As I wrote in my last blog, I recently set out to visit 100 Class A apartment communities from coast to coast in 100 days.

It was an ambitious goal, but my purpose was a simple one: I wanted to get a truly informed perspective on what today’s prospects experience when they visit and tour our communities. I wanted to see where our onsite teams need to improve and where they are knocking it out of the park.

The exciting part is there are a lot of opportunities for improvement. I know the COVID-19 pandemic has brought in-person tours to a virtual standstill. This could provide a reset button and could offer leasing teams a valuable chance to evaluate the in-person experience they’re providing and to consider the improvements they should implement once the leasing office opens back up, most of which are free, back to basics and completely controllable. 

Our industry spends an incredible amount of money and time on generating incoming leads, monitoring the responses to those leads and focusing on the follow-up after the prospect visit. But we don’t spend a lot of time analyzing the in-person experience.

In my previous post, I shared some of my general observations of the in-person experience from my visits. In this blog, I wanted to provide some of the data I gathered about the different parts of the prospect visit. The graphs below outline how often certain things happened during my 100-community tour. 

Greetings and First Impressions:

Here’s the Cliff Notes version: apartment communities need a renewed focus on the first impression created by onsite associates. Way too often, I had to wait after arriving, and overall team members just didn’t make me feel as welcomed and appreciated as a prospect should feel. 

The Discovery:

The bottom line with the discovery process is that it frequently felt a little cold, a little impersonal. It often seemed like associates were going through the motions, asking as few questions as possible. And, maybe worst of all, they were still using paper for guest cards and sticky notes!

Tour and Wrap Up:

During the tours, I was definitely struck once again by the impersonal nature of the experience. Associates routinely didn’t introduce me to other team members and didn't ask the kinds of questions that would help them truly consult me as to which apartment was best for me. Also, the vast majority of the time, they didn’t even ask me to lease and they gave me antiquated takeaways like paper brochures (some of which were even Xeroxed). I often felt hurried and also believed that associates often were more focused on showing me something rather than the one or two that might really fit me (I was shown an average of two apartments per visit, although several showed me four and five apartments). Overall, I spent an average of 26 minutes at each community, and the average tour length was 18 minutes.

In upcoming blogs, I will explore how each of the components of the in-person prospect experience can be improved.

Before ending this one, I want to emphasize how much I respect the onsite associates in our industry. I know how hard they work and how much they have on their plates. And as I was visiting these communities, I was humbly reminded that I have committed many of these leasing blunders myself over the course of my career.

But I hope these blogs can foster a healthy, constructive conversation about how we as an industry can better serve the prospects who visit our wonderful communities.

If you’re in a corporate role , ask yourself if your leasing teams are truly providing the ideal experience for prospects. Or, if you yourself are on the leasing floor, what are you delivering to your prospects?  Are you letting your own personal blocks interfere with delivering the best experience?  Have you pushed yourself to break past any comfort zones you might be in?

If you’re a regional manager, are you providing your teams with the best tools? And ultimately are you training them to optimize the full tour experience, be it virtual, self-guided, or, in-person? 

Such a special opportunity to establish new standards, reflect and reset what you know, and be awesome.  Happy leasing!