The Challenge

The RMR Group (formerly CARROLL) realized the traditional “one staff to 100 residents” model (1:100) wasn’t providing outstanding renter and team experiences. They wanted to centralize, and initially invested in a property-centric CRM with the hope that it would solve their challenges, specifically they wanted to increase lead-to-visit ratios.

The Solution

When a property-centric CRM solution prevented The RMR Group from specializing their roles and centralizing their operating model to save money and drive efficiencies, they found a solution that enabled the operational flexibility they knew they needed.

The Results

After moving to this new centralized operating model and Funnel’s renter-centric CRM The RMR Group experienced:
— Increased resident retention by 15%.
— Increased lead-to-visit ratio from ~25% to upwards of 40% (60% change).
— Decreased team turnover from 60% to 0% over two years by specializing the assistant manager role.

KEY INSIGHTS

Renter-centric architecture necessary

After trying to centralize operations and specialize roles for more than three years using a property-centric CRM, the RMR team moved to a renter-centric CRM. “With a property-centric CRM our centralized team needed to log in to different properties and toggle between multiple screens, wasting time and duplicating efforts across the portfolio,” says Echols.

This data architecture allowed them to move repeatable tasks from the property level and manage their portfolio holistically versus operating at each individual property level for every. Single. Task. This also allowed them to create new, specialized roles to allow team members to play to their strengths and focus on the portions of the customer journey that they align with most.

Increased resident retention

In an environment of slow or flat rent growth, and more optionality for renters, resident retention has been a focus for many property management companies.
When shifting to a centralized operating model with specialized roles RMR also updated their bonus structures to give teams the ability to make more money while creating an incentive system to reward the kinds of behavior that aligned with overall business goals.

In the traditional model, usually teams receive a commission for each new lease signed, but aren’t necessarily receiving the same kind of incentive for renewing residents. By aligning bonus structures with specific outcomes that drive higher NPS, they’ve seen their resident retention rates increase by 15%.

Increased conversions

The RMR Group wanted to increase conversion by providing a better customer experience. “We realized that the traditional ‘one staff to 100 residents’ model (1:100) wasn’t providing outstanding renter and team experiences,” says Echols. By taking specific repeatable tasks off their onsite teams and freeing them to focus their time and attention on providing exceptional customer experience instead, they’ve seen the conversion results follow.
Prior to centralizing, their lead to tour rate was around ~25%, after centralizing it is upwards of 40%; a 60% increase.

0% turnover in 2 years?! (not too good to be true)

Prior to centralizing their operations the Assistant Property Manager role was the highest turnover position in the company with a 60% turnover rate. “We centralized, we haven’t lost a single person on that team in two years. So zero turnover since we centralized that role,” said Echols.

As turnover and training new teams is a constant struggle for multifamily operators moving a role from 60% turnover to 0% turnover is a monumental shift. Imagine what you could do if your company no longer needed to constantly recruit, hire, and onboard new team members.