Resident Referrals Have Never Been More Important & We Make it Incredibly Easy

According to RealPage’s latest findings in April, “Traffic to apartment property websites is down about 7.5%... and guest card counts plunged 27.5%.” The same report goes on to say that new lease signings have also plummeted by an even deeper 40%.

With shelter in place orders stemming from COVID-19 already impacting your foot traffic and lease signings to this degree, having a strong digital strategy to generate leads and convert new leases has never been more critical.

This is where your resident engagement & loyalty strategies are critical, as they can keep residents with you longer and help attract referrals more consistently. Plus, a referral program allows you to give back by rewarding residents directly for referring their friends!

In this post we will explore how Community Rewards can help you navigate this current crisis by relying on the strength of your existing community to power your resident referral program.

Your Resident Referral Toolkit

Communities who use Community Rewards have many tools at their disposal to promote and incentivize resident referrals. Your resident advocates are one of your most powerful weapons in times like these. They help to mitigate the decrease in foot traffic by delivering a source of highly qualified leads.

We simply help you find them and activate them. Community Rewards and white label clients are able to:

• Promote any referral incentive to the entire property with just a few clicks
• Automate referral tracking and rewards with our lead to lease tracking system
• Identify leads and top referring residents
• Send electronic rewards and incentives to referring residents and new leases for participating in the referral program

Promote Awareness of Any Referral Bonuses

Keep all residents in the know with your community feed. Whether it’s your new referral promotion, renewal campaign, or the latest update regarding shelter in place, onsite teams simply log into the Community Rewards dashboard and post announcements to the entire community.

Our masters of email delivery, with well over 100 million emails served, will then help ensure that all residents are made aware. Additionally, by sending an announcement inside Community Rewards, residents will be directed back into the program to find the referral action which allows them to also earn points for referring their friends.

Automatic Lead to Lease Tracking 

We know it can be a struggle to track leads back to the original source, so this is why every resident in Community Rewards has their own unique referral URL.

Now they can earn points by generating leads and leases by sharing their code with their social networks or friends, and you can track which residents are your strongest advocates!

Anyone who clicks on a resident’s unique link sends visitors to your online reviews page, with a special referral view. Visitors learn about your property from the most qualified source -- the residents who comprise the community! 

They see their friend’s review prominently displayed at the top of the page and again on the contact form.

Visitors who fill out a contact form will register as a lead, and (upon your confirmation) the referring resident gets a modest reward for successfully sending someone your way. Once the lead has signed a lease however, the referring resident gets the maximum number of points allotted by the program. 

As a reminder, some states regulate inducements, rebates or other rewards in exchange for referrals. Please contact your legal counsel if you are unsure of your state’s policies.

Up the Referrals - and the Rewards

In the event you want to incentivize referrals even further, you may opt to send larger lump-sum monetary rewards to your residents. In this case, you can utilize our Incentives Program -- which is a free tool to send digital reward cards of variable values to residents.

We now offer residents over 100 brands to choose from, allowing them to personalize their choice of the brand they want! 

At the end of the day we know you are very busy, so we designed our system to reduce your workload and stress. 

Regardless of your goal, with Community Rewards, you have access to a seemingly endless supply of unique resident-generated content. Everything from resident reviews, resident photos uploaded to the community photo album, and even polling data, will help equip your teams with the information they need to convince prospects who, in the absence of a physical visit, may need more social proof right now to make their decision to lease with your property.

Ready to setup your referral program? Contact us today to start creating new rewarding experiences for your current residents!