AIM 2019 Session Recap: Maximize Your Leads

Maximize Your Leads: How to Increase Conversion and Lower Costs with Unattended Showings

Marketers have come to appreciate the extra reach technology has afforded them in measuring campaigns and tracking the prospect online journey. But could deploying technology for unattended showings increased conversions and lower costs? At the 14th Annual Apartment Innovation and Marketing Conference (AIM 2019), which took place at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach on May 5-8, SmartRent sponsored a panel of proptech experts. Moderated by Mitch Karren, Chief Product Officer, SmartRent, panelists

• Taylor Wiederkehr, Director of Innovation Services, BH Management Services, LLC
• Shawn Mahoney SVP, CIO, CTO, GID Investment Advisers

explored the consequences of unattended showings and what they might mean for future conversions. 

“You can now buy cars and homes without meeting anybody,” observed Karren. GID’s Mahoney agreed, adding, “Pretty much everybody who’s apartment renting right now grew up on the Internet, self-shopping.” Having worked on the idea of self-viewing for a year, GID (better known as Windsor) realized that “everyone here is a winner. Because people can come tour, it will be much faster, and they can spend as little or as much time as they want.” Leasing agents were very interested, thinking, “Wow! Maybe I won’t have to work on Sunday.” Encouraged, GID, which has a lot of high-rise properties, has recently started a pilot program. Apartments available for self-touring are listed on its website; the caveat, however, is that they be located in a building with a doorman or concierge, because, said Mahoney, “We’ve never viewed self-touring as a 100 percent solution.”

While also in the pre-testing stage, BH’s Wiederkehr is taking a different approach. “In the past year or two, the buzz word has been ‘smart home.’ Because the entire community’s is smart and everything is connected, it is very easy for us to put a piece of software in place that allows us to control permissions - on making sure that people who are touring don’t have access to the wrong places in the building.”  Because everything’s done through BH’s digital platform, customers can request to have a person from the leasing office join them - with the result that leasing agents are spending more time with engaged prospects. 

Moving to prospect authentication, while Karren opined, “There may never be a true standard,” there are various ways to approach it. For GID, “We hold their ID. We don’t scan it, although,” he added, “we’ve talked about that.”

For BH, which has garden- and podium-style apartments, on-site personnel is not an option. “We ask for a photo ID and leverage current technology to verify that the ID is genuine.” Once they are verified, they allowed to schedule and provided with a temporary passcode (or some other entry credential). “In the future,” said Wiederkehr, “We hope to verify income and everything else, and be able to maximize leads directing those who don’t qualify to another type of apartment we may have.”

Also, through a few questions in the pre-qualifying process, BH can direct prospects to places of most interest to them (gym, playground), using beacons.

Takeaways included

• Mahoney: People are verifying what they saw on the website, taking 14 to 20 minutes to make sure it’s the same.”
• Wiederkehr: “Extend the self-touring hours by persona at property level. If attracting Millennials, set the hours at six and cut off at midnight.”
• Mahoney: “There’s a lot of early birds out there. They want to tour before work and then do their stuff.”
• Wiederkehr: “We hope to allow digital lease-signing in the future.”
• Mahoney: “Think about having two or three tour at the same time, to give a sense of urgency to the rental prospects.”

Bonus: Both Wiederkehr and Mahoney agree: Model apartments are going away. 

Conclusion: The aim of self-touring is to open hours for more prospects, but people still want to communicate with leasing agents before closing.