Call centers are an easy call to make.A leasing office often is a stressful place to work. Spring leasing season is in full bloom full bloom the stage of a crop when two-thirds of the plants are in flower; the crop is mature. and the pressure to lease as many apartments as possible has probably never been greater than it has the past few years. The struggling economy, coupled with the record low level of interest rates for mortgages has dropped occupancies to record-breaking depths. Sadly, the lowered net operating income Operating Income The profit realized from a business' own operations. Notes: This would not include income from things such as investments in other firms. Also referred to as operating profit or recurring profit. (NOI NOI Net Operating Income NOI Notice of Intent NOI Nation of Islam NOI Notice of Inquiry NOI Neuro Orthopaedic Institute NOI New Organizing Institute NOI Notice of Interest NOI No Offense Intended NOI National Olympiad in Informatics ) has forced many owners and management companies to cut staff at the site level, forcing already overworked and stressed leasing professionals to add to their overburdened o·ver·bur·den tr.v. o·ver·bur·dened, o·ver·bur·den·ing, o·ver·bur·dens 1. To burden with too much weight; overload. 2. To subject to an excessive burden or strain; overtax. n. 1. workload The term workload can refer to a number of different yet related entities. An amount of labor While a precise definition of a workload is elusive, a commonly accepted definition is the hypothetical relationship between a group or individual human operator and task demands. . Fetching fetch·ing adj. Very attractive; charming: a fetching new hairstyle. fetch  ing·ly adv. packages, delivering dry cleaning dry cleaning, process of cleaning fabrics without water. Special solvents and soaps are used so as not to harm fabrics and dyes that will not withstand the effects of ordinary soap and water. Dry cleaning began in France about the middle of the 19th cent. ,
writing service requests, processing paperwork, making copies, faxing
documents, responding to e-mail and dozens of other administrative
duties add to what is supposed to be the primary responsibility of the
leasing professional: to lease apartments.
A recent market study of call volume at the site level conducted by call center service provider MessagePro.net indicated that as many as 64 percent of the calls that are received in the leasing office are not leasing calls. Recognizing this trend in the multifamily housing industry, a new service is available to assist the front-line leasing teams: the multifamily call center. Depending on a community's needs, there is a wide range of dedicated call center companies and services from which to choose. In the past, companies relied on answering services answering service n. A business service that answers its clients' telephone calls and conveys messages to the clients. to simply answer a call and passively report the call message back to time community. Today's multifamily call centers are sophisticated organizations that offer specialized spe·cial·ize v. spe·cial·ized, spe·cial·iz·ing, spe·cial·iz·es v.intr. 1. To pursue a special activity, occupation, or field of study. 2. services and use fully trained multifamily experts. These call center leasing professionals not only handle, report and track calls--they discuss benefits and features of the community with the prospect and set up leasing appointments for the onsite teams. Jeff Goldshine, Executive Vice President at CAPREIT, said he outsources his calls to a call center Level One so he can "focus on NOI." No community is too small to be able to take advantage of benefits provided by using a call center. When Rockwell Management received a resignation notice from one of its managers at a small community, it used the services of a call center for help. Its solution was to answer all its calls at the community 24/7. The leasing inquiries were transferred to leasing professionals who set appointments for a nearby sister property manager to show. Service requests were answered and entered into a Web-based tracking system that its onsite maintenance technician See PC technician and software technician. could access via the Internet. Because the call center concept lightened the load so effectively, Rockwell has planned for its new manager at that smaller-sized community to spend only one-third of the time allocated to that small community and the balance on other assignments. The average length of a call for centers researched for this article is more than six minutes. With the industry's average length of a call under two minutes, it appears that multifamily call centers are better able to focus directly on the needs of the caller Caller may refer to one of the following:
Toni Morgan-Rials, Branch Manager (that's like a Regional VP title in other companies) at Metric Property Management, said, "We had a challenge with high call volume and were concerned about missed leads and the resident service level. We have seen these reps turn calls into leads and, consequently, those leads turn into leases. At our luxury mixed-use property in urban Pasadena, Terraces at Paseo Colorado, occupancy has increased from below 90 percent to over 95 percent during the time we have had service from the RealPage call center." While the Internet is an excellent source of both highly qualified leads and leases to apartment communities, it also has created a new problem: how to answer all e-mail requests for information in a timely fashion. With today's renters expecting a return e-mail in two hours or less, it is nearly impossible for leasing professionals to respond in that two-hour window. Some owners and management companies are relying on multifamily call centers to accept and respond to e-mails as well, thus creating that positive first impression of a speedy response. Even with the economy poised to make a comeback Comeback Australian breed of wool sheep, bred by crossing Merino with Corriedale, Polwarth or Zenith sheep; wool is 21 to 25 microns. It is a registered breed, but the term is more commonly used in the sense of a type of sheep produced by crossbreeding a crossbred Merino back to Merino. , it seems clear that multifamily call centers are here to stay. Call Center Article on Hold UNITS magazine plans to publish a more in-depth article on call centers in an upcoming issue. NSC NSC abbr. National Security Council Noun 1. NSC - a committee in the executive branch of government that advises the president on foreign and military and national security; supervises the Central Intelligence Agency Members That Provide Phone Services CallSource 800/500-4433 www.CallSource.com Inphonemation Answering Service 866/332-3310 www.inphonemation.com MessagePro 713/461-8112 www.messagepro.net RealPage Inc. 87-REALPAGE www.realpage.com Lisa Trosien has more than 20 years of industry experience, as well as expertise on targeted uses of the Internet. Trosien can be reached via e-mail at lisa@apartmentexpert.com. |
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