About the author: Stefan Williamson has worked in the property industry as a specialist in letting systems for more than 15 years. As Head of Housing Industry, he is the direct point of contact for everything to do with the Immomio letting solution.
Contents:
- Introduction
- Insight and interview with my daughter Sharleen
- Relevance to everyday life in the housing industry
- Common ground with Generation Z
- “Content is king”
- “The medium is the message”
- Suggestions from practice
- Summary
Content is king, but the medium is the message.
In other words: the effect of the medium chosen to convey a piece of information is at least as important as the content itself. The message of the medium and the message of the content should ideally tell the same story.
In the previous article, however, we found that certain forms of communication are received very differently. Talking to your landlord via a chatbot is completely normal for Generation Z. For some baby boomers, on the other hand, it is extremely impersonal. Yet the face-to-face advice during office hours that they prefer would be an ineffective waste of precious time for a youngster. So how can a housing company communicate with its tenants and prospective tenants in a consistent way that still suits every generation?
To answer this question, you need to find out which shared need unites all recipients and then make this aspect the top priority of your communication strategy.
Why does the older generation often prefer advice in person – ideally always from the same contact? Personal contact and one-to-one conversations give them the certainty they need that their request will be handled appropriately, conscientiously and fairly.
What about Generation Z?
To find out, I asked my daughter Sharleen (15) for her opinion:
Me: “When you want or need to communicate with your landlord in future – whether it’s arranging appointments, signing contracts, asking about service charges, reporting damage or complaining about noisy neighbours – what matters most to you?”
Sharleen: “That I can somehow do it without talking to people.”
“Wow, but you’re actually a really outgoing person. Why is the idea of sorting these things out in person, on the phone or by visiting the office, such a nightmare for you?”
“I don’t have a problem talking to people, but if it’s not a conversation with friends and it’s just about getting things done, then it’s simply annoying.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, first you have to reach the person or make an appointment. That’s already annoying and takes time that I can’t spend with my friends or on my hobbies, for example. Then there’s no guarantee that the person can help you at all. Maybe they’re new and/or just don’t know. So it’s down to luck whether you get someone who can help you. But if I do it online, someone has thought long and hard about which issues and questions might come up, and the answers and solutions are programmed in. That way everyone gets the same good service.”
“Interesting. I’ve never looked at it that way. So you like meeting and talking to people you’re friends with, but for everyday matters you prefer a digital dialogue. Ideally with a system that can give you information straight away and where you feel you’re being treated fairly!?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Thank you very much for the interview!”
So even for digital natives, humanity must not fall by the wayside: they also want to be treated fairly, and personal contact is not at all unwelcome – it just shouldn’t be analogue.
For me, the common ground leads to a not very surprising conclusion:
Every one of us, young or old, wants to be treated with respect and fairness. Both the actual content of your tenant communication and the communication medium you choose should be guided by these needs, which span all generations.
The claim that digitalisation of all things can help with exactly this sounds bold at first, as it initially feels cold, impersonal and automated. So let’s look at two examples from the field of flat search that support this thesis – one relating to content and one to the form of communication used.
Content is King
Example 1: Matching
The flat offers and viewing invitations you send to flat seekers must be a precise fit. Your future tenants should feel that you have understood their needs exactly and take them into account accordingly. Absolutely nobody, old or young, wants to waste their time on a viewing when it could have been clear from the outset that the flat and the tenant would never be a match.
In this example, the communication channel used is merely secondary. Here, the added value of digitalisation lies less in the medium and much more in the content: a suitable flat offer!
Without digitalisation, and certainly since the GDPR, even the most customer-focused landlords can no longer manage this by hand. Highly customisable ideal tenant profiles and sophisticated, data protection-compliant tenant matching help housing companies find exactly the right match for each flat and each tenant.
A head of letting recently asked me:
“Where is the humanity in that if an algorithm selects the right tenants for me?”
Quite simply: where it was before – in your hands!
Your own allocation guidelines determine how cold or humane the tenant selection is. The only difference is that you store them in advance as an ideal tenant profile on the property, and data-based suggestions are generated from it. How strongly rational criteria such as income, length of search or membership are weighted, or whether social aspects such as age or family situation also play a role, is decided by you and not by the matching algorithm!
As a result, the suggestions are consistent across the whole company, 100% fair and free from discrimination. This in turn helps the landlord defend itself against any accusations.
Which of these suggested prospective tenants is ultimately invited to a viewing can, of course, be decided by a member of staff and does not have to be automated.
The medium is the message
Example 2: Messenger
Digital is not the same as digitalisation. There is far more to change than switching communication from post to email. Once an email has been sent, you have no further control. Neither over whether or when it has been read, nor over the form in which any reply reaches you. That in turn is bad for an end-to-end digital process. It often leads to media discontinuity, and the communication history is also difficult to trace. Email doesn’t give you any advantage when it comes to a personal touch either.
This is where a cross-platform messenger, as used in modern letting systems, can help.
Communication is direct, fast, and transparent and traceable in the history.
But isn’t a digital communication medium like this impersonal?
Not if the processes are designed to leave a reliable, transparent and personal impression on your customers. Alongside predefined text modules, the messenger also lets you add a small personal touch to a message. As a result, prospective tenants don’t feel they are being fobbed off with automated replies. The communication can even take place as a genuine real-time dialogue. Just as if you were sitting opposite each other.
If the benefit is clear and the user guidance and texts are friendly, most users will appreciate a smooth, time-saving system.
A combination of needs-based content and a personal touch gives people of every generation the feeling of being treated with respect.
This is also the key to acceptance among your own employees.
Looking for a suitable home is a very emotional subject, and a landlord with heart and passion always wants the best for their customers. However, the many changes of recent years (GDPR, communication behaviour, competition, etc.) have made this increasingly challenging and complex.
By digitalising your letting processes, you help your employees look after your new and existing tenants in an even more tailored and personal way. And if the new letting solution also takes tedious, time-consuming routine tasks off their hands, they will be much more open to the changes that come with it.
Some suggestions from practice:
- With digital coordination of viewing appointments, prospective tenants can book free slots themselves. This saves the landlord a great deal of time that would otherwise have gone into arranging appointments.
- Because prospective tenants can manage their data centrally and independently, the landlord no longer has to collect and complete data after a viewing. Prospective tenants do this themselves, 24/7. So as a landlord, by the time you are back in the office, you often already have all the data in the system.
- Intelligent control of the marketing means a flat stays online no longer than necessary. Once a defined quantity and quality of enquiries has been reached, the marketing is simply deactivated automatically. This saves the landlord from answering lots of unnecessary enquiries.
To sum up briefly:
The benefits and opportunities that arise from digitalising your letting processes contribute directly to the need, shared by all generations, for your customers to be treated fairly and conscientiously. They also help you achieve a coherent and personal form of communication in which the content and the communication medium used speak a consistent, modern language.
Automation can provide useful support wherever routine tasks can be taken over or legally sensitive points in the process need to be handled reliably and consistently. But it never replaces the personal touch.
The more digital and sensitive the processes around us become, the more one question comes to the fore:
How can I make sure that the person at the other end of my digital process really is who they claim to be?
That is the subject of the next article in this series:
Digital processes require a digital identity – an outlook