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Resident Retention

Better Retention through Grocery Carts*?

Feb 15th, 2011
by jameswb.
10 comments

In the past, one of my frustrations with new construction is that within 37 minutes of moving in your first residents, ugly beat-up old grocery carts from neighborhood shopping centers start appearing in the common areas.  Grocery carts may be the wire hangers of the multifamily industry:  they reproduce at an astonishing rate.  Why not streamline the look, modify them to protect your walls and elevator cabs and get some marketing oomph from them?

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon working with my friend Linda Kelley, CEMG (Chief Executive Marketing Guru) at City’s Best Marketing (http://www.c-b-m.com/)  in Minneapolis.  She and her team continually work towards the goal of cutting-edge marketing innovation.  I walked into her office and was blocked by a sleek gray cart.  Linda is a lover of fine food.  She ensures that the kitchen in their employee lounge is always fully stocked and has been known for spontaneous acts of culinary.  My first reaction was that perhaps she was trying to efficiently transport food.  But no!  It was a sample of their latest concept:  customized grocery carts!  Now instead of seeing the name of your local retailer emblazoned on your site grocery carts, you can have your site name or company website imprinted on the handle.  As we started brainstorming together (practicing creative one-upmanship) we tossed out other ideas—placards along the walls of the cart featuring discounts for residents at area restaurants and shops; resident referral signs; or flyers announcing resident events, directing folks to your Facebook page, etc.  Why not make these utilitarian tools—items that we don’t even notice when we see them—work for us?

*Or for our friends on the East Coast—Carriages, or in Denver:  Buggy.

Cheers!  Jim Baumgartner | Rent Soda

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3 Gift Ideas for Your Apartment Residents For The Cost of Some Elbow Grease!

Nov 30th, 2010
by daisynguyen.
3 comments

The next 30 days are a whirlwind of end of year celebrating. Whether your residents celebrate Christmas, Hannakah, Kwanzaa, or ringing in the New Year, the spirit of giving and goodwill are out and about. Here are 3 Gift Ideas your apartment community can give to your residents, for the cost of some elbow grease!

3 Gift/Amenity Ideas for Your Apartment Residents

  1. Package delivery – The next 30 days, your residents maybe ordering gifts for themselves, others, or receiving gifts from loved ones. Many of those items are delivered during the time when your apartment resident is not at home. How great would it be if you could accept their packages and deliver it into their apartment? What a great gift/amenity to give to your apartment residents!  To coordinate this, you will need to have your residents sign a package addendum allowing you to accept packages on their behalf as well as allowing you to place their package into their home. I’ve implemented this at many sites – sometimes as a year-round amenity. If you need a sample package addendum, email me at daisy {at} rentsoda(.)com">daisy {at} rentsoda(.)com and I can send you one that you can use as a template.
  2. Weekly Recycling AT-DOOR Pick-Up – With all the boxes arriving, packaging of gifts, and unwrapping of gifts, your resident will have additional recycling this month. (i.e. boxes, paper wrapping, newspaper, shopping bags, etc.) Why not offer a once a week pick-up at your resident’s doors for their paper recycling? If you opt to offer this, you will need to set rules and guidelines so that your hallway doesn’t become a trash center. I would recommend limiting it to dry packaging, so that it is not messy. However, your community can decide if you want to expand that to include any recyclables!
  3. Clothing & blanket drive – Find a local charity that needs clean, gently used clothing for their cause. Your residents are already being asked for donations from every avenue possible. Give them an opportunity to get rid of some of their extra items they may have lying around the house. I recommend a drop-box, and guidelines to make sure items have been recently cleaned. Your staff may need to drop off the items to your charity weekly! Depending on the size of your site, this could mean A LOT of stuff. Keep the clothing/blanket drive as long as you feel you can collect donations. I’ve implemented this at several sites, and we’ve always had a great turn out. Some of the local charities that we partnered with were surprising – one year a local food shelf accepted clothing/blankets, another year, we had a local non-profit fashion-related scholarship fund pick up our clothing drive items to sell at their annual garage sale in March. Another year, our clothing drive went to a local church that operated a homeless shelter. Don’t limit your local charity options – there are tons out there that needed gently used clothing!

These are 3 great ways to help your residents during a busy time of year. Great for year-end goodwill, great as “gifts,” AWESOME amenity, great for resident retention and they’ll love it! Do you have other ideas you want to add? Please leave me a comment!

Don’t GET IT? RENT SODA! GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen in Minneapolis, Minnesota MN

CEO/President

RENTSODA-small

Offering Apartment Marketing, Apartment Business & Operations Consulting & Apartment Leasing Training

Web: RentSoda.com Email: Daisy {at} RentSoda(.)com

Become a fan of RENTSODA on facebook.  Connect with RENTSODA on LinkedIn!

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Motivating Your Employees in a Stressful Economy: Seven Tips to Building Team

Oct 20th, 2010
by jameswb.
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It is ironic that a lot of positive things have come out of the downturn in the economy.  We have focused more on cutting costs, built stronger relationships through social media, increased customer service initiatives and strengthened our skills.  However, one of the negative outcomes has been a tendency to take staff for granted.  There has been a trend towards seeing employees as a commodity that can be cut—in quantity as well as compensation.

Cutting employee costs is an understandable reaction to an economic downturn.  However, will this serve us best in the long run?  This trend creates two areas of concern:

  1. Disgruntled employees feel abused and unappreciated.  They pass this attitude on to our customers.  In a competitive climate, is this the front-line environment we want to create?
  2. Demographic trends indicate that we will be facing a shortage of talented experts in the future.  As the employment market starts to loosen up, our top talent may be easily wooed away to other jobs promising greater appreciation and rewards—both monetary and emotional.

How do we keep our team motivated and happy to be working with us?  We do not have extra cash budgeted—but it’s not always about the pay.  In fact, most of the time that is not the most motivating factor in retaining excellent employees and motivating them to excellence.

A few tips to help you motivate your team:

  1. “Please” and “thank you”.  Take time to remember the manners your mama taught you!  Being thoughtful, courteous and polite goes a long way.
  2. Set aside time to listen to your team members:
    1. Concerns – what is working; what is not?  Your front-line team has insights you could only dream about.  This is a great opportunity to gather expert advice.
    2. Ideas – Whenever you are feeling stuck, sit down with your team.  You will be amazed at the ideas they will give you.
    3. Give clear direction and expectations—as an employee, one of the most frustrating experiences is not receiving clear work direction.  Have you outlined the company’s goals and each team member’s contribution to that effort?  I once had a supervisor who gave conflicting work expectations.  Continually changing directions made my efforts feel futile and hampered progress.  I felt like a puppy unsure of whether to come or go.  I ended up going.
    4. Firm but fair—favoritism will kill a positive environment.  Employees find great comfort in knowing exactly how you will react and that your response will be consistent.
    5. Share the good jobs – don’t just delegate the ‘icky’ stuff.
    6. Bring your team in on decisions.
      1. Brainstorming and ideation—holding a brainstorming meeting allows for a free flow of ideas.  You will be amazed at some of the revolutionary concepts that emerge.  This also makes each team member feel like they are part of the creation process.
      2. Meetings—openly discuss concerns and issues in meetings. Invite feedback and team member contribution.  Take the time to listen and consider input.
      3. Creates ownership—When you have involved team members in the process from ideation to decision, they feel as though they have a stake in the successful outcome of that decision.
      4. Publicly praise—did one of your team members do something very, very right?  Praise in front of peers and the big boss.  This praise will go a long way. When we were inexperienced supervisors we thought we had to find and own all the kudos we could!  However, in reality a superstar team reflects a superstar boss. 

Celebrate your staff!  Taking the time to tune in to them will pay dividends:  increased sales, improved retention and a positive working environment.  And you might even find that going to work is more fun!

Cheers!  Jim Baumgartner | Rent Soda

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#1 Most Important TIP for Apartment Resident Retention

Oct 8th, 2010
by daisynguyen.
3 comments

With so many choices available, the price competitiveness of the market, and concessions still a tool that lots of apartment communities still use to entice renters, the best way to control vacancy loss is to close that back door – retain your existing residents. What’s the most important thing you can do to increase resident retention and lower your resident turnover?

Here’s my #1 most important tip I can give you regarding your resident retention plan: RESPECT your residents and genuinely APPRECIATE their business. OK, so maybe that’s 2 tips – just consider it my two-for-one tip deal!

The reality is, no matter what the rent is, whether its $500.00/month, or $5000.00 a month, its likely the BIGGEST check your resident writes every month. Find ways to let your residents know you respect and appreciate them as residents of your apartment community! If you can find ways to show them you respect and apprecaite your them as residents, the higher your likelihood of turning them into life-long residents!

This may sound like an easy no-brainer, but the reality is, it is so easy to forget – it is something you have to work actively to remember and practice.

When I work on affordable communities, I am always amazed at the amount of complaining I hear in the site staff – they can’t identify with the residents – they find it hard to believe that anyone would live at ABC DUMP apartments, they complain about how small the units are, and its common for me to hear, “I could NEVER live in a place like this!” They frown upon the community of hard working adults – the same community that pays their paycheck! This kind of attitude rubs off, and can be felt by your residents.

My 17 year old son, Alex, recently bought his first car. He had been working and saving up for the past 3 years and had saved up $6000.00. To a cars salesman, $6000.00 is probably one of the smaller deals that he can land in a week. But, to my son Alex, he wasn’t thinking, “Gosh, I’m going to buy the cheapest, crappiest card I can find on the lot,” he was thinking, “I am going to find the best looking, biggest value I can find!”

No one intends to be cheap or settle for anything less than the best – its whatever they can comfortably afford.

Another way to look at this: If you were to go into a retail store month after month and write them a check for the same amount as you typically spend on your monthly rent – how would that store treat you?

Whether you are in the Nordstrom’s shoe department income bracket, or the PAYLESS Shoes store income bracket, I am willing to bet the sales person who helps you out every month will learn to love and appreciate your business.  How would they do this? I’m also willing to bet they would know your name, know your preferences, make it convenient and easy for you to shop at their store, accommodate your needs, and thank you each and every time you make a purchase.

In our industry, we are so used to getting a monthly rent check from our residents, its so easy and convenient to forget to do simple things like remember everyone’s name, be helpful, find ways to make it convenient for your residents to live in your apartment community, make it easy for them to LIVE at your apartment community, or even say THANK YOU every month! – At times, I see the exact opposite behavior in our community offices – our residents walk in, and we ask them to wait, we look up – irritated that they interrupted the time we had set aside to do paperwork, they tell us about a leaky faucet – and we ask them to call a designated number for service requests, we charge for such easy conveniences as faxes and holding packages, we receive the rent check in a drop box, and never say THANK YOU – we do everything to practically show them the door out.

Is this how you want to be treated when you are writing the biggest check you can possibly afford to write every month? Would you continue to live there?

How do you show your residents how much you respect and appreciate their business?

Don’t GET IT? RENT SODA! GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen in Minneapolis, Minnesota MN

CEO/President

RENTSODA-small

Offering Apartment Marketing, Apartment Business & Operations Consulting & Apartment Industry Training

Web: RentSoda.com Email: Daisy {at} RentSoda(.)com

Become a fan of RENTSODA on facebook.  Connect with RENTSODA on LinkedIn!

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Good Customer Service is Dead! Where is the LOVE?

Mar 8th, 2010
by daisynguyen.
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You read it right -GOOD Customer Service is DEAD. Where is the LOVE?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc

(Video: Black Eyed Peas – Where is the Love?)

This is actually good news – If you are one of the few apartment communities that consistently provides good customer service, you are WAY ahead of the game. Even if you THINK you’re doing a great job, this article will be an EYE OPENER. Read on! (This blog-post was inspired by a recent blog post and discussion initiated my Brent Williams – read his original article here.

In today’s market, the BEST way to control vacancy is to close that back door – meaning KEEP your current residents! Don’t let them leave! We all know it costs us a WHOLE lot less to keep a current resident than it is to turn an apartment and find a new resident! The few prospects that ARE in the market for a new apartments – they KNOW they are a WANTED commodity, SO they are shopping for the best deal. Our current residents? They want a good deal too – however, more than wanting a good deal – they want to feel good about choosing to spend their money with YOU.

GOOD Customer Service is Dead! Where is the LOVE?

So why is this good news? Good customer service can be IMPROVED. It’s not like a location or an expensive amenity.

YOU have the power the improve this! 

Not only do you have CONTROL over this, based on some recent experiences (See Brent Williams blog about his renewal experience here), it wouldn’t take much these days to stand out from everyone else.

I LOVE shoe shopping. My favorite place to shop for shoes? Nordstrom’s shoe department. They tend to have pretty good customer service overall - but NOT all customer service is created equal. I have found that when my regular salesman, (let’s call him Adam) helps me, I will leave the store with at least 3 pairs of shoes. And when it’s someone else – most times I leave empty handed. Why? Everyone is extremely helpful and cheerful – its Nordstrom’s after all! But when Adam helps me, he makes me feel like the ONLY person who SHOULD be wearing THOSE shoes, should be ME. (“Darling! Those shoes were MADE for you!” or my favorite, “I won’t be able to look at those shoes on someone else’s feet the same way EVER again. And I have 6 pairs left back there!” It’s partly how he treats me when I am trying on shoes, but in the course of getting to know me, he has gotten to KNOW ME. He knows what my style is (knows the labels that typically appeal to me), he’s gotten to know what my preferences are (LOVE PINK, RED, GOLD), he knows my foot size. AND he tells me when something is NOT right. (“Friends don’t let friends wear THOSE out.”) I’ve learned from my shoe experience and have singled out a GREAT sales person in each department or store that I frequent. I don’t put up with bad customer service, and believe me. BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE happens to GOOD PEOPLE – ALOT more frequently than we care to admit – especially when it comes to our own communities!

Learn from Nordstrom’s – in a time when EVERY other store is having a sale EVERY WEEK, they seldom have sales. I pay full price every time I shop there – but I feel GOOD doing it.

THAT’s what your current residents want from you – make them feel GOOD about spending their money with YOU. SHOW THEM THE LOVE.

As I mentioned previously, BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE happens to GOOD PEOPLE. I have noticed that in this economic time, it is EXTREMELY hard to find good customer service. Many times, when I am out and about, shopping, dining, etc. Mediocre or bad service is so common – in fact it IS the norm. Customer service people are talking to each other, ignoring customers, acting as if somehow, the presence of a customer waiting for service actually is a nuisance! At some restaurants, especially during non-peak hours, the service is downright poor. Why is this?

A recent discussion at my local apartment association, MHA (Minnesota Multi-Housing Association) zoned in on the fact – it’s NOT that we (as customer service providers) don’t KNOW what GOOD customer service is. Bad news & bad attitudes are everywhere. It’s a depressed market. WE feel it, we are stressed, we are strapped on time, our budgets have been cut, our payroll hours have been limited, pay freezes. YOU name it, we’ve all experienced more bad news than most of us have ever experienced or care to remember. We’re not the ONLY ones this is happening to! Our residents, prospects, clients are experiencing this TOO. 

Back to resident retention and good customer service at your community. The one place where your resident spends the majority of their time is at HOME – at YOUR apartment community. The biggest check they write EVERY month is a rent check to YOUR community. The ONE place where we don’t want to feel the everyday pressures of a bad economy, depressed market, bad news is at HOME. Your community is HOME for every one of your residents. It’s not enough to say “good morning,” or “how are you?” when your resident comes home in the evening. Get to KNOW them! Have a genuine interest in your residents. You should know who are the frequent fitness buffs, which ones are early starters, which ones have pets, etc! Talk to your residents, engage in positive interactions with your residents, get their input. Get to KNOW them! Even if YOUR community has 500 or more residents, it is nowhere near the kind of traffic Nordstrom’s gets on a weekend. Learn from the best and forget the rest!

SHOW YOUR RESIDENTS THE LOVE.

If the only conversations you are having with your residents is when they sign their lease, when they are late on rent, and when they renew, SOMETHING IS WRONG. Where is the LOVE there? If you’re only dealing with “customer service issues” (i.e. complaints) instead of receiving letters or thanks and praise from your residents, the customer service at your community is lacking. There are hundreds of ways to have positive interactions through-out the course of a resident’s lease term. Create THOSE opportunities, and make it a part of EVERYONE’s responsibility on site.

SHOW YOUR RESIDENTS THE LOVE.

Don’t GET IT? RENT SODA! GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen in Minneapolis, Minnesota MN

CEO

RENTSODA-small

Business, Operations & Marketing Consulting to the Apartment Industry

Web: RentSoda.com   Email: Daisy {at} RentSoda(.)com

Become a fan of RENTSODA on facebook.  Connect with RENTSODA on LinkedIn!

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