Since the coronavirus pandemic hit, apartment operators have had to rethink the prospect visit and the prospect experience at their communities. As such, the term “self-guided tour” has gained significant fanfare - think “business intelligence” of five years ago - and gets tossed around constantly. (It’s even got its own acronym: SGT.)

Unfortunately, a lot of confusion exists around this self-guided tour concept. Operators often are left uncertain about the technologies and solutions they need in place to offer SGTs. Some property managers seem to think all they need to do is install smart locks, but a smart lock alone doesn’t equal a self-guided tour.

The truth is, these tours come in different shapes and sizes. To implement self-guided tours that fit your goals – and to determine what technologies you need to offer them – ask yourself the following questions:

Actually, before you do that, let’s clarify a few things - self-guide tours are not the same thing as virtual tours or even video tours. Virtual tours are when a prospect “visits” a community remotely. A live virtual tour occurs when a leasing associate shows a prospect around a property via a video call. Pre-recorded videos of a community offer prospects another kind of virtual tour. Self-guided tours are when prospects visit a property and tours it unaccompanied by an associate. All of these tours can benefit prospects and communities.

Now, on with the questions:

1. Do you want prospects taking self-guided tours to have any interactions with leasing associates? Some operators seem to think that implementing SGTs means associates have no involvement with the visit. And that’s certainly an option.

But it’s important to remember that people tend to buy from people, and the rapport that an associate establishes with a prospect can go a long way in making the prospective renter choose to sign a lease at your community. Communities can still offer self-guided tours with select interaction points with leasing associates.

No one knows the product like the leasing team, and having an associate talk with a prospect at some point before a self-guided tour can help ensure the prospect’s visit includes the apartment homes and amenities that will persuade them to lease. Conversations after a tour can add a lot of value, too, and offer an opportunity for associates to build and/or strengthen rapport with prospects.

2. What do you want the onsite experience to look like? Do you want the self-guided tour to be fairly scripted, as in the prospect goes to point A, watches a video, goes to Point B, watches another video, etc.? Or do you want more of a custom experience where the prospect visits the apartments and amenity spaces at their leisure and in their preferred order?

The answers to these questions can determine whether you need to add beacons and/or additional touchscreens throughout the community and what kind of devices prospects will need with them as they make their way through a property.

Communities that don’t have the budget for smart locks and a lock management system - or that do but still want their team to have customer touch points - CAN still implement self-guided tours. Likewise, it is possible to flip the script and have no interaction with the team whatsoever.

Operators also need to consider whether they will offer self-guided tours after hours, as this will impact the infrastructure you’ll need to have in place.

3. How will prospects be able to sign up for self-guided tours? In today’s digitally driven world, you may want to incorporate online self-schedulers into your property’s website. This tool can allow a prospect to sign up for a self-guided tour, an associate-led tour or a virtual tour.

4. Will your self-touring solutions be able to integrate fully with your property management system? If not, then you could be in trouble. You definitely need to make sure you understand to what degree there is integration. If self-tours take place in a separate silo from the property management system, then leasing teams have no knowledge of who is touring, and it can make follow-up difficult and less effective.

And if there is a limited integration, the only data that ends up in your property management system is a first name, last name, phone number and address. That’s not substantial enough to give you the kind of data that you need 1) for your pricing models and 2) for your team to follow up with the prospect afterward. It could also lead to teams entering in the same data twice.

Self-guided tours were beginning to emerge in the apartment industry even before COVID-19, but the pandemic has no doubt profoundly accelerated their adoption.

Let’s face it: self-guided tours are here to stay - and that’s a good thing for the industry. Moving forward, communities will distinguish themselves not by merely offering these tours but by the experience they create with them.

It’s time to embrace this technology - but an enthusiastic embrace should be accompanied by carefully mapping out the experience you want to create and making sure you have the right solutions and supplier partners in place. Otherwise, self-guided tours won’t work for you or your prospects.