Apartment Chatbots: What to Ask Before You Buy
Shopping for an apartment leasing chatbot? Use these 50+ questions to find the right vendor.
June 16, 2020
Marketing
Introducing new technologies for your apartment communities does so much more than just dress it up and increase the appeal for residents. Smart-home devices and software powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) can improve operational efficiencies and your net operating incomes. Plus, in today’s environment with social distancing, technology is crucial for maintaining daily operations and enabling activity from beyond the leasing office.
Right now, you may be in the position of needing new tools to help your prospects stay connected with your communities. One of the most widely used solutions is the property management chatbot, also known as a virtual leasing assistant. However, choosing which virtual assistant for your multifamily business is not an easy decision. With the list of vendors growing in the virtual assistant space for multifamily, knowing which ones are actually using voice-enabled AI could be the difference between choosing the right partner or not for your properties.
How do you know which questions to ask and what kind of answers you should be looking for? Start by asking these 50+ questions before purchasing a virtual assistant for your apartment portfolio.
Ensure the vendor is using AI to power their virtual assistant. Be wary of vendors whose chatbots solely use menu- or button-based interfaces, as these are not true forms of AI and cannot easily scale like their AI-powered counterparts. Plus, a true virtual leasing assistant needs to go beyond being a simple chatbot. It should have the ability to converse with your prospects on the channels they use most—phone calls, text messages, and chat. Double-check with your vendor to ensure their virtual assistant can support all three.
Can the virtual assistant successfully answer leasing questions for your prospects? It should answer at least 100+ leasing questions.
Use the list of leasing questions below for common examples.
Being able to customize your virtual assistant’s experience to align with your company’s voice and brand is important. Ask these questions to ensure you have full control over the experience that will be offered from the virtual assistant to your rental prospects.
Your virtual assistant should come with ample tracking and reporting, so your team can close on all the prospects nurtured by the bot. Ask these questions to find out if the virtual assistant is equipped with robust reporting.
You should feel confident that your vendor will provide ample support and training. This includes during the implementation phase and after. There’s nothing worse than onboarding a new technology without the proper support and training, and then feeling unsupported later.
We hope these questions help you in your journey to evaluating the right virtual leasing assistant vendor for your properties! As a vendor ourselves, we know first-hand all of the key components required to build and deploy a successful virtual leasing assistant solution for multifamily properties. We’re here for you any time, send us a note and let us know how we can help your properties get started.
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