had shown that 90% of renters stated that they have a pet. This study also revealed that 30% of those pet owners looked for apartments around pet amenities such as dog parks, walking trails, and veterinary offices.

“Millions of renters from around the country are in need of pet-friendly apartments. In 2008, more than 11 million searches for apartments that allow cats and dogs were conducted on Apartments.com” (National Survey REVEALS Renters Are Living for Their Pets).

More and more potential renters depend on property websites to obtain all the information they need to make a property decision. Below are three ways you can ensure that your property is on the top contender’s list.

1. Ensure that pet information is accessible to potential renters on your website

You can do this in various ways. A few examples of making your pet information more accessible is putting a snapshot of the information in a banner on your home page.

This banner can be a still image or turned into a carousel that gives more details as the following images are displayed.

Another way to display this information is by placing a call to action. This CTA, call-to-action, can be placed in a body of text or a picture. This CTA will direct potential renters to a landing page with all the pet information they need.

Lastly, you can always add “pet policy” in your header menu on your website to give potential renters a quick and easy way to find the information they need.

2. Update your ILS platforms

In 2019, a survey was conducted called Renter Insight & Digital Engagement survey by apartment seekers to identify struggling points in apartment searching. The study results identified the following “The most frustrating issues for apartment seekers, according to the survey, included “finding accurate information online about the property” at 31%” (Salmonsen, M.)

While it is essential to have your most updated pet information on your website, many property owners forget about ILS platforms. With more than 80% of apartment seekers looking for their next apartment on ILS platforms, property owners must continuously update these platforms to ensure potential renters have the most accurate information.

3. Outreach Marketing

A good way for the property to get pet information to potential renters is by partnering with local pet shops. Property managers can contact local pet shops and see if they would be interested in establishing a partnership where the property manager can give the pet shop advertising material that they can provide to customers. In return, they can advertise the pet shop on the property or during property events.

Pet-friendly properties are becoming more attractive to potential renters even the ones that don’t have a furry friend yet. Don’t miss out on potential renters due to a lack of information on your website or your ILS. Creating an amazing apartment searching experience is how to ensure that renters call your property their forever home.

Work Citation:

“National Survey REVEALS Renters Are Living for Their Pets.” AAOA, 29 Jan. 2021, www.american-apartment-owners-association.org/property-management/latest-news/what-90-of-renters-want/.

Salmonsen, M. (2019, July 12). A vast majority of U.S. RENTERS use online ratings and reviews in the apartment search. Multifamily Executive. Retrieved September 27, 2021, from https://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/property-management/a-vast-majority-of-u-s-renters-use-online-ratings-and-reviews-in-apartment-search_o.

Email is a powerful tool. Thanks to email, we’ve been able to virtually connect the world, giving people a way to communicate almost instantaneously. What’s more, it quickly became an incredible tool for marketers, who could reach millions with information about their products and services with the click of a button. But over time, that tendency for marketing teams to heavily rely on email has actually throttled its ability to make an impact. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably handed over your email to dozens of websites over the years and now have an inbox full of spammy messages trying to entice you to engage with brands you probably don’t even care about. As of 2021, over 300 billion emails are sent each day. That’s billion with a ‘b.’ And with the average person receiving dozens of those a day, it’s not hard to see how email might not be the best tool for companies looking to connect with consumers in a meaningful way. 

When it comes to multifamily property management teams, connecting with and providing information to prospective leads is vital. But as we’ll show in this resource, email is not the most effective way to do this. If you want you and your teams to break your email dependency, keep reading. We’ll show you the main reasons why email fails in marketing and property management and demonstrate how moving to synchronous communication solutions can improve the quality of your outreach efforts significantly. 

Why email fails

Like we mentioned earlier, the popularity of email as a means of marketing has led to an oversaturation of brands trying to vie for peoples’ attention. What’s more, the format of email communication itself isn’t the best suited for maintaining engagement. Below we’ll go over why email, in general, can fail as a medium.

Spam: One of the most common reasons people don’t receive promotional or branded emails is because they end up getting picked up by a spam filter. Certain platforms are more particular about detecting spam than others, which means that even if you spend time painstakingly making your email sound not spammy, it could still wind up in the spam folder. And once it’s there, it’s doubtful it will be opened and read. 

Overloaded inboxes: Another reason emails can fail is that they arrive in an already crowded inbox. Most of us receive various marketing emails every day, and people tend to simply delete them without taking the time and energy to engage with them. According to research from Campaign Monitor, only 18% of emails are opened. If you want to be noticed, email is not the way to go. 

Interest decay: This is a phenomenon in which the more time that goes on between email correspondence, the less interested your target will be in the topic. If you don’t immediately get someone engaged, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to in the few hours or few days after sending your email. 

Why email doesn’t work for property management groups

We’ve seen just how ineffective email can be in regular marketing efforts, but did you know it’s an even worse medium for property management companies? Along with not being able to stand out in a sea of crowded inboxes, property management teams encounter their own unique hurdles when it comes to email. 

Ultimately, property management teams need to stop relying on email because:

Properties are overwhelmed: Today’s multifamily teams can receive hundreds of leads each day. It’s nearly impossible to organize, keep up with, and nurture those leads through email. Things can get lost in inboxes, and asynchronous communication often leads to that pesky interest decay we discussed earlier. 

Authenticity is key: One of the keys to converting leads into renters is authentic, informative communication. People want to have their questions answered quickly and easily, without having to jump through hurdles or sit and wait on an email to get back to them. And while it may seem counterintuitive, leaning into a property management chatbot can be one of the best ways to infuse that authenticity into your customer interactions. In fact, 83% of consumers said they would be more loyal to a brand that offers a chatbot for tasks like making an appointment or handling customer service inquiries.

Synchronous conversations matter: Your office hours shouldn’t dictate when people can access information about your property. That’s why being able to offer synchronous communication at any time is so important. People don’t want to wait around for an email that could take several business days to reach their overflowing inbox. They’d much rather be able to get the information they need 24/7, 365 from a chatbot. 

How property management chatbots can help 

At BetterBot, we work day in and day out with property management teams across the country to learn where their pain points are and how simple technology solutions can help. And what we’ve found is that property management chatbots have been able to radically transform the way teams interact with prospects for the better. 

To change the way multifamily teams interact with prospects, we’ve created two property management chatbot solutions. 

BetterBot for Web 

Our proprietary omnichannel chatbot, BetterBot for Web, works by helping prospects learn about property information and schedule tours on their time – without being restricted by office hours or limited staffing. Over 56% of website traffic happens after business hours, which is why 24/7 prospect engagement is key to sparking those high-value conversations with would-be renters. Fully customizable with countless integrations, BetterBot for Web makes it easier than ever to insert yourself in the conversations that matter most. 

BetterBot for Leads

Leasing teams don’t have a lot of time on their hands – we know this. That’s why we’ve created BetterBot for Leads to help save these teams countless hours responding to and nurturing leads. Your own virtual leasing agent, BetterBot, never sleeps, allowing prospective and existing renters to have their questions answered in real-time while your staff focuses on other high-value tasks. Plus, BetterBot works directly with your existing property management software to contact new leads immediately as they come in. And since not every lead is going to respond quickly, BetterBot for Leads continues 

to provide tailored lead follow-up to nurture that lead into a scheduled tour.

Explore our free demo or contact the BetterBot team today to learn more about the multifamily industry’s #1 chatbot solution. 

What is omnichannel marketing? 

Omnichannel marketing is a way to reach your customers through multiple sources. Your prospects are finding you in a myriad of ways. You can reach them no matter where they are to find the information they are looking for quickly and turn it into a lease through omnichannel marketing. 

Here are 3 ways to master omnichannel marketing: 

1. Knowing what platforms your customers use the most
2. Consider the customer experience
3. Measure results

Knowing what platforms your customers use the most

Take some time to research where your traffic is coming from. Find out which platforms are most used by your customers so you know where to focus your energy. Then you can market heavily on these platforms to reach your prospective residents using omnichannel marketing. Some that have been most popular sources in the multifamily industry include: 

• Google
• Apartments.com
• ApartmentList.com
• Craigslist
• Facebook

BetterBot is one chatbot solution that integrates with just about everyone, so you never miss a prospect. This product is easy to use on any platform, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Apartments.com, ApartmentList.com, and more. Help create a seamless experience for your customers, so they remember your product and are more likely to lease at your community. There are some great resources that can walk you through the setup process, such as THIS ONE. 

Consider the customer experience.

It’s important to consider how your customers are finding the information they need. Are they sending your property a DM on Facebook? Are they filling out the contact form on Apartments.com? Consider where it would be best to reach them on their journey. You’ll also want to consider what point in the conversation they should enter. 

It’s also important to consider your online reputation. Think about what your reviews are saying about your communities. Are there processes that can be improved? Is there an easy way you can win over a disgruntled resident? A vast majority of prospective renters read online reviews before deciding, so your online presence must tell a story you can be proud of. 

Using BetterBot, you’re able to customize your user experience so they can join at any point in the conversation you choose, including scheduling an appointment, virtual tours, or give them the whole experience. Cater to your customer by meeting their needs and providing them precisely what they’re looking for.  

Measure results 

Take time to measure what’s working. This way, you know what is resonating with your customer and what to focus your attention on. There are several ways you can gauge your property’s performance. Some of the top vital metrics worth considering include: 

• Guests Greeted
• Conversations Shared 
• Appointments Set

BetterBot has a robust reporting dashboard that will help you navigate how you can best serve your prospective renters. Evaluate what’s working on an ongoing basis so that you stay up to date on the latest trends for your user’s journey. 

Adopting an omnichannel marketing strategy is going to help you reach more prospects than before. You can be sure that your prospects are always catered to, and BetterBot can help. For more information on how BetterBot can help boost your omnichannel marketing efforts, CLICK HERE.