Many renters visit multiple properties before deciding to live at a specific community. This means that leasing agents don’t always close a lease on a prospect’s first visit. Proper follow up, therefore, is often the key to closing a deal with a future resident. Specifically, customizing the follow up experience, reminding your prospect about the features of their next home and inviting them to take specific action will help you to close more deals.
How to Customize Your Follow Up With Prospects
Generic, pre-written messages will not interest residents nearly as well as tailored, personal follow up. During your initial visit and/or property tour, take a sincere interest in your prospect and gain as much personal knowledge about them as possible, while also respecting private matters.
During the tour, ask prospects to tell you a little bit about where they’re currently living. Their answers could yield important information about what they’re looking to change about their living experience at their next home. In a follow up message the next day, you could say something like this:
“I remember that you’ve had issues with management at your current residence, which is why I wanted you to get to know our professional, friendly staff. Here is a link to a video that highlights our staff members and gives brief bio sketches of each. Give me a call or reply to this email in the next day or two so we can talk about how to finish up your application. Thank you for coming in yesterday, it was a pleasure to meet you!”
This example was personalized, helpful and not too pushy. Your prospect would realize that you remember them and care about them. A similar approach can be taken by learning about their family members, their hobbies, or other interests and mentioning how your community can meet their needs.
Remind Prospects of Their Experience & Your Amenities
Prospects need to be reminded about the features of your community. Doing so will also cause them to revisit the positive feelings they experienced during the tour. If you make a few follow up contacts within the space of a few days, remind them about different features each time. An example follow up might look something like this:
“I was thinking about our visit we had on Wednesday and I remembered that your kids are learning how to swim. I know they are going to have a blast in our resort-style pools this summer! I know how much you enjoyed the granite countertops and stainless steel kitchen appliances. Your whole family will love living here at Fancy Modern Apartments. As soon as you submit your application fee we’ll finish up the paperwork so you can move in as soon as you need to. Thanks again for coming in to meet us!”
This example reminded the prospect of a few of the amenities that the community offers and helps them to envision their family loving and living at Fancy Modern Apartments.
Invite Prospects To Take Action!
Sending follow up messages without a call to action is more or less useless. Keep in mind that the purpose of follow up is to close a lease with your prospect. The key to a successful invitation is inviting the prospect to take specific action: take another tour, turn in the application fee, etc.
When Should You Follow Up With Prospects?
Resident 360 recommends that you follow up with your prospect a few hours after they came in, the next day and then twice more within the next 2 – 5 days. Quick, purposeful follow up will help you achieve your goal of helping prospects to become residents!
What strategies have you used to purposefully follow up with prospects? Join the conversation!
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Taylor Fish
Taylor is a staff writer for Multihousing Friends and a student at Brigham Young University.