I’m interested in how you all enforce onsite employees to respond to internet leads.

I’m interested in how you all enforce onsite employees to respond to internet leads. Here’s my story.
I’m relocationg to Denver- way different than the Vegas market. Looking to rent an apartment until I decide which area to purchase 9-12 month lease.
I have done over 50 online inquiries for apartments this week through Apartments.com Forrent.com and property websites and guess how many I have heard back from 1!
Drive to multiple sites and they have signage to call or visit there website to schedule anappointment, we do that and guess how many have reached out 0.
My previous company was big on follow up of internet leads so this was naturally my instinct when looking for my new place. Note I will be working for an agency that only has affordable units so living on site is not an option.

Our company standard is to reply within 2 hours of an internet lead. If you don't have success, let me know. We have beautiful properties and Cortland living is an amazing experience!

As a company we respond to all email leads and regular emails at max an hour, although the goal is 30 minutes. Also check your Spam folder just in case their replies went there.

Britni nothing in spam, first thing I thought of. I’m just in awe that during these times online Leeds aren’t being answered.

We respond within the hour and do not go home until our queue is cleared out. Happy to be of assistance.

Something to think about, how many of these responses are from places you inquired?? Keep that in mind before you lease, if no response when you are trying to lease, it will only get worse if you do.

Tracy I will not lease anywhere where from the first point of contact there is no communication. I’ve been in the industry 15 years in Nevada and seriously just blown away at the nonexistent responses I’ve gotten.

Know how many internet leads I respond to and actually get a response back....0

Yes, I do the same and I'm floored of the level of zero follow up or customer service these days. Need to move but I am re thinking apt living. Cost is unbelievably high and you would think that price would come with awesome customer service but no. I would just pass out if someone sent an actual ty note. Have to find an alternative to apts.

That’s a shame! If you are looking near Centennial, give us a shout! My personal email is [email protected]. We have a brand new lease up in Centennial ????

My friend is relocating to California from Oregon. We called/emailed so many properties and property management companies. Absolutely 0 responded back. Thank goodness I have a good friend that works in the industry and had an apartment at one of her properties. If it wasn’t for her my friend wouldn’t be able to move and start her new job. We contact everyone back within a day. We were so confused.

I knew an owner operator that owned an office building in Denver, and they said they sold it and left the market because everyone was so laid back, they couldn't find the type of employee they were used to.

Same thing happened to me when I was moving from NC to FL! I even put in the details of my email leads that I was a property manager, asked lots of questions, etc. On average I heard back from 1 out of 10 and even those responses were canned copy paste responses that didn’t answer any of my questions. ????????‍♀️. And now that I’m on the advertising side, we get complaints quite often that “email leads don’t convert” hmmm wonder why? ????

Well on the plus side you've identified a way of setting yourself apart from your competitors ????

Honestly here in California I rarely get anybody who leases from either one of those companies. The ones that Work best for me are craigslist and Facebook. I almost always convert leases from them.

I make sure that I see the leads that my people are getting and if I don't see them in guest in Yardi I ask them why ?
And well if I get a blank look I call the person and if the call goes to voicemail I leave my information and them email them my availability.
If they get back in contact with me I take the lead and get that lease.

"This is a mandatory part of your job. If you don't follow up on leads, then I will find someone who will."....and use a CRM that tracks all of this.

I was going to be in Orlando and Tampa for a week (family obligation), but thought I’d tour a building or two so I could bring some ideas back home to St. Louis. I reached out a week before my trip.
I got 1 response — 2 months later.

I had the same issue when I relocated. It happened that I went to make my mortgage payment they had an REO section of for rents. Thats how I happened to find the landing pad in my new state. It was harsh getting no responses.

Let me know if you're ever looking to move to the STL market. I would love to be of assistance in your move as it's stressful enough therefore part of my job is to make it as less stressful for you as I can ????

I manage 400 doors in Denver and have this issue with every leasing agent I hire. They just don't see (or care about) the power of follow ups. The queue is cleared daily, but when I dig down the follow up wasn't performed properly. When I was leasing follow ups were my meal ticket!

I ALWAYS respond to all requests. Phone or on-line even if I'm 100% occupancy.

It's possible that some leasing agents will not follow up if they know from experience that the source doesn't convert. The past several years have afforded the luxury of being able to pick the low hanging fruit and if traffic and trend drop, revenue management will take care of it. This isn't a good practice, obviously, and the next couple of years are going to be tougher. Follow up procedures and reporting are about to be back in vogue!

We use LMS which tracks every lead. Protocol is to respond within 4 hours to the first email or call. The rest within 24 hrs. Corporate also shops once a month. If they are not responding to leads then they are throwing away any money spent on advertising.

I run a property in Vegas. We have a system that sends us leads via email and my agents need to respond within 5 hours. Best of luck! Sorry to hear it’s been tough.

That is horrible! We call and/or email every single lead that comes in from apartments.com. My Leasing Specialist is amazing at follow ups! Once she contacts a lead she will puts a follow up reminder in our software (Entrata) to contact them again in a few days. We both receive every lead from the internet in our emails so I spot check her by looking them up in our software to make sure they have been entered. Phone leads are also recorded in our software when the prospect is prescreened by phone and is interested. Some phone calls do not lead to tours or apps because they have said the rent is too high or dont qualify for some bbn other reason. I have always been taught to repond within 24 hours. Sometimes you cannot respond within 5 hours because we receive emails ik ls at all hours of the night and weekends. We are always thanked by the leads when we call them. Sometimes they even seemed shocked they got a call back! We are in Michigan!

I can tell you my experience as a vendor in the marketing space. I’ve had clients tell me that leads seem fake and when I inquire more about this I soon find out that they hadn’t even called the prospect. I always tell them “how many times did it take me to get ahold of you?”. I’ve even called the leads myself for further investigation and 9 times out of 10 the leasing agent never followed up with them by phone or email.

Seems to me that they need some Best Practices in place and something to hold them accountable. I would be interested in what some of the management companies were that you inquired with. Feel free to PM me

Up the leasing bonus
Give a write up for incorrect or ignored follow ups
Revoke one commission for every ignored lead
Give them time to follow up, schedule this, let them do this uninterrupted
Use a system (like Resman) where you can run a follow up report and it will specify if they were called, emailed, or texted. From there you can drill down and see what was the result of each follow up.
Notating each prospect communication with the follow up and result
They aren’t doing it, because you as a manager aren’t checking their work or punishing them for not doing so