Automation has changed consumer behavior considerably over the past several decades. Most products, from your lunch to your vacation to your stock portfolio, can be purchased without leaving the comfort of your house or walking away from your computer. The effects have been enormous: in 2019, e-commerce accounted for $601.75 billion dollars worth of spending in the economy, an increase of 14.9% from 2018. But one industry has fallen behind: property management.
Residential property management has long been a faceless industry, and has escaped the push to rise to the standards expected of other consumer brands. At Common, we’re changing that. As we build a trusted brand, we’re bringing property management and the process of renting an apartment up to standard with what consumers expect in any other purchase: ease, clarity, and automation.
Keep reading to learn how Common uses technology and automation to nurture leads, maintain resident happiness, and generate higher returns for our partners.
Self-scheduled tours
The majority of property managers, including Common, use third party listing sites to attract leads and connect them with brokers for the unit. Although these tools allow leads to put in an online request to see the apartment, the process for scheduling a tour is then done through email or the phone. For many leads, there may be a wait time between indicating interest and being able to book a tour.
Common’s self-scheduled tour tool allows us to quickly convert interest into action, no matter where a lead is located, or when they land on Common’s website. Common’s inside sales path (ISP) matches leads to potential homes based on city, budget, and move-in date. From there, leads can select to self-schedule a tour (virtual or in-person depending on the market) at any of our available buildings. The lead is then brought through a drip campaign via text and email, where they’re able to confirm or reschedule their tour. Since launching self-scheduled tours, Common’s overall lead to tour scheduled conversion rate increased by 133%.
Time-saving lead scoring and routing
Common sees over 20,000 leads a month through various paid and organic marketing channels. In early October, we implemented a new lead scoring and routing technology that allows our Inside Sales team to prioritize the most qualified leads based on a variety of factors: lead source, move-in date, and whether or not they’ve interacted with a chat-bot, among others. Since implementing this technology, we’ve seen a 15% increase in tours scheduled by our Inside Sales team.
Outside of this technology, our centralized operations model, in which we route leads through one central funnel instead of several bespoke funnels at a building level, allows us to build and maintain a larger funnel for new buildings as well.
Easier and automated renewals
Common uses our in-house technology and Salesforce to keep track of a resident’s experience during their time at Common, reach out to them in advance of their lease-date, and navigate conversations about renewals.
Depending on the lease length, residents are automatically sent an email up to 120 days before their lease expiration. From there, residents can either decline to renew, negotiate their offer, or accept their new lease terms. If they choose to accept, Common’s leasing team is automatically tagged to generate a new lease for the resident, and once that’s prepared, the resident can sign their new terms directly from our Connect by App. In this instance, automation allows Common to start conversations about renewals with residents earlier than traditional property managers, and makes the experience of continuing to live at Common that much easier.
