Did you know that retaining current residents is easier and more cost effective than finding new ones?

Keeping current residents starts with great customer service and maintaining open lines of communication. By providing exceptional customer service to current residents you have effectively taken measures to ensure their loyalty as a customer; however, maintaining open communication with residents during their occupancy is most commonly overlooked.

Why is it so important to keep consistent communication with your residents?

It’s simple, without communication how do you know when your residents are content, happy, or more importantly, unhappy? Residents in general have extremely diverse behaviors, characteristics, and personalities. Let’s reflect on what the word personality means and see if your communities currently have the appropriate communication tools to deal with these issues.

We are going to look at 3 different residents today and use John, Mary, and Mark as our examples. John is a very outspoken person and has no problem dropping by the office and expressing his opinions, suggestions, or complaints (which he does often). When it comes to a broken sprinkler head, a loose fixture, or a loud neighbor, John is there for us making sure our community is running in tip top shape. John is both an asset to our community and at times can be a pain in the neck. Mary on the other hand, is not an outspoken resident, and the most we see of her is the rent check in our drop box around the 1st. Our maintenance team rarely hears from Mary, if at all, and we assume she’s doing well because she always pays her rent on time, and we never hear from her. Then there’s our workaholic Mark, always on the go, pays his rent online, and is usually only home long enough to catch a couple of hours of sleep or perhaps the occasional leisurely weekend afternoon watching a ball game.

We all have a John, Mary, and Mark at our community and more than likely our current resident retention program is lacking in some areas…especially in our outbound communication. With the exception of John, when was the last time we asked Mary or Mark if they had any maintenance issues that needed addressing, wished them a Happy New Year, or personally invited them to a Sunday brunch? It has probably been a while, if at all, and almost certainly is not being done on a regular basis.

For over a year, Relate 24/7^sm has become the standard for cost effective, automated, resident communication for multifamily housing. Strongly recommended by industry experts Anne Sadovsky, Kate Good, and Toni Blake, Relate 24/7^sm delivers consistent personalized email correspondence to your residents. New move-in greetings, lease renewal reminders, preventative maintenance, holiday greetings, and birthday greetings are just a sample of how Relate 24/7^sm can help your onsite teams build stronger resident relationships and dramatically improve your resident retention efforts. Just because you’re not hearing from Mary and John doesn’t mean that everything is alright. Empower your onsite teams and help build better resident relationships for tomorrow…today.

Ellipse Group, Inc., the leading provider for web based services; PropertyBridge, a leader in online payment processing, and ResidentCheck, the foremost provider in resident background checks, rally together for a “Buck Up and Wear It” Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. Capitalizing on last year’s successful “MOOORE than just websites” campaign highlighted with the distribution of plush cows, Ellipse Group Inc., decided to create “Buck Up and Wear It” as a way to continue the demand for the toy cows while raising money for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Lee O’Conner, Vice President of Ellipse Group Inc., said, “Last year we gave away over 1200 plush cows and created brand awareness for our company. The demand was hot, the begging and pleading was overwhelming for these toys. We wanted to keep the cows, due to demand, and take advantage of the opportunity to give back to our industry. Last year, one of our employees lost his mother to breast cancer, and it is also a concern very close to Kristi Holland, our Vice President of Operations.” With the success of the plush cows, Ellipse continued to work on a fund raising idea that would impact the multifamily industry. “By partnering with PropertyBridge and ResidentCheck, we will definitely reach the majority of the women that support the multifamily industry. Each of these providers services our industry in a different way and by supporting each other in this effort we are sure to reach our financial goal,” said O’Conner.

PropertyBridge generously provided Ellipse with access to their credit card processing system for accepting donations via the web. Like many others in our industry, PropertyBridge was eager to support these efforts. “Breast cancer is a personal battle as it has affected some of the women in my family. On behalf of the PropertyBridge team, we are pleased to do our small part in the fight against this disease and contribute in the search for a cure,” said Jason Gardner, President of PropertyBridge.

Charles Stroud, Vice President of Sales for ResidentCheck said, “ResidentCheck is honored to be involved in an effort to increase awareness and find a cure for breast cancer. So many of our family and multifamily associates have been affected by this horrible disease.”

The trio created 5000 pink T-shirts with the slogan “Buck Up and Wear It” embedded within an image of a one dollar bill. With every T-shirt that is worn during an expo show, each company will donate $1.00. Also, Ellipse “bucked up” and found 600 cows that are available in exchange for a donation. “We are looking for a minimum donation of $20 for each cow. We want our cows to bring in $10,000.00 in addition to the $15,000.00 that the T-shirts will generate,” said O’Conner. “There are ample opportunities for us to ask our customers and other industry vendors to share in this battle we face as women and men. The onsite teams are lead by mostly female managers, and in an industry that employs close to 80% women, this is an awareness that we cannot over look,” said O’Conner. The goal for the initiative is a $30,000.00 contribution to be used to support breast cancer initiatives, research and treatments.

The trio will be very visible in various conferences and expositions across the country this year. “By the end of the tradeshow season and the last expo show with Brainstorming West in Las Vegas in November, we are more than confident that our prosperous industry will find this cause something to ‘buck up’ for,” said O’Conner.

For more information, and to donate online, please visit: www.ellipseinc.com/BuckUp.

This article was recently published in Volume 4, Issue 1 of Technology Solutions. Please visit www.ellipseinc.com/reviews.asp to read the latest edition of Technology Solutions or to catch up on editions that you might have missed.