As we head into the Labor Day weekend residents will be heading out of town to visit family, welcoming visitors into town, or heading out to picnics and “firing up the grill.” Can you believe it, the unofficial end of summer is here? Next week we’ll all be “back to the grind.”

An event coming a week later has some of us at D2 Demand excited (but not Donald…he’s a PC/Android guy). On September 12th, Apple will be hosting their annual event to announce their new iPhones, and Apple Watches, oh yeah, and one more thing. This got us thinking about how multifamily operators can use technology to make residents (and prospects) happier.

So instead of writing about pricing and revenue strategies, sales performance improvement programs and multifamily technology and business intelligence, all of which drive NOI for operators; we thought we’d turn our attention to your residents.

Here are four ways multifamily operators can use technology to improve the resident experience:

1. Embrace IoT (the Internet of Things)

The Internet of Things is all the rage today. We’d point out that much of the excitement is more hype than anything else. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon because “everybody else is doing it;” but don’t ignore it either.

While “smart” technology (thermostats, refrigerators, doorbells, etc.) are getting the bulk of attention, here are a couple less obvious ways you can use IoT:

• Provide a wearable as move-in or renewal gifts - who wouldn’t love a new FitBit, well we’re sure there’s someone, but they’d likely be happy to give it to someone else as a gift themselves.

• Provide ultra high-speed Internet access to residents as either an amenity or even at a fee.

2. Use Chatbots On Your Website to Provide 24/7/365 Support

Chatbots are among the fastest growing tools that marketers and customer service organizations are utilizing. With the help of AI-powered chatbots businesses, including multifamily operators, are fare better equipped to handle a variety of customer service functions. These “virtual assistants” fulfill a resident’s desire of getting instant service and support. All of this happens while the resident is on their device (whatever device they’re using) and enables them, and you, to avoid a phone call. This leads to a better experience and lower costs.

What’s more, chatbots are easy to deploy where the resident “is.” While you would certainly want to use a chatbot on your site, they can also be easily integrated into Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, mobile apps and more.

3. Use Mobile Apps

From the time that Steve Jobs stepped on the stage to introduce the Apps Marketplace, mobile apps have been the rage. Many operators already integrate apps into their resident experience strategy; if you’re not one of them then you should develop a mobile app strategy. Mobile apps enhance the experience for residents and lower the costs for the provider - truly a win/win.

A mobile app strategy can involve either building your own “community” app or leveraging the growing number of “off the shelf” apps that are being created for resident use.

4. Turn High Friction Events to No Touch Experiences

Hertz did it with the #1 Club Gold. Grocery stores are doing with it self-service checkout. Amazon has taken what grocery stores have done to the extreme to build a store with no checkout whatsoever.

These are all examples of how service providers have taken touchpoints that historically created friction between the customer and the provider and eliminated, or drastically reduced, the need for human touch, giving the customer the feel of more control and a better experience, while also reducing costs.

Property management groups have started moving in this direction with things like package delivery and some have begun to experiment with self-touring options for prospects.

The bottom line is that technology, when integrated into your service delivery experience effectively, can be a great enabler and accelerator of both improving the experience of your residents and prospects, while also enabling the business to lower costs, improve efficiency and even gain capacity.