When you have a service that you passionately feel provides a significant return for your clients, seeing the evidence of that is extremely rewarding! Many in our industry have always believed that focusing on the basics of property management was the key to minimizing unnecessary and controllable turnover – thus maximizing retention and renewals. What is so exciting for us is that not only does our research confirm this, but it also shows there is a clear, bottom line benefit for companies that focus attention on how well the basics are being delivered.
The best evidence we see is when we review the results for clients who survey their residents annually. We have seen that those companies that are totally committed to tracking satisfaction and using the findings to help guide management, marketing and retention plans – see the tangible benefit of improved performance. In a previous article we shared the incredible results one of our clients with a 5,000 unit portfolio of “B” and “C” rated communities experienced over the course of two years. Now we’d like to share another wonderful example – this time again using a smaller portfolio. One of the reasons for using this new example is that it shows you do not have to have a large portfolio and unlimited resources to be able to dramatically impact property performance – the key comes down to an understanding of what really impacts satisfaction and making sure that your property team consists of people who take pride in their work and focus on performing their job to the best of their ability.
This article looks at the change a client with an 1,800 unit portfolio of “B and “C” rated communities saw in their survey results from 2001 to 2002. After receiving their SatisFacts “Annual” Resident SatisFaction Telesurvey reports for their portfolio for the first time in 2001, the company then did exactly what we recommend to our clients – they reviewed the reports to identify specific property issues and then developed very focused action plans that addressed issues impacting satisfaction and retention.
When we completed the surveys for their portfolio this year, we saw some very exciting things:
-Using the results from our previous year’s reports, they were able to take actions that clearly increased resident satisfaction and the likelihood to renew.
-This confirmed the importance of a responsive and dependable property office staff, promptly handling maintenance requests, ensuring quality workmanship, and making sure to minimize outstanding service issues, as improvements in these areas dramatically impacted overall satisfaction.
-The results also confirmed the correlation we have already reported on between meeting resident needs with regards to promptly and properly taking care of service requests – and the likelihood to renew.
Specifically, how did results improve from 2001 to 2002? Let’s look at Table 1 for the answers.
Table 1: Client Portfolio 2001 Vs. 2002 SatisFacts Score Comparison* | |||
|
Item |
Company 2002 Average |
Company 2001 Average |
Percent Change |
|
Percent of Properties Winning SatisFacts Superior SatisFaction Award (4.00+ Avg. Score) |
71% |
0% |
¥ |
|
Average Score |
4.15 |
3.78 |
10% |
|
“Very Likely” to Renew Lease |
62% |
41% |
50% |
|
Apartment |
3.99 |
3.64 |
10% |
|
Office - Responsive, Dependable |
4.17 |
3.80 |
10% |
|
Maintenance - Response Time |
4.17 |
3.63 |
15% |
|
Maintenance - Quality of Work |
4.20 |
3.78 |
11% |
|
Maintenance - Problems Still Exist |
12% |
35% |
-66% |
|
Exterior Curb Appeal |
4.18 |
3.87 |
8% |
|
Building Interiors |
4.08 |
3.86 |
6% |
|
Safety, Security |
4.19 |
3.90 |
8% |
|
*5 point rating scale, with 1 “Extremely Dissatisfied” up to a 5 being “Extremely Satisfied”. SatisFacts considers a score below 3.0 to be a “Warning Signal,” a score of 3 - 3.5 a “Red Flag,” 3.5 - 4.0 is “Average,” while 4.0 - 4.5 is “Superior” and scores above 4.5 are “Exceptional.” | |||
While a number of scores increased from 6% to 10% from the first to the second year, the most dramatic rating increases for the portfolio came with their performance in the areas of “Maintenance Response Time” and “Maintenance Problems Still Exist”. As we have indicated in previous articles, our findings have shown there is a very clear correlation between the percent of residents with outstanding service requests and the likelihood to renew – as the percent of residents with outstanding service requests increases, the percent of residents responding that they are “Very Likely” to renew drops correspondingly. Using the 2001 survey results – that identified more attention needed to be directed to how well requests were being handled – as an impetus for change, what was the effect of the increased attention the company paid to how well these were handled?
As shown in Table 1, the percentage of residents with maintenance problems still existing dropped from the 35% portfolio average in 2001 down to only 12% in 2002 – this represents an incredible 66% decrease! Improvements were also seen in the very important categories of “Maintenance - Response Time”, where the score increased a strong 15%, and “Maintenance - Quality of Work “ that saw an 11% increase. As it relates to retention, first and foremost it is critical to focus on the delivery of prompt and professional customer service – in other words, properly handling a service request is much more important than pool parties, pot luck dinner nights, newsletters, and move-in gifts. Doug Miller is President of SatisFacts Research, LLC, a full service customer satisfaction research company that specializes in the apartment industry, and is the proud provider of SatisFacts Resident SatisFaction Telesurveys. Doug, also President of The Miller Marketing Group, has over 16 years experience as acting and/or on-retainer Director of Marketing for a number of property management firms, including Forest City Residential and Boston Financial. He has worked with over 500 properties nationwide. SatisFacts offers a wide variety of survey types for the multi-family industry. For additional information,
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Copyright© 2002, Doug Miller. All right reserved. For information contact FrogPond at email susie@FrogPond.com.
