Hug Your Apartment Residents Over The Phone

By Tami Siewruk

Apartment Marketing through Resident Retention

Resident Retention Means Picking Up The Telephone

Every solid apartment marketing  plan should include a resident retention plan. The resident retention plan should include an action that set’s aside one day each quarter just to thank your residents.  Have everyone get on the telephone and call just to say thanks to your residents for being valued members of your community.  You may try calling ten residents a day until you’ve covered the entire community. Don’t stop there… do it again next quarter! You could also text or email your residents. Keep in mind that this may be faster but it does not give you that personal contact with a resident. Text messages can read a variety of different ways. For example: Thank you for being a resident in our community! We hope you are having a great week. Team Sunnyside.

Seems like a lot to text every resident? I’ll show you how you can quickly send text messages. You know it is amazing to me how popular “text-ing” or text messaging has become over the past few years. What is even more amazing to me is the fact that a whole new language has been created and possibly a whole new culture. OMG, IMO it’s crzy 🙂 !

Anyway, as fantastic as all of this may be, I’ve found that if I want to text someone while working on my computer it’s much easier to use Outlook rather than picking up my cell phone for sending a bunch of texts. Granted, I’m not a thumbs texting genius but, I am a decent typist so why not use my bigger keyboard. Not to mention it is easier for me to send an email (thus a text message) easily to more than one person and best of all it’s free (for me the sender that is). I know what you are thinking…if I am on my computer why not send an email? An email can end up in a junk folder or easily get buried and I want the person on the other end to know I am communicating with them. Text message are very important to apartment leasing and management.

How do you do it?

1. Open your e-mail program and compose a new email/text message

2. Address the email using a combination of the resident’s mobile number and the carrier address that I have provided below.

Verizon:000-000-0000@vtext.com
AT&T: 000-000-0000@txt.att.net
Sprint: 000-000-0000@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: 000-000-0000@tmomail.net
Nextel: 000-000-0000@messaging.nextel.com
Virgin Mobile: 000-000-0000@vmobl.com
Alltel: 000-000-0000@message.alltel.com
CellularOne: 000-000-0000@mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint: 000-000-0000@omnipointpcs.com
Qwest: 000-000-0000@qwestmp.com
Boost Mobile: 000-000-0000@myboostmobile.com
Unicel: 000-000-0000@utext.com

Example:

My resident Cathy Star’s numberis 727-784-9469 and she is a Verizon wireless customer. To send her a TXTmessage using my GMAIL account I simply compose a new email, and send it to: 7277849469@vtext.com

Note: Don’t forget that most carriers only allow 160 characters or less for TXT messages.

That’s it! EASY to stand out in the crowd!

Sweet Resident Retention Service

Have your service technicians leave a few pieces of candy with each completed service request, with a preprinted note that reads “Life is sweet at XYZ apartments thanks to caring residents like you!  Thank you for bringing your service needs to our attention.

Tami

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