UDR leaders share how one of the industry’s earliest centralization pioneers is entering its next phase with a unified platform and AI-powered workflows.
SCOTTSDALE, AZ — No multifamily operators have as long of a history with centralization as UDR.
Ranked No. 15 on the NMHC Top Owners list and No. 31 on the NMHC Top Managers list, the publicly traded REIT operates roughly 60,000 apartment homes nationwide. Years ago, before there were solutions like Funnel to enable centralization, UDR began reshaping how work was distributed across its portfolio, moving administrative functions offsite and creating specialized roles designed to improve efficiency and the renter experience.
At the time, the technology market hadn’t caught up to the operating model they were building. To make centralization work, UDR underwent a massive project to build their own solutions, tailor-made for their needs. They developed their own resident app, customized a CRM to fit their needs, and built internal tools to help everything from communication to self-guided tours.
While that approach served the company well for years, eventually the limitations of custom-built systems began to show.
“Over time, we understood the complexity of developing a customer-grade app for Apple, Android, plus a web portal with security challenges… it was getting costlier, and that balance between new feature development and product support was challenging,” said Kim Garfield, VP, Information Technology.
In early 2025, UDR entered its next phase of centralization by partnering with Funnel to deploy a unified renter-centric® platform across the portfolio, including CRM, an AI assistant, tools, and deeper system integrations.
At Forum, Josh Gampp, SVP & Chief Technology Officer, Kim Garfield, VP, Information Technology, Dana D’Alessio, Sr. Director, IT, and Mackenna Mullins, Director, Centralized Operations, walked the audience through their journey, iterating what centralization would look like for their teams and renters, and why having a like-minded partner ready to hit the gas is essential.
Creating a better experience
UDR’s early model prioritized efficiency by organizing centralized teams into vertical functions like sales, renewals, and move-ins.
But over time, that structure created friction for renters.
“Those verticals made it probably a little more efficient and easier for us. It wasn’t a great experience for our customers,” Gampp said.
This shift was grounded in real customer data after feedback showed renters were confused by multiple touchpoints.
“We have this wealth of data, and especially over the last year as we implemented Funnel, we’ve been looking at our conversation data, and bringing it all to one channel in Funnel really helped us dig through that data and see what people are telling us about the process,” Gampp said. “That was kind of our driving force in how do we make this easy?”
Instead of optimizing for speed alone, teams began prioritizing better interactions, using data and AI to understand sentiment, reduce friction, and intervene earlier in the renter lifecycle. That started with reducing property contact numbers from as many as nine to one.
“We’ve been working on over the last year or so, kind of reforming ourselves into more of a concierge type role, say, ‘how can I, as your partner, help you through the whole process and be your point of contact?’” Gampp said.
The concierge-style approach showed up in the data. Today, 14.9% of UDR residents lease at a different community than the one they originally inquired about.
With a single point of contact guiding the journey, and a comprehensive view of conversations, teams can match prospects to the right home across the portfolio. They can keep the conversation going even if the initial community isn’t the right fit, creating more opportunities for cross-selling while delivering a more personalized experience.
Meet customers where they are
Part of listening to your customers means meeting them where they are. UDR stressed the importance of providing pathways of least resistance to help renters get the information they need without slowing anyone down.
“We want to meet our customers where they are,” Mullins said.
That balance between automation and human interaction shows up clearly in how renters engage. Today, 36% of tours are booked through AI workflows, 24% through voice AI, and 36% occur after hours.
To support that behavior, UDR focused on removing repetitive work from their teams and creating more consistent interactions across every channel.
“Funnel really unlocked a lot of ability for us to create consistent interactions,” Mullins said. “Back in Centralization 1.0, when we first launched, we didn’t have a CRM, and the majority of the centralized agents spent their job manually copying and pasting. Now fast forward to today, we’re in a Funnel, we’re able to automate a lot of those repeatable interactions.”
The UDR team also used data to streamline their touring process, creating the best-possible self-service model that provides the right touch of responsiveness and anonymity that prospects desired.
They found that renters attending a self-guided tour typically do their homework, and arrive informed and ready to validate their decision in person. So instead of prepping a Self-Guided Tour (SGT) team with answers about the community, they became guardians of the experience, ensuring the correct home was found, doors unlocked, and prospects had a human available at the touch of a button.
“The importance of that team has really become a life support,” Mullins said. “This is the team where response time really does matter. If you’re standing in front of a unit for two minutes and you can’t get in, those two minutes are a long time to wait. That’s a really bad experience. So [the SGT] team is there to make sure we create a seamless experience.”
AI and automation strategy
As UDR refined how renters move through the journey, the next step was rethinking how work gets done behind the scenes.
Instead of layering technology on top of existing processes, the team focused on identifying where automation could remove low-value work and create space for more meaningful interactions.
“What I hear from our site teams when I go talk to them is, we’ve got them doing too much administrative work, and they want to be out in the community because that’s what they do best,” Gampp said.
“So we wanted to see what kind of noise and general questions I can take off, what happens behind the computer, and we can deal with that so they can be out greeting people and making sure the community is in perfect shape, our vacants are picked up, and those sorts of things.”
By moving repetitive tasks into centralized workflows powered by AI, onsite teams can focus on the parts of the job that can’t be automated, like creating a better experience within the community itself.
UDR reported an 11% increase in task completion and a 25% reduction in overdue tasks, as workflows became more structured and less dependent on manual follow-up. This is proof that both change management is going well for the UDR team as they learn the new solutions, and the CRM is stabilizing their day-to-day operations.
Visibility and trust
By partnering with Funnel, UDR consolidated its CRM, communications, and workflows into a single platform, creating a true omnichannel experience and a 360° view of the customer that reduced friction and built trust across both centralized and onsite teams. The complete view of the resident journey is only made possible with Funnel’s renter-centric® architecture, which connects every interaction, from first inquiry to renewal, into a single source of truth.
With every interaction, calls, texts, emails, and in-person touchpoints, are captured in one place, both centralized and onsite teams can step into any conversation with full context. The new model improved early prospect touchpoints, which is significant, as Gampp reported that a bad move-in experience is the number one driver of poor renewals.
“Funnel has given us so much more visibility,” D’Alessio said. “We were really excited for the 360 communication view, and then we got it, and it was a little bit of like, wow, just seeing all of the outreach from the customer across the entire business.”
That level of transparency exposed both opportunities and gaps, giving teams a clearer understanding of what renters were experiencing and where the process could improve. At first, onsite teams had to adjust to a new level of transparency, one where every interaction was visible across the organization.
Over time, that visibility became the foundation for trust.
“The visibility has really built the trust,” D’Alessio said. “For a long time, we were really focused on self-service… and that’s where we were leaning from a customer service perspective. And now… we’re shifting a lot more to be more direct communication.”
From early adopters to operating advantage
What started as a way to drive efficiency exposed a bigger challenge: without the right technology, even the best operating model creates friction. Multiple systems, disconnected conversations, and limited visibility made it harder to deliver the kind of experience they were trying to build.
That’s what made their next iteration of centralization so different.
By consolidating their tech stack into a single omnichannel system of action, UDR aligned their operating model with the tools required to support it at scale. Every interaction now lives in one place. Every team works from the same context. And every decision is grounded in a complete view of the customer.
Because centralization alone isn’t the advantage. Centralization, supported by a unified system that connects data, AI workflows, and communication, is what allows operators to scale without losing the experience.
And for early movers like UDR, that foundation is what turns a long-term strategy into a competitive edge.
