Evaluating Lead Response Strategies at Top Multifamily...

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Large companies ignore interested prospective residents and leasing management lacks visibility of agent activities

Evaluating Lead Response Strategies at Top Multifamily Companies

EXECUTIVESUMMARYVelocify’s analysis of lead response strate-gies at top multifamily companies found that every one of the companies studied underperformed on key lead response benchmarks. In fact, 80% of multifamily companies failed to attempt contact with a new lead via telephone within an aver-age of 24 hours after the lead was submit-ted, though 90% percent of companies responded via email within the same time frame. Beyond sluggish phone follow-up, 40% of all prospects did not receive a single call, clearly demonstrating an unacceptably low level of responsiveness to consumers. Perhaps even more troubling, though, is the lack of consistency in response tactics among different properties owned by the same company, demonstrating a lack of directed sales activities by management.

These are some of the key findings of a two-part study commissioned by Velocify on the responsiveness to apartment leads by multifamily companies. Part 1 of the study focused on four Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are critical measures and indicators of a leasing agent’s lead

response strategy to property website inquiries: speed-to-call, speed-to-email, number of call attempts and number of email attempts. Part 2 of the study exam-ined response strategy to phone contact at-tempts made through a property’s Internet Listing Service (ILS) listings. The study noted whether the leasing consultant re-quested critical lead information during that phone conversation (name, phone, email and whether the caller was able to schedule a property tour appointment), and the num-ber and method of contact attempts by the leasing consultant after a missed property tour appointment.

The resulting data indicates that at least a few apartment operators have invested in processes and technologies that allow them to respond to leads via email or phone within minutes, two KPIs for maximizing their opportunity to build a relationship and get a lease signed. At the same time, many properties underperformed against both their peers and best practices in email and call responsiveness, limiting their leasing potential, frustrating prospective residents, and diminishing the effectiveness of their marketing effort and spending.

The Four KPIs for Leasing Success

Volume - Call Attempts Volume - Email Attempts

Speed-to-EmailSpeed-to-Call

Leasing Strategy





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PARTONE:RESULTSOFINQUIRIESTOPROPERTYWEBSITESDespite the fact that rent fundamentals across the country are rebounding, the market for prospective renters is still com-petitive. Identifying, contacting and leasing to the most qualified renters through a consistent and customer-friendly process is critical to success for any property.

In most major metropolitan areas, any-one considering renting an apartment has dozens of properties from which to choose. When a prospect directly reaches out to a property by filling out an online lead form, guest card or rental application, the race should be on for a leasing agent to make a strong connection with the prospect. Swift speed-to-contact is an essential element of a successful leasing strategy for any leasing professional.

Previous Velocify research has demon-strated that attempting to contact a lead within one minute of its receipt increases the likelihood of eventually getting a lease signed by 391% over calling anytime later. This dramatic increase is due to the fact that prospects are the most likely to engage with a property immediately after their initial inquiry, making it vital to be the first property to establish contact.

From the renter’s perspective, getting quick, thoughtful attention from a leasing professional builds confidence, attachment, and interest in the property. Information shared about a property will have a much better chance of getting traction if it is delivered to prospective renters when they are most receptive and before competing properties have had an opportunity to dis-cuss benefits of their communities. It also tells a prospective resident that the property cares about them, which leads to the belief that the community will care about them if they chose to live there. A slow response can, alternatively, create a negative percep-tion. Prospects could easily conclude that if the property is slow to respond now, it might also be slow to respond to a mainte-nance request or other needs once they are a resident.

However, despite the clear benefits of rapid lead response, most of the apart-ment operators studied showed at least some deficiency in their speed-to-call and speed-to-email metrics. Of the multifamily property management companies surveyed (Companies A-J), each of which had mul-tiple properties evaluated, the median time it took to receive the first phone call was over 27 hours. On average, the first email

was sent more than 10 hours after the lead was received, leaving significant room for improvement.

A few companies stood out in terms of best performance in individual categories. It took less than one day, on average, for Company A to call leads, making it the best performer in the speed-to-call category. One of the best performers in the speed-to-email category, Company C, reached out to new prospects within one minute, but the company made a call attempt to only one of the leads submitted.

Any property manager or multifamily executive

looking to boost appoint-ments and signed

leases has a real oppor-tunity to do so by being

more responsive than the competition.





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Though some leasing professionals are likely to have some process and application technologies for managing inbound leads, all leasing professionals can make improve-ments to their processes to reliably contact leads. The performance demonstrated during the study hinders their ability to schedule appointments and transform leads into leases.

Properties that are staying ahead of the curve and contacting prospective renters much faster than their competitors have created a considerable advantage over their competitors by following a more consis-tent and reliable approach to dealing with

leads. Other properties, however, were less focused on the value of being a first responder and some failed to respond by phone at all. Company J , for example, made their first call attempt an average of more than 9 days after receiving an initial inquiry, while Company I waited an average of more than 4 days to make a first call. To its credit, Company B’s best response time to one lead was 8 minutes, demonstrating the wide range of potential performance within the industry.

As mentioned previously, 40% of all prospects did not receive a single call. Perhaps some of the inquiries to company

websites went unanswered because there was no rental availability, despite their website stating the contrary. While this may seem perfectly logical to a multi-tasking, over-burdened leasing professional, the property owner must consider the bigger picture. In this day of multiple social media and review websites, where renters can ex-press their opinion about a property, a ne-glected prospective resident can let people know en masse that they were disregarded and surmise what that means about how the property handles its residents.

Speed to Call (Days)

Company A

Company D

Company H

Company G

Company I

Company B

Company E

Company J

Company C

Company F

109876543210Days

No Calls Made

Figure A

Best Practice: Under 1 Minute





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A similar responsiveness pattern ex-ists with the second KPI: speed-to-email (Figure B). While presenting the value of an apartment might not naturally fit within the static confines of an email, some prospects prefer email as a medium. Email’s importance should not be ignored, especially considering its cost-efficiency. In today’s market, an email costs just pennies to send, and sacrificing an opportunity to present good information about a property is short-sighted. Many property managers

and apartment executives have priori-tized getting informative email content to prospective renters fast, primarily using auto-response technologies.

In this study, properties at four of the companies sent an email within an aver-age of 1 minute of receiving the lead. The delayed responses from other companies could be due to the properties wanting to have a response that is personalized by the leasing professional. While admirable to wait, these companies could instead update

their auto-responders to software that personalizes the initial email. Company F’s email response rate was the lowest at 60%, and two of Company F‘s properties failed to respond by email or phone.

The implications of this study are that any property manager or multifamily executive looking to boost appointments and signed leases has a real opportunity to do so by being more responsive than the competition.

Company H

Company C

Company B

Company E

Company D

Company G

Company A

Company I

Company J

Company F

140120100806040200Minutes

Figure B

Best Practice: 20 Minutes

Speed to Email (Minutes)





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The next two KPIs benchmarked in this initial performance study measured the number of contact attempts being made for each lead. A gut feeling may make it easy to rationalize the extremes of mak-ing too many or too few contact attempts. Some may see the idea of making as many contact attempts as necessary to reach the prospect as appropriate persistence. At the same time, it’s also easy to argue to initiate

only a few calls and emails under the belief that it frees up time for leasing agents to focus on other prospects or other activities. Unfortunately, research has demonstrated that neither of these approaches is most effective. The key to a successful leasing strategy is to make the optimal number of call-attempts and emails; not too few and not too many.

Prior Velocify research that looked at millions of leads has demonstrated the op-timal number of nurturing emails to send to each lead prior to contact is five. As Figure C shows, only two companies came close to hitting that mark by averaging between four and six emails, while the rest of the compa-nies surveyed sent too few emails.

Company F

Company E

Company B

Company D

Company C

Company I

Company J

Company H

Company G

Company A

6543210Emails

Figure C

Average Number of Emails per Inquiry

Best Practice:5 is Ideal





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Leasing agents also failed to follow up on leads with a healthy number of call attempts (Figure D). After comparing thousands of leads, Velocify research has determined the optimal number of calls to maximize contact rates without over-investing time and resources into unresponsive leads is 6, yet only one of the companies surveyed av-eraged more than 5 call attempts per lead.

Company B did an excellent job of making an average of almost 6 contact attempts. In contrast, the average number of contact attempts was 2.3, much too low to maximize the likelihood of lead conversion.

Just as calling too frequently is a waste of leasing resources, calling too infrequently can be a costly error. Company I not only waited an average of more than four days

to make their first call attempt, but also averaged only one call attempt. By failing to put enough effort into contacting pros-pects quickly and with optimal frequency, multifamily companies could be missing out on an easy, cost efficient best practice to improve their overall yield and leasing results.

Company F No Calls

Company C

Company I

Company D

Company J

Company E

Company A

Company G

Company H

Company B

65 743210Calls

Figure D

Average Number of Calls per Inquiry

Best Practice:6 is Ideal





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Figure E

Call and Email AttemptsCalls

Min./Max Avg.

Emails

The biggest overall problem among companies surveyed was lack of consistency in response to prospects among different properties owned by the same company. Only one company was consistent about the number of calls made or emails sent from all of its properties. However, that company emailed all inquiries only once, significantly less than the 5 email response best practice recommended by Velocify research. Even companies that did well as

a whole on all the KPIs weren’t consistent from one of their properties to the next.

The disparity of responses (both call and email attempts) from different properties sharing a property owner is shown in Figure E below.

Inconsistency could be an indication that multifamily companies are leaving contact strategy up to leasing agents at each of their respective properties rather than having consistent processes in place. Alternatively, the leasing leadership may be training their

leasing consultants on a contact strategy, but it is not being followed and the leasing leaders lack a way to report on it. It also appears that there is no system that tells leasing agents when and how many emails to send. Overall, this type of inconsistency indicates a lack of centralized, controllable, repeatable, prioritizable, reportable, guided leasing process. Without a consistent leasing process or the ability to monitor and enforce it, prospects will inevitably fall through the cracks.





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PARTTWO:RESULTSOFIN-QUIRIESMADEVIAINTER-NETLISTINGSERVICESInternet Listing Services (ILS) play a sig-nificant role in today’s multifamily property marketing ecosystem. Renters often start their search at these third party aggrega-tors, which act as a virtual one-stop-shop for information on available apartments, making them a valuable top-of-the-funnel resource for multifamily properties. Part 2 of the study examined how companies that use five of these services perform at responding to inbound calls from an ILS. The ILS sites included in this study are: ApartmentFinder.com; ApartmentGuide.com; Apartments.com; ForRent.com; and Rent.com. The study noted whether the leasing consul-tant who answered the phone requested information during that phone conversa-

tion (name, phone, and email of the caller), whether the caller was able to schedule a property tour appointment, and -- once the appointment was missed by the prospective renter -- the number of contact attempts by the leasing consultant to the lead.

As with Part 1 of the study, the resulting data indicates a variety of response strate-gies and a wide range of performance in terms of responsiveness. The performance demonstrated during the study showed that leasing professionals are frequently ignoring or providing insufficient and inconsistent follow-up with well-qualified leads.

Because Velocify’s best practices call for a combined phone and email response strategy for best results, the study measured whether the leasing agent who answered the call gathered all three contact data points -- caller’s name, phone number and

email address -- necessary for a multimodal response strategy.

The study also examined whether the caller was able to schedule a property tour appointment. Scheduling a property tour appointment is generally seen as the action that indicates success at moving the lead down the leasing funnel. More than half of properties studied failed to call the prospect when he or she missed the scheduled tour appointment.

There was a mix of how the calls were answered, with 42% answered by the prop-erty directly, and 42% an automated transfer to the property (where the caller is guided to press a number for the desired prop-erty), and 2% answered by a call center. A troublesome 14% of the calls were not able to be completed because there was either no answer, no number or a wrong number listed on the ILS listing.

Call Center2%

No Answer/ Wrong Number

14%

PropertyAnswered

42%

AutomatedTransfer to Property

42%

Figure F

Answer Method





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The vast majority (78%) of calls placed through an ILS were answered, with only 8% requiring the caller to leave a message. Everyone who answered asked for the lead’s name, though only 87% collected a phone number and 77% an email address. Only 64% collected all three critical pieces of in-formation. Surprisingly, there was no answer and no way to leave a voicemail message at two properties, despite the call occurring during working hours.

Because most people wouldn’t lease an apartment without first seeing it in person, scheduling a tour is widely considered a critical milestone in the leasing funnel, and should be a primary goal of a leasing agent’s conversation with a prospective resident.

The vast majority of leasing agents in the study did well in this area: callers were able to schedule a tour 72% of the time, with another 8% enabling the caller to request a tour by leaving a voicemail. A small portion of properties surveyed (6%) didn’t offer a tour at all or had no availability despite hav-ing an active listing on the ILS.

In contrast, the study found an unan-ticipated lack of response after a missed tour appointment. All scheduled tours were missed, yet only 62% of those who sched-uled and missed tours received a follow-up response. As seen in Figure G, 25% of properties followed up with phone calls only, 20% sent emails only and 17% followed up with both phone calls and emails. This is

a troublesome oversight because a lead that has scheduled a tour should be considered a highly interested lead and follow-up should, therefore, be a very high priority. Failure to follow up after a missed tour appointment is also an indication of a failure by the prop-erty management system to correctly iden-tify and prioritize these very qualified leads.Previous studies performed by Velocify and other reputable organizations have shown the performance gains that can be obtained when multiple methods are used in concert. Overall, properties had dismal performance when compared to industry best practices and Velocify research, which found that the most productive contact strategy is a com-bined one that includes 6 calls and 5 emails.

Figure G

Follow-up to Missed Tour

No Tour Scheduled20%

Phoneand

Email17%

Email Only20%

Phone Only25%

Follow-up: 62%

No Follow-up38%





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Lack of consistency in response to prospects among different properties owned by the same company was also a significant issue in this situation as it was with response strategies examined in Part 1 of the study. Company D and Company I were the most inconsistent from one property to the next, with their properties sending anywhere from zero to 8 emails in response to a missed appointment. Company D also had the greatest variation in call back strategy, with properties calling back between zero and 15 times.

CONCLUSIONVelocify’s study demonstrates that there is a wide range of responsiveness and clearly different contact strategies among many well-known multifamily companies. While a few demonstrated their ability to meet one or more of the KPI benchmarks, none really showed consistent, across-the-board suc-cess that would maximize their chances of leasing to the highest number of qualified prospects. Ultimately, there is a substantial opportunity to improve performance at many of the properties across most of the benchmarks, most notably consistency. By focusing on the four KPIs highlighted here, property owners, managers and leasing

agents can work smarter, increasing applica-tions, appointments and signed leases while decreasing marketing expenditures and improving advertising ROI.

For leasing professionals across the industry, the implications of this study are both immediately tactical and strategic. Multifamily properties with a well-designed and disciplined approach as well as the systems and metrics to consistently enforce and deliver on their strategy will come out on top. For smaller multi-unit complexes competing with larger properties, there is a clear opportunity to be more nimble in win-ning over new renters, while improving the leasing process experience.

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Call and Email Follow-ups

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THESTUDYMETHODOLOGYFor this study, Velocify Researchers con-ducted a two-part study of the multifamily industry to gauge how effectively leasing agents responded to rental prospects’ on-line inquiries and phone calls. The first part of the study, conducted between 7/23/2013 and 8/24/2013, analyzed the number of emails and calls placed by the sample of multifamily providers, plus the speed with which a first call was placed following the submission of a lead on a multifamily prop-erty’s website. The second part of the study, which was conducted between 8/2/2013 and 8/25/2013, analyzed responsiveness of leads generated via five major Internet List-ing Services. The study reviewed whether someone answered the phone number post-ed on the ILS listing, and if so which of the following steps they took: 1) whether they tried to schedule a tour 2) collect the name of the caller 3) collect an email address from the caller 4) collect a phone number from the caller. The survey also looked at how many contact attempts (emails and/or calls) were made after the prospect missed their tour appointment.

INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY STUDY METHODOLOGYTo conduct the analysis, researchers visited the targeted properties’ websites and submitted an application lead. Leads were submitted for all properties within the same two day window for all properties surveyed. All properties received similar information on prospects, though variations exist in lead capture forms. Once an inquiry was submitted, each communication attempt from the property was electronically logged

for evaluation. Logging of responses for fre-quency and persistence lasted for a month. Due to the established relationship between the process and discipline of contacting a rental prospect and the likelihood of leasing to that prospect, the focus of the study was to measure the response strategy during the pre-contact period (after an inquiry has been made, and prior to when any actual contact is made). Velocify researchers posing as interested renters at no point re-sponded to any of the communications. The average number of contact attempts made by each of the properties was calculated by averaging the total number of email or call attempts all prospects received for each corresponding property over the period of up to one month. Once aggregated, Velo-cify compared each property’s performance against its peers and ranked performance.

INTERNET LEAD SERVICE (ILS) STUDY METHODOLOGYTo conduct the analysis, researchers visited the five targeted Internet Leads Service (ILS) websites and called 50 properties listed on these sites. Calls were made within the same four-day window for all ILS sites surveyed, between 9 AM and 4 PM PST and spaced out throughout the four-day period. All ILS sites received similar infor-mation on prospects. Once a call was made with the leasing agent reached or a message left, each communication attempt from the ILS or property listed on the ILS was electronically logged for evaluation. Col-lecting of responses lasted for 19 days when measuring contact attempts after a missed tour appointment.

Due to the established relationship between the process and discipline of

contacting a rental prospect and the likeli-hood of leasing to that prospect, the focus of the study was to measure the response strategy during the follow-up period (from when the prospect calls the leasing office until 19 days after a missed tour appoint-ment). Velocify researchers posing as interested rental prospects at no point responded to any of the communications after the missed appointment. After col-lecting and logging relevant data, research-ers calculated the average contact attempts for each of the properties. The average was calculated for all rental leads correspond-ing to each property and ILS. The aver-ages shown in this report only reflect the contact attempts for prospects who actually received a contact attempt. Some prospects did not receive a call or an email within the time period allotted for inclusion in this contact calculation.

ABOUTVELOCIFYVelocify is a market-leading provider of cloud-based intelligent leasing software, designed for high-velocity environments. Velocify helps leasing teams keep pace with the speed of opportunity and improve con-version rates by driving rapid lead response, increased discipline, improved productivity, and actionable insights for decision makers. The company has helped more than 1,500 companies across a variety of industries improve customer acquisition practices and sales performance. Velocify was recently recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in North America by Deloitte. For more information, visit: velocify.com/multifamily

http://www.velocify.com/multifamily/





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PHONE CALL STRATEGY – BEST PRACTICES

Velocify Best Practices: Benchmarks Measured

Speed-to-call is an essential component of any sound inquiry response strategy. In an increasingly competitive Internet age where prospects have access to many different market options, following up quickly is one of the most important factors to successful conversion. Velocify research has shown that speed-to-con-tact is an important conversion driver: Responding to inquiries within 1 minute resulted in a 391% improvement in con-version rate.

The number of calls attempted is also an important metric of a successful leas-ing strategy. Maximize the value of each inquiry by attempting contact six times. Giving up too soon or spending too much

time on ultimately unproductive prospects can significantly undercut the number of new leases signed. Velocify research shows that 93% of converted leads are contacted

by the 6th attempt. Calling six times (The 6 Call Standard) resulted in nearly the maximum possible contact rate, with minimum opportunity costs.

EMAIL STRATEGY – BEST PRACTICES

CO

NVERSION

400%

300%Im

prov

emen

t in

Lead

Con

vers

ion

Rate

Time Elapsed

200%

100%

05 hrs.1 hr. 24 hrs.30 mins.3 mins.2 mins.1 min.

391%

160%

98%62%

36% 24% 17%

Lead Conversion Over Elapsed Time

Sending emails to potential renters that have expressed interest but who may not be immediately ready to sign a lease, is a cheap, easy, and effective way to acquire new customers that would otherwise be missed. Velocify research shows that the first email should be sent to a potential

renter 20 minutes after the lead is gener-ated. Additionally, research shows that the optimal number of email messages to send during the first month of a pros-pect’s lifetime prior to contact is five. The conversion rate for leads that were sent more than five email messages prior to

reaching a prospect was 36% lower than the conversion rate for leads that were reached after having received one to five email messages. If your company does not automatically respond to every lead via email, your company is certainly missing out on significant new revenue.

6 7 8 9543210

Number Call Attempts to Make First Contact

93% ofconverted leads are contacted by the6th call attempt.

100%

90%

80%

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50%

40% 1st CallAttempt48%

70%81%

86%90%

94% 96% 97%

30%

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Call Attempts to Make Initial Contact

THE ULTIMATE CONTACT STRATEGY – BEST PRACTICES

Knowing when to make the six phone calls and when to send the five email messages will further improve your conversion rates. Velocify research shows that following the timing strategies outlined in The Ultimate Contact Strategy can

improve net conversion rates by 128%. Time your contact attempts during periods that have been shown to be most advanta-geous to maximize the odds of converting prospects into customers.

http://pages.velocify.com/UltimateContactStrategy.html

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