I've mystery email-shopped a bunch of competitors lately and am flat-out SHOCKED at the LACK of results! The largest companies do fine, as they apparently have training and controls in place. But even mid-sized companies and certainly independently-owned places are failing miserably.
It's easy to set up an anonymous account on Gmail, Live.com and Yahoo. Some tips:
1. Give a few of your aliases ethnic- or race-sounding names.
2. Create a couple email addresses that sound like "troublemakers" such as partyboy4ever at domain.com
3. Go through the company website or portal, not Craigslist, ForRent, ApartmentGuide, etc.
4. Most portals require you to add a phone number. Use (your area code) 555-1212 or make up a number using a prefix that doesn't exist in that area code.
One thing I can tell you is that "Tyrone" and "Ahmed" did not get ANY replies! I find this so hurtful and startling.
My guesses:
1. Leasing agents try the phone number, it doesn't work, and they shrug and say, "Oh well."
2. Some leasing agents look at the name or email address and think, "We don't want him/her."
3. Leasing agents are so busy with paperwork, office admin stuff etc. that they can't properly focus on leasing.
If those are the choices I would hope #3 is the predominant reason. I was once super-swamped with admin stuff as a leasing agent (and heard from a lot of others in the same position) and it's hard to focus on selling in that kind of environment. BUT that's no excuse to violate Fair Housing!
What do you think? Am I naive? I'm just astonished that leads would be IGNORED altogether.
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