by 
Is it time to offer “full service” management on Saturday and Sunday?
It is Saturday and time to lease, lease, lease. Weekends are made for leasing, right? Yes, but…
Maybe more important than leasing on the weekends is resident services and engagement. Your biggest “customer count” – the time our Residents really use your product and services – is Saturday and Sunday. What are you doing to promote resident goodwill and retention…and encourage lease renewals? Weekends are the best time to create the perception of great service and concern for your real “paying” customers, your residents.
- Weekend Staffing – Make sure you bring your A team on the weekends. Saturday and Sunday are not the time to use that new leasing person who has little or no experience dealing with resident issues and concerns. And it is not fair to put your newbies in a position to make a serious resident relations mistake.
- Weekend Move-Ins – If you read this blog, you know I don’t like weekend move-ins because our industry understaffs the properties on Saturdays and Sundays. The result is often a very chaotic move-in experience that starts this new relationship off on a bad note. Again, if you are moving residents in on the weekend, have the staff and resources to ensure that move-in day is a positive and memorable experience.
- Weekend Resident Relations – The residents need more than a “face” in the office on weekends. A knowledgeable and proactive professional will create goodwill and confidence with the customers. We can do better with weekend resident questions and concerns than, “Let me tell my manager on Monday”.
- Weekend Maintenance – Our residents can get every service thinkable for their car, pet, grooming care, and life on weekends. Why can’t they get a service request done on Saturday morning when they are home and it is convenient for them?
- Weekend Leasing – Of course, we want to lease, too! But if we staff the weekend with our newest, least experienced team member and expect her to juggle leasing along with move-ins, move-outs, and resident needs and issues, we are going to fall short of expectations.
- Centralization – Our industry is moving toward providing resident services for multiple properties from a centralized location. It will become even more important to keep engagements “personal and real” to maintain the highest goodwill and satisfaction from our paying customers. The company that learns to do this best wins!
The solution is to staff our apartment communities – onsite or centralized – with the best people we have to offer and prepare them to deal with every aspect of weekend apartment management. Resident relations, maintenance calls, move-ins, move-outs, and leasing are all part of the weekend management priorities.
Wonder if this should be an “EXTRA” that a well-positioned apartment community might promote:
Full-Service Management on Weekends!
