Specialist Internet Service Provider ASK4 has formed a strategic partnership with Spike Global, the leading property management and resident engagement software provider, to help bring communities closer together.
The partnership will mean that ASK4 is able to provide its clients with market-leading property management and resident engagement technology solutions.
Spike has a proven track record for delivering real, tangible results launching and operating property software worldwide. Spike’s resident engagement portal, Spike Living, can be white-labelled and completely tailored to the needs of each development, enabling building operators to create and manage thriving communities, where residents can form meaningful connections. Spike Living also allows residents to stay engaged with up-to-date news and events, book amenities, report maintenance issues, and even get involved with the wider local community by introducing them to local attractions and services.
Working across the residential sector, including build-to-rent, build-to-sell, purpose-built student accommodation, co-living, and later living, Spike’s solutions enable everyone within a building to benefit from the spaces they are invested in.
Speaking of the partnership, ASK4’s Head of Marketing, Jess Glover, said:
“It is a genuine pleasure to be partnering with Spike Global. We have been impressed by both their technology and their team, and we know that their solutions will make a meaningful difference to our clients. If the last 18 months have taught us anything, it is that community matters, and fostering community within multi-tenant buildings is extremely important for the long-term wellbeing of residents.”
“We have seen Spike’s solutions in action with a number of mutual clients and not only do they deliver a first-class experience for residents via their app, but they also enable operators to develop their ESG propositions, streamline operational processes and engage new revenue streams. All of which is extremely important in today’s market.”
Speaking for the Spike Global team, Marketing Director, Jonny Wootten, said:
“It is always great to collaborate with like-minded technology companies in the property sector and there is a wealth of common ground between Spike and ASK4. Connectivity and community engagement go hand-in-hand for today’s tenants, and we are delighted to be partnering with a specialist ISP with so much experience and expertise in the multi-tenant building sector.”
You will find the ASK4 and Spike Global team at The Student Accommodation Conference on 8th December. Contact us to arrange a meeting to learn more.
The UK Build to Rent (BTR) sector is continuing to grow at pace, with the number of developments under construction rising 10% between 2019 and 2021, meaning there’s never been a better time for tenants searching for a place to live, with a wide range of options available. However, whilst many operators are choosing to invest in providing best-in-class amenities for their new tenants to enjoy, what else can they be doing to ensure they keep tenants renewing year after year?
In our latest blog, we look at the role tenant engagement can play in retaining both your tenants and staff.
Tenant Retention
Tenant expectations now go far beyond the four walls in which they live. Although, still an important factor in attracting tenants, amenities like pools and gyms, are no longer seen as such a strong differentiator, with many BTR operators now providing a whole host of amenities and services. The focus has shifted to the lifestyle the development can offer, placing a greater emphasis on convenience, connections, and meaningful living experiences.
Research by Apartment Life found that the more friends a tenant has within their building, the more likely they are to renew their tenancy. Without any friends living in their community, tenants only have a 29% chance of renewing. That number jumps to 38% if they have 1-3 friends, and if they have 7 or more friends, there’s a 47% likelihood that they’ll renew.
Despite social distancing, those developments using tenant portals still managed to allow friendships between neighbours to blossom. From online supper clubs to fitness and wellbeing events, tenant portals such as Spike Living have kept communities engaged and informed, and enabled tenants to find like-minded people who share similar interests. We’ve seen conversations on sharing food, how to entertain kids, tenants offering to deliver toilet roll and baked goods, or pick-up shopping – you name it! Tenant portals that have been created exclusively for building occupants also offer a better alternative to groups on Facebook or Nextdoor, which tend to be infiltrated by spammers and strangers.
Additionally, tenant portals can provide a much-needed lifeline to the local high street, whereby tenants are encouraged to use the services available to them on their doorstep. For instance, Spike Living enables developments to offer tenants a guide to all the places around them, and by partnering with local businesses, can offer exclusive discounts, encouraging tenants to fall in love with their independent chains.
It’s also proven that tenants who are engaged with their local community are often happier than those who are not and tend to post positive reviews about where they live on review sites such as HomeViews. According to a study by Apartments.com, 98% of apartment shoppers rely on reviews and ratings when looking for their next home, and 79% of respondents to NMHC’s Apartment Resident Preferences Report said that during an apartment hunt, they didn’t visit a development solely because the ratings and reviews were not favourable. These reviews can help attract new tenants keeping occupancy rates high and having tenants as champions is an effective tactic if you want to increase interest in your development, whilst reducing your marketing spend.
Staff Retention
Your onsite and front-of-house teams can also play an important role in helping to build that community feeling. No one likes constant change, so if you have high staff turnover, with familiar faces disappearing, this can certainly have a negative impact on tenant satisfaction, making it hard for them to build rapport.
Therefore, by providing your teams with technology solutions that enable them to do their jobs more effectively, not only does this have a positive impact on their performance but also increases their overall satisfaction, making it more likely that you’ll retain them.
For instance, Spike Living can provide your staff with a centralised place to manage all tenant communication, amenity bookings, parcel deliveries as well as maintenance requests, saving precious time and allowing them to focus on the job at hand, and avoiding unnecessary stress and complication to what can be an already challenging job.
Tenant portals can also free up staff by enabling tenants to self-serve. From frequently asked questions, appliance guides, to fire safety procedures, as well as the latest news from the wider community, having all this information readily available means that more often or not, tenants can find the information they need themselves, whenever they need it. The Samanage State of Workplace Survey found that workers spend an average of 520 hours a year on repetitive services and tasks that could be easily automated. Reminding tenants when their rent is due, when deliveries are ready to be collected from reception or providing building updates are just some of the tasks that tenant portals like Spike Living can take care of.
Summary
In Summary, BTR operators must start to place greater emphasis on building a community rather than solely focusing on the buildings themselves, where tenants can truly form meaningful connections with neighbours and staff alike, something that tenant portals such as Spike Living can help with.
Learn how Spike is working with a growing number of clients to drive tenant engagement and satisfaction by downloading our brochure below.
Welcome to our Day in the Life feature, where each month we sit down with one of our clients and highlight the amazing work they are doing within the property sector. This month we’re delighted to have sat down with BHB America, who provide private office services for the residents of luxury buildings across London, New York and Miami.
What’s your name and role?
Francesca Thornton, Director USA, BHB America
Describe a typical day for you?
We spend our days fulfilling requests for the incredible residents of the buildings we look after across the world. Whether it’s travel, private yachts, artwork sourcing, party planning, restaurant reservations, or anything else, we’re always working hard to go above and beyond and make the residents’ lives that little bit easier.
What is your favourite part of the job?
My favourite part of the job is definitely when we get a seemingly impossible request from a client, but we manage to deliver on it for them.
What are your top places to visit locally?
My favourite spots in Manhattan are definitely brunch at Sadelle, Central Park for a walk, Black Fox for a coffee, Van Leeuwen for ice cream.
How does Spike make your day-to-day life easier?
Using Spike Living means that we can speak directly with residents and have all their requests in one place, which makes looking back at historic requests and tracking request fulfilment super easy. We also find the back end of the software seriously easy to use when we’re uploading new content. Being able to preview how it will look before publishing it is useful too.
Spike Living connects more than 200,00 residents with their local communities. Download the Spike Living brochure below to learn how our software can support you in your day-to-day life.
This month’s community engagement blog comes courtesy of our Customer Success Director, Andy Silvers, where he shares what we’ve learned in August and his top tips for driving engagement across your buildings and residents.
What we’ve learned in August
With the holiday season in full swing, we saw a 65% decrease in amenity and event bookings compared to July, with residents opting to make the most out of the warm weather and explore further afield. However, it was positive to see that app usage was up 200% since the beginning of the year, with forum posts remaining consistently high, underlining the role that resident apps like Spike Living are now playing in our daily lives. Furthermore, despite many people returning to their offices for the first time in well over a year, we saw a 50% increase in deliveries being processed through our platforms, showing how accustomed we’ve become to online shopping, with this trend set to continue.
Carrying on from last month, here are some more fun ways to boost engagement and encourage your residents to get to know their neighbours and your in-house team.
Pop up Food Stands
Bring the local community to your residents. We have clients who regularly invite local restaurants and cafes onsite to provide pop up food stands offering residents a mixture of cuisine to try. This is a great way to encourage your residents to get to know their local area, and local businesses may even offer a discount to those who live in the building on future bookings.
Book Club
An oldie but goodie. Even before the pandemic hit, some of our clients had thriving book clubs where residents regularly got together over food and drink to discuss their latest read. When the pandemic hit, these turned into virtual clubs, where meet ups were held over Zoom instead.
Running Club
If you have a communal gym, what better way to increase usage than by forming a running club. Or if your residents prefer to be outside, why not provide them with some suggested running routes where they can then compete for the fastest time, encouraging some friendly competition?
Film Club
If you have screening or cinema rooms onsite, then having a film club is the perfect way to encourage neighbours to bond over their love of films. Why not choose a ‘theme of the week’ and allow you9r residents to become their very own film critics by recommending their own films to watch? We have one of our clients have over 1,000 bookings for their screening rooms last month – showing that nothing can beat being at the movies!
Baking Club
With most people confined to their homes during the pandemic, we saw many residents turn their hands to baking, with a few even leaving their baked goodies in reception for others in their buildings to enjoy. Baking clubs provide the perfect opportunity for residents to share and discuss recipes, and with Bake Off returning to our screens this month, why not create your own mini ‘bake off’ with residents competing to be crowned star baker of the month?
Film Club
If you have screening or cinema rooms onsite, then having a film club is the perfect way to encourage neighbours to bond over their love of films. Why not choose a ‘theme of the week’ and allow your residents’ to become their very own film critics by recommending their own films to watch? We had one of our clients have over 1,000 bookings for their screening rooms last month – showing that nothing can beat being at the movies!
Have your own tips for driving resident engagement or decided to implement some of our suggestions above? Then get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
The use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting is increasing. Achieving a point where a development has a positive ESG impact should be the goal of all investors and developers.
Why ESG?
Tenants are increasingly basing their rental and purchasing decisions on the potential environmental and social impact of their homes. It is therefore in the best interests of investors and developers to create schemes that meet these needs.
The World Bank makes the case that ‘Green’ buildings can:
Yield up to 23% higher occupancy rates
Provide 8% higher rental income
Create 31% higher sale premiums than traditional buildings
Other industries such as fashion, entertainment, technology, and leisure have demonstrated a clear connection between ESG and enhanced returns. Consumers, including shareholders, are demanding integrity – and changing their spending choices to get it. The property industry has the opportunity to do the same, embracing robust, genuine ESG investments.
Where to start?
People should be at the centre of everything you do, with the goal of providing great homes, creating healthier places to live, and boosting the social and economic worth of the surrounding neighbourhoods.
Spike Global provides software solutions that connect property managers with residents, as well as creating a closer link to the wider local community. Here are some of the ways our clients are benefiting.
Engagement
Our resident portal, Spike Living, allows developers to promote best practices and provide key building information such as where to find the nearest recycling point, fire safety policies and procedures, as well as ways in which residents can reduce their own impact on the environment.
Operators can also easily and quickly share ideas with residents and gather useful feedback on proposed building initiatives and schemes, as well as enabling the proactive reporting of building and maintenance issues, ensuring problems get rectified sooner, whilst at the same time providing a full digital paper trail.
Spike Living facilities the use of communal areas by allowing residents to book out a room or reserve a slot at a gym class, all via their phone, turning what typically is an archaic process into a seamless and easy task. This encourages residents to spend more time enjoying their buildings, and not having to worry about the stress of gaining access.
Supporting the local community
Our clients use Spike Living to bring the local community to their residents by utilising the ‘around me’ feature to provide much-needed visibility to smaller businesses and encouraging their residents to explore what’s on their doorsteps. Building operators can also partner with local shops and restaurants to offer residents exclusive discounts and incentives, all via their residents’ app.
Measuring performance
Residents’ apps like Spike Living provide building owners and operators the opportunity to truly understand what their residents are interested in, from amenities and services usage, to monitoring resident satisfaction. You can also analyse the performance of each building and identify areas to maximise operational and cost efficiencies, such as response time to support enquiries, number of maintenance defects reported, and other complaints filed.
Summary
ESG may sound like a daunting and complex subject, but it can be achieved through consistent actions, communication, and a drive to make a difference from everyone involved in a development, from investors, operators, residents to contractors. It’s important to see ESG as a journey, and not just a destination.
Get in touch to learn how we’re supporting leading developers and operators with their ESG initiatives.
We kick off the first in our series of monthly blogs focusing on community engagement, where our Customer Success team will be sharing handy tips on how to drive engagement across your buildings, your local community, and most importantly with your residents.
What we’ve learned in July
With the weather being a mixture of sunshine and showers, coupled with restrictions being lifted here in the UK, we saw demand for in-person events surge once again, with amenity and event bookings increasing 167% across our client base, compared to June. Despite restrictions being lifted, it was also great to see that residents still wanted to connect digitally as well as physically, with forum posts up 80% since the start of the year, highlighting the importance of technology in keeping residents connected.
As the world continues to re-open (and hopefully will remain that way) here are 5 fun ways to boost engagement and encourage your residents to get to know their neighbours and your in-house team.
Green Fingers Club
Several of our clients with outdoor spaces have created a residents’ gardeners club. This is a great way to get residents outdoors and for them to enjoy your facilities, not to mention the benefits for their mental health. For those who are limited on space, even providing a few planters and pots for residents to grow their own fruit or vegetables can yield wonders. Once your garden is up and running, why not host a “green thumb” contest, encouraging residents to share photos of their prized crops on your residents’ app.
Trivia Night
Trivia nights are becoming increasingly popular and are an easy and fun way to get your residents out of their apartments and interacting with each other. Turn your residents’ lounge, lobby, or rooftop garden into a hosting space, and enlist your wittiest staff member as the host for the night to reel off the most obscure and wackiest questions.
Ice Cream Social
We all scream for ice cream! Everyone loves ice cream, but you can bring it up a notch by inviting a local ice cream van or vendor to come to serve residents. As with any event you organise, don’t forget to announce it on your residents’ app and make sure to include some mouth-watering photos to entice those with a sweet tooth.
Scavenger Hunt
With the weather being slightly disappointing in July, some of our clients held scavenger hunts. This not only encourages people to get out and explore their buildings but also provides entertainment for both children and adults alike. When a resident finds a particular item, why not ask them to turn it into the reception desk to claim a prize. This gives you the chance to chat with them and get to know them a little better.
Pet Photo Contest
If your property is pet-friendly, let your residents show off their furry friends and compete for a prize. You can create categories like funniest pet pose, happiest pet, grumpiest cat, etc. Create a dedicated forum where your residents can post their entries on their residents’ app, and then select a winner for each category. This also lets like-minded neighbours get to know each other and will encourage them to plan pet playdates.
Have your own tips for driving resident engagement or decided to implement some of our suggestions above? Then get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
Guest Blog: James Dilgul, Head of Marketing at Fixflo, the UK’s leading maintenance software provider.
With residents spending more time in their properties in the past year than ever before, residents have had the opportunity to really assess the conditions they’re living in, and nice-to-haves like fast internet speed and room for a home office have unsurprisingly become need-to-haves. And when it comes to problems around the property, residents want them fixed – and fast. Nowhere has this focus on good service been more pronounced than in the Build to Rent (BTR) sector.
With most of BTR’s communal amenities being closed due to the pandemic, repairs and maintenance have taken centre stage – repairs and maintenance were referenced in almost 1 of every 5 reviews according to Homeviews’ 2021 Build to Rent report.
We look at how the way you handle repairs and maintenance impacts resident satisfaction and how to get it right.
Keep it simple – a vast majority of the reviews focused on the need for clear, simple ways to report issues and stay informed as to what was going on in their block. Resident apps like Spike Living and specialist repairs software such as Fixflo were popular – HomeViews’ survey found that BTR operators using Fixflo were rated higher than those who weren’t (4.5/5 to 4.2/5), with those questioned rating the ability to access and report their issue on a portal 24/7 as a key part of their resident satisfaction.
Speed is of the essence – unsurprisingly quick response times came up in a significant number of reviews. With more residents being at home last year, the need to respond to repairs and maintenance issues in a swift, timely manner has taken on new importance as residents spent most of their time at home; pending maintenance issues could be affecting them more than usual.
Satisfactory solutions – another key finding of the report was the necessity of achieving satisfactory solutions to the issues at hand. Being able to log your problem and be guaranteed a fast response falls short if the end solution is not satisfactory – residents expect effective contractors to be engaged quickly and efficiently. Again, BTR operators who used Fixflo scored well in this regard, as the software allows contractor qualifications to be verified and their services engaged automatically, while also providing basic maintenance assistance for those solutions that may not require a professional.
While all the report’s findings seem to point firmly at the need to invest in resident and maintenance software to boost resident satisfaction, Fixflo’s managing director Rajeev Nayyar recommends taking an ‘omnichannel approach’ to repairs communication as the best way forward. “The best operators are adopting an omnichannel approach to resident communications, giving them the options to communicate by online or in-person where they have on-site staff. From a resident’s perspective, ease of communication and access to relevant updates are critical, as is getting repairs resolved easily, quickly, and effectively.”
Learn how Spike Global and Fixflo have partnered to create a complete BTR resident communication solution here.
Promising an enhanced resident experience and a smarter, more efficient building operation, the new partnership between Spike Global and FixFlo will deliver a seamless property communication and maintenance management solution for BTR residents and property managers alike.
Industry-leading resident engagement and building management software provider Spike Global and specialist repairs and maintenance management software provider, Fixflo have announced an integration partnership designed to provide a complete property communication and maintenance management solution for BTR operators and property managers.
The new partnership enables residents to manage everything within the Spike Living portal, from communicating with other residents to reporting a repair, getting notified about upcoming maintenance events, and managing deliveries and visitors. Empowered by Fixflo’s innovative and multilingual repair reporting system, residents will be prompted to give all necessary details about the maintenance issue from the first instance, enabling property managers to diagnose issues accurately without the need for back-and-forth communication with residents.
Simon Bushell, Director at Fixflo, underlined the significance of delighting residents at the right moments in their customer journey and how this motivated the partnership: “While repairs are rarely welcomed by residents, they are great opportunities for building operators to impress residents with a prompt, intuitive and transparent experience. With Fixflo, residents can report a repair through their Spike Living portal anytime, anywhere, using 40+ languages. They can also be kept in the loop of how the issue progresses through their property manager’s schedule. Here at Fixflo, we are excited about this new partnership and helping building operators and property managers manage their portfolio more efficiently while enhancing the resident experience.”
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO at Spike Global, highlighted the expected operational gains for building operators, another key driver behind the integration plan: “We are excited to be partnering with Fixflo, bringing together Spike’s leading resident engagement and building management software with Fixflo’s award-winning maintenance management solution. This will enable property managers to plan, schedule and carry out a repair much faster, whilst ensuring residents are kept up-to-date and informed at all times.”
The property sector has traditionally been slow to adopt technology, however, the pace of innovation has increased dramatically over the past year, largely driven by the challenges brought about by the pandemic. There will be more change in the next decade than there has been in the last 50 years, and as we enter a new era, property managers will feel the impact the most.
Working as the lynchpin between the property owner and the tenants, property managers handle all tenant-related issues, acting on behalf of the landlord, carrying out key tasks such as:
Communicating with tenants and owners
Maintenance and repairs
Keeping to budget
Below are a few areas we believe technology will have the most impact on property managers now and in the future.
Real-time access to information
As with the way of the world, we’ve come to expect immediate gratification. We want answers to questions instantly, without having to wait for a response. Residents are no different. Gone are the days when they are prepared to walk downstairs to reception or pick up the phone. Mobile resident portals like Spike Living gives property managers an opportunity to promote a whole host of content that may have previously been provided on request. From frequently asked questions, appliance guides, to fire safety procedures, as well as the latest news from the wider community, having all this information readily available means that more often or not, tenants can find the information they need themselves, whenever they need it. This reduces the workload on property managers and saves them from repeatedly responding to the same questions.
Furthermore, important documents like signed contracts and policies and procedures can also be stored centrally and securely ensuring that paper-based copies do not get lost. This makes contracts and vital information easily accessible, and notifications can be sent to residents whenever there are newer versions needing to be reviewed and signed, allowing for full traceability.
Improved communication
Property management is a people business, with property managers simultaneously having to keep tenants, owners, and contractors happy. Given that research by NMHC and Kingsley revealed that 92% of residents prefer digital communications, offering a way to connect digitally to property managers is a must. Previously, disparate communication between these different groups meant property managers would spend half their time on the phone, typing with one hand and writing an address with another. Using resident apps like Spike Living, property managers can now easily and quickly communicate directly with all parties, allowing messages to be sent instantly and recorded centrally.
Reduced administration work
The Samanage State of Workplace Survey found that workers spend an average of 520 hours a year on repetitive services and tasks that could be easily automated. Reminding residents when their rent is due, when deliveries are ready to be collected from reception or providing building updates are just some of the tasks that solutions like Spike Lettings and Spike Living can take care of.
Then there are the communal areas to think about. Most modern apartments have amenities that can be enjoyed by its residents. Onsite gyms, games rooms, and meeting rooms have become the norm. Being able to open an app and book a room turns what could be an archaic process into a seamless and easy task, encouraging residents to spend more time enjoying their buildings, and not having to worry about the stress of gaining access.
Maintenance management
One of the most time-consuming parts of a property manager’s job is the handling of maintenance issues, with minor tasks easily turning into major ones if they aren’t dealt with quickly and efficiently. Without an easy and simple way for residents to report maintenance issues, they can often go unreported. For instance, a leaking pipe that drips once per second can add up to over 13,600 litres of water a year if left unfixed, not only costing money but also potentially causing considerable damage.
Mobile apps speed up the communication in these instances and allow residents to quickly provide your maintenance staff with better details about the task ahead. By using Spike Living, all enquiries and defect tickets can be logged centrally, as well as being tracked and shared between teams, keeping the resident informed at all times.
The same can apply when wanting to communicate directly with residents. Mobile apps enable the in-house team to be proactive and provide real-time alerts, notifying residents when a lift is out-of-service, allowing them to plan around it.
Better Resident insights
Do you know what your residents really want from their buildings? What do they care about? What amenities are being used the most?
With resident apps, you can understand and gain insight into these types of questions. You can learn what amenities and services residents are interacting with, what queries are being asked, and what content they are most interested in. This enables property managers to provide residents with what they truly want, taking the guesswork out of managing properties.
Summary
Technology is giving property managers the opportunity to work more efficiently, and with the use of resident apps streamlining manual processes, this allows property managers to focus on the most important part of the business: their residents.
Learn how Spike is working with a growing number of customers to drive resident engagement and satisfaction by downloading our brochure below.
Ask any landlord or property owner what the most stressful part of their rental business is, and their likely response will be tenant turnover. Ensuring resident satisfaction can seem like a daunting task, but with digital technologies such as resident portals and mobile apps, they can have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Here are 5 ways in which resident portals can lead to an increase in tenant retention.
Why is tenant retention important?
Low retention is a problem because gaining new tenants is not a cheap process, and any month without rent is not just a loss of income but a potential expense. Tenant quality also plays an important factor, as poor-quality tenants often result in costs not recoverable from the security deposit alone. When acquiring new tenants, there are a whole host of factors that quickly increases the costs:
Advertising – Listing and promoting your property online using sites like Zoopla or Rightmove requires you to pay a fee, and the more properties you have to list, the more that fee will be.
Letting agent fees – If you employ a lettings agent, the letting fee can range from several hundred pounds to the first month’s rent.
Vacancy time – In reality, you are unlikely to find a tenant that is move-in ready, so on average a property could be vacant for around 22 to 33 days, or even longer. That means one to several months of no rent coming in.
Turnover costs – Average turnover costs within the industry come in around £1,200. However, depending on a wide variety of factors specific to the property, this number could be significantly higher.
Prioritise communication
According to NMHC and Kinglsey’s 2020 Apartment Resident Preferences Report, 31% of residents who do not choose to renew their lease are seeking better apartment management. By prioritising communication, you are showing your tenants that their comfort and their issues are important to you. If tenants are always having to chase you down to get an answer to their question or a solution to their problem, the likelihood of them staying around for very long is reduced.
By offering residents a mobile portal, you are providing them with a central place to communicate with you. Rather than being constantly bombarded with phone calls or emails, day and night, you can simply review and respond to all queries that have come through via the portal.
Furthermore, with resident portals like Spike Living, you can also promote a whole host of content, from frequently asked questions, appliance guides, to fire safety procedures, as well as the latest news from the wider community. Having this information online means that more often or not, tenants can find the information they need themselves, without having to disturb you.
Finally, small personal touches go a long way in showing your tenants you value them. For example, by capturing their date of birth, or original move-in date, you can then provide personalised acknowledgments of things like birthdays and moving-in anniversaries, which is an easy way to help your tenants feel cared for.
Efficient maintenance and repairs
Maintenance, repair, and appliance replacement costs are among the main concerns when it comes to increasing margins. Repair costs during a bad month can easily outweigh profits. Having quality tenants who take pride in their space will certainly help keep maintenance and repair costs low, but they can be even lower.
One of the advantages of solutions like Spike Living is that it allows tenants to report issues when they arise and ensures you can respond in a timely manner before they potentially escalate to a much bigger problem. Without an easy way to get in touch, your tenants may leave an issue unreported. For instance, a rattling boiler left unchecked could ultimately mean being replaced much earlier than needed. Mobile apps speed up the communication in these instances and provide your maintenance staff with more information about the task ahead. Spike Living captures all enquiries and defect tickets centrally, so they can be tracked and shared between teams, keeping the resident informed at all times.
Using a centralised communication tool, you can also be proactive when it comes to informing residents about issues within the building. For instance, if you know that the lift is going to be serviced at a particular time, you can let the tenants know in advance, so they won’t be surprised when they see the lift is out of action.
Pre-qualify and screen all tenants
If landlords do not start with a qualified and quality tenant, retention rates will be the least of their worries. Tenant screening is the most important part of the rental process and has a measurable impact on the potential turnover rate. Early detection of tenants who could cause damage to the property, break their lease, or pay rent late will help property owners and landlords to begin the lease with the best possible option.
Spike Lettings provides complete end-to-end tenant management, starting from initial enquiry, through the reservation stage, all the way to moving in. Tenants can view the progression of their tenancy, communicate with your team, sign contacts, and even make payments, all within Spike. We recently partnered with Flatfair to make the tenant onboarding process much slicker, meaning upfront deposits are no longer needed. Tenants can simply pay a one-off membership fee equal to one week’s rent (+VAT) at the start of their tenancy, authorise their debit card and settle bills at the end – similar to hotel’s check-in and out.
Offer online services
Another way to avoid unexpected vacancies is to have a modern approach to tenants accessing the services they want. According to research by NMHC and Kingsley, 58% of renters would rather pay rent using a resident portal mobile app than a property website via laptop/desktop.
When rent is easy to pay, tenants are more likely to pay it. If they have to jump through hoops to pay their rent, the chances of it being late increases. With solutions like Spike Lettings, you can also send out reminders to tenants a day or two before their rent is due and can even automate confirmations to let them know that their rent has been paid. This will also make your life easier, especially if you manage multiple properties. Instead of waiting around for payments to come in or having to chase down tenants across multiple properties, you can easily view the status of each property, what rent has been paid, and what has yet to come in, all via a single dashboard.
If you have onsite facilities like a communal gym or meeting rooms, resident portals can provide tenants with the ability to book themselves. This encourages them to enjoy the facilities, without needing to phone or email anyone every time they want to gain access. Staff can also set limits on the number of people who can use a facility at any given time, ensuring amenities are COVID-secure, and users are adhering to social distancing guidelines.
Community engagement
Research by Apartment Life found that the more friends a resident has within their building, the more likely they are to renew their lease. For instance, if they have 1-3 friends, then there is a 38% they’re renew, and if they have 7 or more friends, the chances jump to 47%. With features like clubs and forums, Spike Living allows an easy way for tenants to find others in their building who share similar interests, such as a book or wine clubs, as well as enabling residents to organise their own events to get to know each other.
Thinking about the even bigger picture, you can also connect residents with local shops and services, bringing convenience to their lives. Many of Spike’s customers team up with local businesses to offer special discounts to their residents on anything from cleaning services, dog walkers, to local restaurants.
It’s also proven that residents who are engaged with their local community are often happier than those who are not, and tend to post positive reviews about where they live on websites like HomeViews. These reviews can help attract new prospects and keep occupancy rates high and having residents as champions is an effective tactic if you want to increase interest in your property, whilst reducing your marketing spend.
Summary
To boost tenant retention landlords must be proactive. This means not waiting until a tenant is unhappy or threatening to leave before taking care of their issues. It also means being accessible, consistent, and flexible. With technology solutions like Spike Living and Spike Lettings, landlords and property owners can ensure tenants remain informed and engaged at all times, and ultimately a happy tenant is much likely to remain a long-term tenant, making it better for your bottom line.
Learn how Spike is working with a growing number of customers to drive resident engagement and satisfaction by downloading our brochure below.
