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Home Insider Blogs Elysa Rice's Blog It's the Balloons' Fault!
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Jun 22
2010

It's the Balloons' Fault!

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Posted by: Elysa Rice on Jun 22, 2010 15:18

balloons

As of June 1 I have officially been in the "multifamily industry" for 1 year. Before June 1st of last year I didn't even know there was an industry around multifamily, in fact I'm pretty sure that I'd never heard the word "multifamily". I have been an apartment resident since 2002 (sounds crazy to think of it) but in the last year I've added words such as "resident retention", "lease up", and "resident portal" to my vocabulary. I read a blog post today from Heather Blume entitled "Didn't You See the Balloons?" (STOP: go read it). In her search for an apartment building that was camouflaged by many other buildings, it took quite a bit of effort to find her destination. When she told the leasing consultant she'd had trouble finding the apartment his response was (you guessed it) "Didn't you see the balloons?".

So here's my question, is this how all of this property's marketing and "customer service" issues are handled? Do they get phone calls that resemble this:

Caller: Hi I'd like information on a 2 bedroom 2 bath
Leasing Consultant: Didn't you see our website? It has the floorplans.

While yes, I am mostly kidding, I hope this scenario doesn't happen I do want to piggy back on Heather's point (did you read her post yet?) are you assuming your prospects and residents know things about your property just because it's an industry standard?

Elysa Rice, Emerging Media Consultant with Ellipse Communications, Inc.


Comments (5)Add Comment
4470
written by Jolene Sopalski, June 24, 2010
Lol this made me laugh. I love it! you have a point to offten we get tired or are so bombarded with files that we forget that we still have to sale and show our community to the prospect as if they have no idea what we are. We have to block out the fact that they may have been to 10 other community's. If that is the case then those 10 other communitys did not have what they are looking for and its your time to shine!

Jolene Sopalski
Leasing Specialist
WRH Realty Services
Jolene.Sopalski@gmail.com
3712
written by Chrissy Surprenant, June 24, 2010
Totally Agree... There are times where I need to step back after writing a letter or talking to a resident because we take for granted that in this industry (as in so many industries) we have our own lingo... Words and phrases like "turn a unit", "market-ready", or "concession" give us back the dreaded blank stare...
Just because we are familiar w/ our little world doesn't mean our customers are... I know I couldn't hold a conversation long with a microbiologist if they were talking in their lingo... Even if they were holding balloons!
Nice article!
2672
written by Daisy Nguyen, June 28, 2010
LOVE it! We sometimes loose site of the prospect's perspective. Great reminder!
4741
written by Alex Steele, June 30, 2010
Great reminder. Sometimes we forget to step oustide of the tiny worlds we emerse ourselves in and see the other person's point of view.

5206
written by Bob Wainner, August 24, 2010
Too funny, Elysa. Nice article. Here's a good one for you. I
read a review recently on a popular apartment review website...at a very upscale property by a current resident. He said he loved his unit, worked out of it and in fact, he said he enjoyed it SO MUCH...that he was getting ready to renew his lease and pay the ENTIRE 12 MONTH LEASE IN ADVANCE!!! Are you kidding me?!!! If this really was a "real" review, I KNOW this guy didn't get his degree in "Finance" LOL! I sort of "suspect" that possibly, that review may have been written by the Property Manager...who knows for sure. Now, if you could just get an "entire property full of people like this
guy"...you wouldn't have to worry about "retention issues"
any longer! *smile*

Bob Wainner
Plano, Texas
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