Are we listening to our customers?

I'd like to comment on a recent Twitter discussion in regards to removing the leasing staff and relying on call centers. As many of you know, who follow my Tweets, Blogs, etc. you know I am completely against call centers. This is not based solely on my personal opinion, rather hundreds of thousands of actual resident questionnaires, feedback, actual experience, etc.

We unfortunately live in a society where poor customer service and lack of personal interaction is the norm and accepted. I do understand the goal of Management is to cut costs, but this shouldn't be at the expense of excellent customer service and personal interaction.

I recently learned of a Management company who has eliminated all membership specialists and solely relies on call centers to lease apartments. This baffles me, as we are leasing the customer a home, not an item you pick up at the grocery store or Target. Again, this is someones home. So when a potential community member shows up at this leasing office, they are not greeted by a friendly smile, but technology and are sent, without a membership specialist, to view their potential apartment home. This drastic measurement will result in a loss of control by the management company, communication concerns and if a management companies call center is across the country or, at a higher cost savings, in a third world country, the accent will impede a mutual understanding of the product. Not to mention the lack of knowledge and high turn over with each call center.

I recently contacted this Management Companies Communities via their call center answering service. To no surprise, the call center staff was uneducated on the community, aside from the very basic details; price, size, location, etc. The call center staff had no idea on local amenities of the community and a lack of amenities of the site altogether and eventually told me they were a call center located out of state, but could get me in contact with someone who had more knowledge of the community. Guess what? The customer at this point, would be on to the next community who could offer "better" personalized service.

In recent studies, 64% of all North American call centers deem it a "major struggle" to find quality applicants for call center agent positions. This stat should give us a little insight to the person(s) your customer is speaking with. I completely understand in these economic times, Management Companies need to do everything possible to increase ROI as well as Operating Income.

Recently a management company contacted me to research their communities and help them cut costs in an effort to increase ROI. One particular community, like many others, had a Membership Specialist team of 5. Each of their Membership Specialists were paid roughly $8 per hour as well as a commission on each lease. We reduced the Membership team to 2, college educated, higher paid individuals making $13/hour with a renegotiated commission package. This increased the Management Companies annual ROI, which I can privately share, as well as Leasing Average from 23% of leases to 72% of leases. As a marketing consultant my job is solely to help management companies maximize ROI by making sense of their sales, marketing and training programs. To this day, nobody has been able to convince me a call center is a good idea.

The data proves our customers aren't drawn towards communities who utilize call centers. While our customers are avid "Texters" this is merely a pre-leasing information gathering affair, in an effort to gather all the pertinent data, then make a personalized leasing decision. An excellent sales team not only understands their community but has a passion for their community, which a call center just can't provide and management companies not seeing this are clearly "missing the boat". I pose this question to all of us in the Multi-Family Industry... Are we "Really" listening to what our customers want?