The Challenge

QuadReal was tired of using a dated, unreliable, CRM that wasted their team’s time when it came to providing an excellent renter experience and limited resident conversions.

The Solution

They piloted new CRMs, including Funnel, and compared with their former CRM provider.

The Results

QuadReal selected Funnel as their multifamily CRM provider and now 66% of their tours are booked by new automated methods driven by Funnel’s Virtual Assistant, IVR, and scheduling links included in manual messages. This in turn increased tour-to-application 28%, and increased their tour-to-lease conversion rate by 33%.

KEY INSIGHTS

Don’t make renters wait ‘til Monday

Prior to Funnel and centralization, the QuadReal team designated Mondays as “Community Days” because they recognized that often coming off of a weekend there was a long queue of unanswered prospect and resident questions. On Community Days, there are no corporate meetings or visits, to give onsite teams time to focus on renters and residents. Funnel’s AI and automation, also helps lift the typical deluge of Monday-morning-must-do’s from the team.

“Funnel has really helped set everyone off for their work week because they are now not coming into a long queue of unanswered inquiries. The Virtual Leasing Agent has answered leasing questions, booked tours, and pointed renters in the right direction,” said Christine Williams, VP of National Operations and Administration. “They’re now getting the answer right away, as opposed to waiting 24-72 hours and finding a place to rent elsewhere. The fact that our community teams are not coming into 100 unopened items, or however many that is over a weekend, lets them start their Monday clean.”

Turn decision-ready prospects into residents

The additional AI and automation help self-qualify renters with less manual effort from the QuadReal team members. When a renter is ready to tour a community, not only do they book their tour using automation, but they also arrive at their tour with all of their initial questions answered. Instead of needing to still double-check the pet policy or community amenities, prospective renters are assessing if it feels like home.

“They’re much more vested,” said Christine Williams, VP of National Operations and Administration. “If they’re showing up for the tour, they’ve already gotten enough questions answered, and they are really interested.”

My Queue adds actionable clarity for teams

Funnel’s new CRM enhancement called My Queue allows property management companies, like QuadReal, to prioritize tasks for the team members. By taking into account leasing teams’ roles and permissions and serves team members a personalized list of tasks in order of their priority.

This gives onsite teams a roadmap for their day, and the confidence that they’re spending their time in high-value places.

“It takes out the overwhelming-ness,” said Christine Williams, VP of National Operations and Administration. “Before, they would look at 1,100 open tasks, and they’d be like, “holy crap,” where do you even begin to look?!”

AI + automation built into CRM enables centralized leasing and “major time savings”

My Queue, combined with the Virtual Assistant, and other AI and automation baked into the Funnel CRM, allows the QuadReal team to do what they couldn’t before.

“Prior to having Funnel, we couldn’t have all our communities on centralized leasing, because of the sheer amount of time it took to move somebody through the leasing funnel from when they first contacted us, to when they booked a tour, or applied for an apartment,” said Rachel Roenspies, National Marketing Director, Residential “It took a lot longer just because there wasn’t the automation component to the CRM. We’re seeing some major time savings.”

Role specialization and an excellent renter experience

After adding Funnel, the QuadReal team was able to change their operations to include a centralized team that served all of their communities. “Prior to Funnel, we had about half of our communities on centralized leasing, and that was the max that we could withstand with the team and technology we had at that time,” said Rachel Roenspies, National Marketing Director, Residential. Pre-Funnel, the centralized team only managed phone calls and the queue.

Now, a centralized team manages all of the inquiries and the application process. Meaning, the centralized team will answer initial prospect questions through tour booking. During their tour, the community team manages the interaction. After the tour, the centralized team processes their application, and once approved residents receive a message introducing them to their community’s team. Not only is the centralized team handling more processes of the renter-to-resident experience with Funnel, they’re also managing these processes for double the amount of properties (21 to 42). These changes in scope of both the centralized team’s responsibility as well as the technology’s ability to support centralization caused the QuadReal team to add more team members to the centralized team.

In addition to technology that is built to help property management companies garner operational flexibility through centralization, the QuadReal team’s culture and expertise with centralized teams aided in their journey. They were not strangers to creating streamlined processes, and clear handoffs between the centralized teams and community teams, which allowed them to make these changes rapidly and portfolio-wide.