In a world of ghost kitchens curated with visual menus and CGI retail to virtually try on before purchasing, it should be no surprise that the multifamily industry is hard-pressed to keep up with today’s virtual demands. So, let’s have a moment of honesty. Today, the virtual experience is significantly more critical than the in-person experience. That’s why digital leasing needs an upgrade in design to accommodate renters’ expectations.
Today, virtual leasing agents powered by AI are the driving force to convert prospects to residents without the prospect or agent ever stepping foot on the property. However, digital leasing is more than providing a robust online presence; it curates a flawless customer journey for the user to navigate, landing them right where both the operator and prospect want them to be. In addition, these virtual leasing agents ensure prospective residents can access virtual tours, ask questions about amenities, and more. Oh, and it needs to be 24/7/365 days a year. So, are you starting to get just how crucial virtual leasing is? If not, give us two more minutes to convince you.
Instant Gratification is Standard Convenience
If your apartment website, chatbot, or leasing team creates an intricate or complicated process for your prospects to gather information, consider your community behind the curve. In the US, 74% of mobile users abandon a site that doesn’t load within 5 seconds. In other words, if accessing information about your community doesn’t look like instant gratification, then the service your website or chatbot offers is purposeless. How difficult is it for prospects to access leasing information after hours? It gets even scarier. During hours of operation, do you know how long your prospective residents are willing to stay on hold to speak with an available agent over the phone? Most individuals will get upset after waiting 2-3 minutes. Yikes. That is not the tone we want to start our customer journey on.
How can we combat the constant drive for instant gratification? Well, we definitely wouldn’t recommend building a sales tactic that forces your prospects to learn patience. (Let’s save that one for therapy). However, we will encourage you to implement a virtual agent available on standby 24/7/365 days a year to accommodate all prospect needs at once. Instant gratification is now considered the standard in customer service.
Tailor Chatbots to Your Audience with Live Data Collection
Digital apartment leasing tools traditionally automate pieces of the leasing process, which is helpful, but automation just scratches the surface of all that the virtual experience should be. Contact forms on property websites are technically a form of online automation. However, it’s an entirely different experience for prospects to interact virtually with a human-like chatbot at their convenience. In fact, it’s an altogether different experience for operators too. Think about it. Websites don’t have conversations with prospects, people do, and leasing agents are limited to the live data they can capture during an in-person conversation. It’s challenging to record emotions, tone of voice, language, topics, and more in real-time and compare them to previous interactions in measurable forms. However, Quext Digital Human continuously learns by accumulating live data to improve in real-time with each interaction. The virtual leasing experience should create professional human-like interactions without compromising on the instant gratification associated with today’s technology. Owners and operators can take their leasing process to the next level with virtual human software that continually improves, working harder, so they don’t have to.
