Studies have shown that online applications are incredibly beneficial to a property, but also that they’re not always used to their greatest potential. Fewer than 25 percent of applications are completed online by residents. And, perhaps more surprising, property managers are 20 percent more likely to follow up on guest cards than on incomplete applications. We at Property Solutions are hoping to change both of these stats.

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With our massive dodgeball event and the advent of football season, we here at Property Solutions are filled with sports fever, so our most recent webinar, Curb Appeal vs. Web Appeal, took a page from ESPN’s show PTI (Pardon The Interruption). Our rules were simple: two industry experts, Ashley Wemmell, Marketing Coordinator at The Habitat Company, and Josh Mendenhall, Creative Director at Property Solutions would debate specific issues and then webinar attendees would vote for who was most convincing.

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It’s the last month of summer and everyone is squeezing in their last-minute vacations. Out of town or out of the country, there’s a good chance your residents will have some unfinished business they left back at their apartment—leaky bathroom faucet, that quirky water heater, broken AC, or heaven forbid, unpaid rent—and somehow reality will find them no matter how far they’ve traveled. Luckily, when reality hits (or when they get a mean phone call from the neighbor below about the leak coming from their bathroom), residents will have an easy way to take care of or check up on any maintenance or rent related issues with ResidentPortal. When residents sign up for ResidentPortal, they can use their desktop or mobile phone to access their accounts and pay rent, or they can submit a maintenance request to get some towels and a wrench sent up to their bathroom ASAP.

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Thanks for all who attended the webinar and participated. Also, a big thanks to Mike Whaling for co-presenting! If you missed it, you can view the video and slides below.

View slides here.

Whether it’s the first class cabin, the VIP lounge, or the Yacht Club, everyone loves the feeling of being part of an exclusive group. It can symbolize an achievement or special status, and provides a feeling of high importance and distinction. These clubs appeal to us because of the aforementioned exclusivity or because of some benefit (real or perceived) that is associated with membership.

Have you ever considered creating a VIP club for residents? Gather together a group of residents who have lived in your community the longest or have been most involved in community activities. Invite them to exclusive activities and take the opportunity to really listen to what they’re saying. The advantage of gathering a group of residents in one place is they’ve already got something in common: they live at your property! Along with membership, you may offer special perks depending on what you’re comfortable with: reduced rent, gift cards, free access to amenities you may usually charge for, invitation to dinner parties, etc. Be as creative as you want.

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By: Jen Piccotti

Every once in a while, just out of curiosity, I allow myself to Google “Resident Retention” just to see what comes up. And each time, I am disappointed in the results. Gravely disappointed. After all, in an industry that has seen customer turnover fluctuate between 55 and 62% over the past 10 years, do we really believe that the answer is better move-in gifts, cute door hangers and more pizza parties?

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Here at Property Solutions, we’re always hard at work trying to figure out how we can do things better. We’ve spent a lot of time in recent months exploring ways that we can take our ResidentWorks interface beyond a data entry system and turn it into a powerful workflow productivity tool. We’re excited to announce that the transition begins now, with a new way to look at your leads. This post will outline some of the new features available with the new lead view.

Simplified Navigation

The most noticeable change to our lead view system was our decision to contain all lead details in a pop-up window. As we expand our lead management product offering, this will allow leasing agents and property managers to access  specific lead details from a number of locations within ResidentWorks without navigating away from the task at hand. Access to lead information from anywhere in ResidentWorks is designed to minimize disruptions and improve productivity.

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Thanks to all who attended our webinar and asked questions! If you missed it you can view the slides or watch it below. We appreciate the great insight we received from Sarah Greenough and Dan Harvey from Princeton Properties. Sarah and Dan have spent some time with our SiteTablet iPad app at their properties and shared their expertise on best practices.

Although they both admitted to committing iPad no-no’s such as using it for a food tray and putting their cat-food dish on top of it (really, Sarah?), they also found other very valuable uses for it.

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Last month Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, gave the opening keynote at the 2011 IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Annual Leadership meeting. Schmidt shared his vision for technology, mobile, and advertising, but more specifically advertising through mobile. We thought the CEO had some good insight on mobile trends and decided to share some of his wise words.

Accessibility is key. “We need to give consumers more choice and control,” Schmidt said. “There’s a reason for them wanting something slightly different.” We are multi-taskers and if we don’t have to stop what we’re doing to go sit at a computer and look something up, we won’t. During the Superbowl, mobile searches for Chrysler spiked 102 times while its desktop search only spiked 48 times. Same with GoDaddy.com, spiking 315 times on mobile compared to only 38 times on desktop. People who are watching TV, driving, or going through their daily routine are more likely to visit a website they saw advertised when it’s fresh in their mind than they are when they have to wait to get to a desktop.

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