Resident Retention: Forever Yours... Faithfully

The NAA Education Conference was a whirlwind day trip for me. I was only able to fly in on Friday morning and fly out that evening. It was a great experience! I got to match many names with faces and have a some great conversations. There were very positive comments flying around about how impactful the conference had been for the attendees as well as the exhibitors.

As you can imagine, knowing that I only had 1 day to dive into the conference, I had to put tremendous faith in the airlines. There was no room for delays or flight cancellations. Knowing that I could not allow for any margin of travel error, I chose to fly Southwest. They are known for their great track record for on time departures, and when it comes to Las Vegas in particular there are no other airlines that can even come close in the reliability rankings. I don’t care for the “cattle call” although they have improved that process somewhat. I am a bit tired of the “no frills” peanuts. But I can count on them, and they did not fail me on this trip.

There was a twist however. I arrived safely home on Friday night, and in the morning I found an email waiting for me from Southwest.

With all the emails – both personal and junk mail – I receive on a daily basis, this actually did stand out. There was nothing more to the message. Just this thank you, with a subtle suggestion to share my positive experience on their own Southwest Travel Guide page.

You may remember a previous post in which I shared an idea of asking for positive public feedback from great residents who were unable to renew for whatever reason – suggesting they leave some good notes on certain apartment search websites. Southwest is essentially doing the same thing. They know they gave me an on time arrival and departure, they are acknowledging my patronage, and they are hoping to get a little extra mileage out of a satisfied customer. I think it’s a great idea. They have made it easy for me to leave some happy thoughts for another potential traveller to read.

So, what are you doing to make it easy for your residents to leave some positive feedback? I’m going to leave some positive feedback on the travel guide because as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to day trips or any travel that has no margin for travel error, Southwest – I’m forever yours, faithfully.