How to Get the Most Out of Your Multifamily Chatbot
We wrote this blog post before the COVID-19 breakout spread across our nation. We still believe in these principles as much as we did when we wrote them, but before you make the most of your chatbot, make sure it’s an important part of the marketing tech stack that enhances your overall digital footprint.
Need help figuring how to navigate the current state of marketing? Drop us a line, we’re here to help.
The talk about chatbots is still buzzing the Multifamily industry and beyond. If you just got your own chatbot, don’t just set it and forget it.
With a little extra effort, you can get the most out of your chatbot:
Add a Branded Personality
Personality is what makes you different from your neighbor, co-worker, or your friends. It helps make you feel like you and easier to understand. Personality helps you brand your chatbot to your property or company.
Think of your chatbot as another person on your team. There to help you handle questions from your website and Facebook prospects and residents. This personality is yours to give them. How do you want them to handle questions or resident requests? Are they personable? Will they tell you a joke if you ask? Do they love emojis? What is your new teammate’s name?
There are several ways to add personality to your bot. With emojis, jokes, selecting a unique chatbot name and using conversational language in responses your prospects and residents will know exactly who they are talking to.
When a chatbot has a name and a personality to match, its users are much more responsive. Prospects gain insight into how your community will take care of them.
Don’t Forget Your Current Residents
On-site staff care of their residents while trying to find and create new residents. These tasks can become overwhelming when you have a prospect calling in to find out the office hours and a resident in the office asking about where to fill out a maintenance request and “oh when is that Mixer happening again?”
Our chatbots show that apartment residents use a property’s chatbot to find quick answers just as often as prospects and expect it to know more about the property. When your chatbot is able to get them to the right place faster this lightens the load for on-site staff.
Don’t forget to include resident related information such as links to rent and maintenance portals, notices about property improvements or closures. When a resident can go to the community chatbot to answer their questions the on-site staff doesn’t have to.
Include reminders that heighten the resident experience. These can be about events, parties, and resident exclusive contests make residents feel involved with the community and in the know.
Integration and Extension
In order to get the most out of your chatbot you want to make sure people see it and use it … and this shouldn’t be limited only to visitors on your website! Integrating with tools like Facebook Ads, your website, text messaging campaigns, and Comment to Message Facebook posts allows you to attract users to your bot. You can then turn those prospects into leads.
Hosting contests or special offers through Comment to Message Facebook posts is a great way to get residents or prospects to engage with your chatbot. Once those users begin to chat with your bot you can then nurture them by adding them to your email list for campaigns or by setting up campaigns within your bot. Learn more about nurturing through email campaigns in our blog about the Welcome series.
It may seem obvious but if you don’t have your chatbot on your website, you could be missing out on qualified prospects that want a quick answer. By integrating your chatbot with your website you are helping your on-site staff field less calls and focus on the tasks that only they can complete.
Facebook Ads let you target prospects interested in renting and apartments. By using Facebook Ads that send prospects to your community chatbot, you can answer questions faster and collect more qualified leads. Facebook Ads can also help you push specials or specific floor plans to prospects. When the user clicks on your ad about a floorplan they are taken directly to a section of the chatbot with information on that floor plan, giving them the immediate answers they are looking for.
Use it!
The number one mistake with any digital marketing tool is to not use it! Leasing Agents are a chatbot’s best friend. Teaching your chatbot everything that your leasing staff knows helps create a more cohesive experience for the user.
Training your staff to use the chatbot is also one of the best ways to ensure that the tool is being used to its fullest potential. Following up with leads, understanding the user’s journey with the chatbot, and knowing what the chatbot knows all contribute to a smooth experience for prospects. Resulting in more qualified traffic for your team.
Also be sure to keep your chatbot up to date, whether that is leasing specials, floorplans, or just general community information like pool hours.
Don’t Have a Chatbot Yet?
30 Lines offers apartment chatbots that convert prospects and assist current residents from anywhere you can share a link. Schedule a demo to see how much you’ll like your newest digital teammate (who never takes a break or a holiday).