One of the biggest topics on multifamily right now is resident satisfaction as communities try to retain their residents.In this conversation with Megan Adams, Director of Marketing at Legend Management Group, on how they proactively seek out resident feedback and then adapt their own processes to improve the resident experience.

In this interview, she talks about how her teams leveraged satisfaction scores from SatisFacts to identify opportunities for improvement, as well as establish a foundational culture for seeking out feedback, both good and bad.

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Brent Williams: Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today, we're going to talk about resident satisfaction, but not in a reactive way. We're going to try to get into the heads of our residents, understanding what they're excited about, what they're happy about, but also maybe what they're not happy about.

And today, Megan Adams, who is Director of Marketing at Legend Management Group is going to join me today. Megan, thank you so much for joining me.

Megan Adams: Thanks for having me, Brent.

Brent Williams: Before we get into getting that feedback from residents, I think there's a first element, which is the culture of a company to even want that type of feedback.

I think a lot of companies, they're okay with putting their head in the sand and thinking if the resident hasn't come in the office, if they haven't said anything negative, then they must be fine. But you all have taken a different approach, where you're more proactive and seeking out that, but that comes with a changing culture to actually want negative feedback so you can enact change. Can you talk about that cultural shift?

Megan Adams: Sure. We started doing resident surveys and getting ready resident feedback. Through SatisFacts back in 2010. So it has been a long time since we made that shift to really wanting to know what our customers were thinking, back before the survey program, we had cards that a resident could fill out, but you had to go get them, we didn't see a high engagement rate from that.

So we knew there were systems in place that we could put in action at Legend Management Group and really hear from all of our residents, give all of our residents a voice. And I think part of what is so important is just listening and hearing what their concerns are. If you don't know what you don't know.

So if you're not asking, you're not finding out what are your teams doing amazing at and then where are we missing the mark and need to find ways to improve, put systems in place, add additional training for, specific team members or teams or just in general that needs more training.

So we knew that exceptional customer service has always been a focus and the only way you're going to achieve that level of customer care is if you're asking the residents how they feel and then taking action on anything that comes out from their feedback.

Brent Williams: So let's talk about the difference between reactive and proactive.

So a lot of times, we wait to hear from the residents to walk into the office, or we can actively reach out and have them tell us what they're upset about. Maybe not lead them that much, but in general, get a sense for that. So how do you view the difference between reactive and proactive approach to getting resident feedback?

Megan Adams: So I think reactive is kind of, you're waiting until it's really too late to make a change. The resident is very angry, they've given notice they want to move out and really at that time, you're not going to recover. They have it in their mind that they're unhappy. So proactive is really you're asking them for their feedback.

You're getting ahead of it. You want to know you want to know what we're doing so that way you're ahead of that issue festering too long and you can address it right away. It doesn't go the whole resident life cycle, the whole year before you find out that they're unhappy when it's over. You've sent out the renewal and you're hoping they're going to renew and then you find out, X, Y, and Z is wrong in their apartment home.

So by doing surveys, like an annual survey or right when they move in, hearing how that experience is, then we know, oh, we're doing a great job with it or let's tweak this area of the move in process because it didn't get five stars, and we know that there's something wrong so we can fix it before the next move in.

Brent Williams: Yeah, I love that. Where the notice to vacate is really a complaint card in a lot of ways. That's what it is. It's saying that we were upset and you never resolved it. You're saying they're staying there for a year. There's plenty of time to somehow react to their negative concern.

But if we just don't know it exists, it's impossible. I like how, at the end of the day, by being proactive, it's also sending a message to the residents saying that, you're going to do everything you can and you wanted to reach out and you wanted to try to make things better.And I think that sends a message to residents that way.

You surveyed residents, but you also survey your employees. And you were telling me a story about how you all close up your communities for a half day, I think, for getting caught up on administrative elements.

Can you tell me about that?

Megan Adams: Sure. We're not the first company to do this. It's not groundbreaking, but when we came out of COVID where we had we had done like A and B schedule. And so half a team would work this part of the week, half a team would work the other half of the week and. We found that we could close on Sundays without really impacting our business.

So we closed on Sundays, but then the next round of our team member engagement survey, we found that teams really just still felt like they didn't have time to get all of the administrative tasks done that we're asking them to do. So we, we were like, what can we do?

We put software in place that's supposed to help alleviate some things and save time. But at the end of the day there's always something more that the onsite teams are needing to do and complete. So we said, other companies have tried this and are doing it, so let's try it here.

Let's see if it helps our team members with their satisfaction. Cause at the end of the day, they're satisfied there. Them being happy team members is going to push out to having happy residents. We said, let's try this closing for a half day for administrative tasks. And that can be anything from, team meetings, team building, working on your prospect, follow up doing preferred employer outreach.

So all of these things, we said, let's give it a try. Half a day. We picked a day of the week when we looked at call volume and traffic volume. That was the lowest in the morning time. So we were very mindful of what day to choose. And so we said, we'll close Wednesdays half day in the morning. And we had a few teams that were a little upset about it.

They were like, no, the customers are going to be very angry. What are we going to do? And, we said let's just try it. Let's see what you can accomplish in that time. I'm sure there are things that are not happening that you could do in that time and hopefully it will not be a negative impact on the residents and so we mandated at every community, and then when it came back to our annual survey in May, which was about nine or 10 months into this admin day, the office team scores on satisfaction went up.

I wrote down some numbers, office staff and responsibility and dependability went up over 2.5%, promptly responding to calls and emails went up 2.75% for the portfolio. And those scores were already above the SatisFacts index before our admin days, but now they're in the exceptional range, which is above 4.5%. So it's actually it's helping our teams, I think, respond to resident emails and calls and do follow up and do all of these things where there just wasn't an ever enough time. And now they have this time and the residents are seeing. Obviously a positive outcome, even though they can't come into the office for that half a day.

I think their needs are being met in other ways. And so it's turned into a positive that we're keeping at Legend.

Brent Williams: It's so funny how it's almost counterintuitive. You think it's going to reduce communication because now you're blocking out this time where they cannot communicate with you, at least coming to the office, but it's actually improving communication because they can then get back to people in a more timely fashion.

And they're not distracted. It's not getting pushed off a few more days. I think that's fantastic. Okay. So then you use the resident surveys as a way to finalize that circle. Like you made a change, and then used the resident surveys to then see how that change impacted the resident experience.

And then you close the loop on that process, is that right?

Megan Adams: Yes. Yes. There's a few other things that we put into place based off our team member survey. We have some flex scheduling that they can take advantage of now. And again, that all went into place as well when we rolled out this admin day.

And we have some team members who might not be in the office as much as they were, but the customer is the top priority. And so we're seeing that based on our resident surveys that what we did based off our team member surveys is working. So that was a great win.

Brent Williams: I love that. So that's a great example of getting feedback from your team members to then adjust their systems. And then of course, then it impacted the residents. Any examples of how you proactively got responses from residents and adjusted the resident experience?

Megan Adams: Yeah. So I spoke with one of our properties in particular.

So when we do our annual survey our company has a contest and if you get an exceptional score our president sends that team on an overnight trip. Like a fancy dinner, a very nice hotel. So every team wants to do it. And our teams are very competitive.

And so we had a couple of teams who really catapulted this year into the exceptional level. And so I was like, let's dig deeper and see what you guys did. And so I talked to the one team and I think they really looked at their score. These status tech scores are a main thing that we look at, talk about every meeting, every.

All company meetings. It's always on the forefront. The value of creating an exceptional experience. But I think this team really when they got their 2023 scores back, they were like, you know what? We're not doing it. We're missing the mark. Let's figure out how to take negatives and turn them into a positive.

So this team decided, let's host some town halls. So they invited all their residents. They stayed open a couple of nights throughout the year and they had a town hall and they were like, lay it out for us. What, what's upsetting you, what's not going well in your apartment home or at the community and the team, they provided food.

But it really was about listening to the residents outside of the survey. They sat there and entered every single service request while the residents were there. And it was a full team effort because then, the service team has the next day a slew of unexpected service requests.

The whole team was in and, focused on let's get this, let's do it right. And so through those town halls and listening to the resident concerns and the service team taking action right away, that was one way they turn things around.

At every resident social event, they're not just chit chatting, but they're really asking the residents, how are you feeling? Are you happy in your apartment home? Are you happy here? The grounds scores of this community weren't great. We have a newer groundskeeper who really takes pride in his job, and he talks to the residents and you can see like his actions over the course of the year caused their grounds scores to go up 12%.

Our assistant manager Darius, he decided I'm gonna walk the property every day. Like not only is it gonna make me get healthier, but I'm gonna see everything and I'm gonna see everybody. And so he knows everybody by name and he's interacting with the customers. And again, I wrote down some of their scores, and their office scores went up by an average of 11.75%.

The building exterior went up 13%. We didn't do anything to the buildings. Like we didn't put new siding in, no windows, no roofs. It's just the fact that we're looking at what each building looks like on a daily basis. Common areas went up 21%. Again, we didn't add any new amenities or do anything to the common areas.

I think just the overall sense of pride the team has is showing and the residents see that, and the fact that the team knows every resident by name and is talking to them, they're not just standing in the corner at a resident social. They're really engaging and we've seen that sense of community grow and their sense of community score went up 24%.

So they really got that exceptional score this year. They had their fun night out. And I have no doubt that every year now they're going to reach that mark.

Brent Williams: So many great takeaways from what you just said. Number one, doing a town hall. That takes a lot of courage. I wonder how many communities would feel open to doing something like that because that could be terrifying for a lot of communities.But at the end of the day, it's showing when you're being proactive, it's showing, hey, we care about you.

We care about your experience and we want to do better. Tell us how. And I think that people, when you show somebody that. You're working as hard as you can to resolve theirs and even being proactive about it where maybe nothing was really glaring in that moment, but you still are trying to do better, that sends such an amazing message.

I just absolutely love that. I also think it is one thing to implement a system to getting feedback. There's so many programs could apply to where we sign up for something and then we get the report and we put it in our desk drawer. And that's it. And what it really comes down to is the how do you take what you've learned and actually take it to heart and move forward with those things and make a central piece of what you talk about in a consistent basis to show the importance of of this data.

It's not just a check the box. We asked for feedback and we got our feedback and now we're done. But now let's move on to the next thing. That's hitting our attention. So I think it's all fantastic. And also I love the idea of, hey let's go walk the property.It's also good for our health.

So many amazing takeaways from that. One thing that you mentioned that I think was really interesting is there's a lot of companies who focus on getting a five star review, and that ends up being their goal where problem is that it's not necessarily a focus on improving resident satisfaction, which then creates a five star service.

But rather it creates a scenario where the review is the most important goal and it tends to not be as authentic, whereas if it's a true five star experience, it's much different than just getting a five star review. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

Megan Adams: Sure. So I think our teams are incentivized on their resident satisfaction scores.

And I think that is the case that probably every company or most companies who care about customer service. But I think the problem is there are some communities you're only seeing five star reviews online for them and that's just inauthentic. There's no community that is perfect that doesn't have a single resident complaint.

And I think that the customers see through that. I think SatisFacts did a survey and customers, what was the threshold of the lowest you would go to rent at a community? It was like 3.8 stars. And so I think that shows that customers know there's going to be positives and negatives everywhere.

And not every customer is happy. And sometimes with the negative reviews, do we want to have them? Absolutely not. But they're there and it's how you respond to them. And you can tell when it's just an angry resident that wants to vent and prospects can see that too.

They're not going to not rent at a Legend community because so and so said they didn't get their deposit back. I think they want to see what are the negatives and is it something that I see the team is responding to in their responses or is it something I can live with? Like, Oh, there's not a lot of parking.Maybe I don't have a car. I don't care about parking.

So I think that customers just want to see the true authentic self of the community.And I also think if you only have five stars and someone moves in and it's not a five star experience then they have that expectation and then they're already deciding I'm not staying here next year.

So then your retention takes a hit. So you might get them in the door, but you're not going to keep them and of course our goal is to retain residents. It's a better business to keep residents that are high paying than to have to turn the unit and release it unless the rent is better on the trade out.

But in the end, ultimately our goal is to deliver exceptional customer care. And if you're not getting that feedback on where things are going not great, then you don't have a way to improve it for the other 330 residents at your community say. So you need to know what's happening and customers need to see that Oh, that happened, but I like how the team handled it and responded online.

So I think just building that authentic brand we're not perfect, but our goal is to, make your experience exceptional is what customers are looking for.

Brent Williams: I love that. And the idea of, it's in our best interest to retain residents. And I think that when we think about that trade off between we can get higher rents possibly because the market has changed.I think the reality is, this is my little soapbox moment, I think we can have our cake and eat it too. If you have passionate residents who truly love being there, they're going to pay more for that because that's a great experience for them. And so then we can also get the higher rents and less turnover.

So I think this plays a role in every facet of our profitability as well.

Megan Adams: I think also those residents that are truly happy, like four and a half and above, they're telling friends. So you're going to get the resident referrals. You're going to get the word of mouth, which also helps in your advertising costs.

The more other people are doing that work for you, the less you have to spend. So I think it all relates. If the residents are super happy, they're going to tell their friends, their family, their coworkers. And that word of mouth and that ability to say we are really the best.

Like you, you're hearing it from the people that you trust says a lot about the company.

Brent Williams: I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your story. This has been amazing. So many great takeaways. Everybody, thank you so much for hearing our little story, our little discussion on resident satisfaction, and we will see you next time.

Take care, everybody.