Grow Your Portfolio But Not Your Team: How Self-Showings Make it Possible
Endless phone tag to schedule viewings. Nonstop prospect questions. Rushing from showing to showing. It’s a familiar grind to busy property managers.
It was also reality for Indianapolis-based A Step Ahead Management. The three-person team was strapped trying to manage 135 rental units, regularly putting in 12-hour workdays. But then they figured out a new system that made the nonstop hustle a thing of the past.
Since fully implementing the new system in 2019, the team has increased its portfolio to 300 units. The team has reduced its working hours and hasn’t needed to hire any more staff. The secret? Self-showings.
Self-showings work by giving prospects access to a unit — usually via a one-time door code or lockbox — so they can look around the space on their own, without an agent physically present.
We saw self-showings soar in popularity when COVID hit, and that popularity has only grown in the years since. Not only were they great in the zero-contact era, but self-showings also save property managers time and provide more flexibility for prospects to schedule a showing when it fits their schedule.
With the right process and partner in place, implementing self-showings can decrease operating costs and improve customer satisfaction. Here’s what you need to know.
Who Can Benefit From Self-Showings?
Self-showings can benefit property managers with many needs. They’re especially useful for property managers responsible for a large volume of units.
For example, Jarod Puckett of Arkansas Homes and Rentals manages 800 units around Little Rock, Arkansas. During peak rental season, he was staffing seven full-time agents to handle showings. After implementing self-showings, Puckett only needed three agents to manage the busy season workload.
We’ve seen our customers in other scenarios benefit from self-showings too:
- Far-away units: Property managers with units located far from their offices can cut down on drive time and fuel costs by using self-showings.
- Low-priority units: Some property managers have found success by using self-showings for low-priority units — say, those that are less profitable or easier to rent — so they can free up their time to focus on a custom approach for high-priority rentals.
- High rate of no-shows: We’ve seen self-showings cut down on the number of no-shows that property managers experience by up to 80%. Take Puckett as an example — he saw no-shows decrease by 50% with self-showings, as prospects are now able to schedule showings for the time it’s most convenient for them.
Intrigued? Run a pilot. In fact, implementing self-showings for a few properties is a great way to see how well they work before rolling it out to more units.
4 Ways to Minimize Risks During Self-Showings
Without proper protections in place, self-showings can carry risk. Scammers could use the listing for fraud. Thieves or squatters could target a unit. Understanding these risks means that you can take the right steps to prevent them.
1. Only offer self-showings on vacant units
There’s much less risk when a tenant, their pet, and all their belongings are not involved.
2. Ask screening questions
A screening process before the showing helps you avoid unnecessarily giving unit access to people who won’t qualify. Plus, you’ll weed out any suspicious prospects who could turn out to be scammers or squatters.
Make sure to ask the right screening questions to ensure prospects meet the rental criteria and to avoid fraud. Effective questions include:
- Monthly income
- Info about pets
- Identity verification via a credit card or driver’s license
At ShowMojo, We Work With Experian — the same credit bureau trusted by major banks — to verify prospect identities.
3. Provide the access code securely
During a self-showing, prospects typically receive unit access via a lockbox or door code. These tools make sure they only get access once they arrive for the showing:
- Location services: Require prospects to turn on their phone’s location services to verify they are actually at the unit before they receive an access code.
- Phone call verification: Instead of providing the access code automatically, opt to have the prospect call you when they arrive. You can provide the code directly. Plus, this is an opportunity to “feel out” the prospect with a quick conversation.
4. Find the right partner
Look for a self-showings partner that offers other antifraud features, such as…
- Photo watermarking: Ensure your listing photos aren’t being reused by Online Listing Scammers through automated watermarking on your listings.
- Anti-fraud scheduling: Ask your self-showings partner how its scheduling system prevents fraudulent behaviors. Look for systems that won’t allow a prospect to sign up for multiple showings at the same time and that limits the number of showings a prospect can sign up for within a certain time frame.
- Constant evolution: When evaluating self-showings partners, ask what they’re doing to stay ahead of fraud. You want to work with a team that’s always evolving their processes and welcomes feedback from property managers on how to combat scammers.
These are just a few ways to defend your company against Self-Showing Opportunists. By minimizing risk, you’ll set yourself up to see big benefits from self-showings.
How to Maintain a High Level of Customer Service
Self-showings cut down on the number of times you need to communicate with prospects. This saves you time, but it also means there are fewer opportunities to connect with potential renters.
That doesn’t necessarily hurt a prospect’s experience, though. Businesses implementing intelligent automation can see customer satisfaction scores Improve by as Much as 25% because customers are able to get answers to their questions faster.
In the property rental world, we’ve found that prospects feel the same way. They appreciate the convenience of instant scheduling, rather than calling or emailing back and forth with an agent.
Efficient communication shows prospects that you value their time. Plus, there are other ways to maintain a high level of customer service while using self-showings:
- Phone call verification: If you opt for phone call verification when a prospect arrives at a property, use this time to impress them by welcoming them to the unit and answering any questions they have.
- Showing alerts: You’ll receive an alert when showings are scheduled. Use this as an opportunity to reach out with a personal phone call or message. A simple, welcoming text can start their showing off on the right foot: “I’m John, a property manager at Midtown Apartments. We’re excited for you to check out the unit! Feel free to call me with any questions.”
- Customized Follow-Up: Customize any automatic follow-up messages to share specific information about the building or unit. For example, after a prospect completes a showing, you can send them an email with information about the rental cost, utilities, pet policies and any other information they might want to review before applying. Or you could share a link to a feedback form or request a Google review.
Selecting the right self-showings partner is also important in maintaining a high level of customer service. Look for a partner that offers 24 / 7 live support to respond to questions about listings. Ensure they’re available to address any access issues that prospects may encounter during typical self-showing hours, usually 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Our live support team has answered more than 820,000 calls on behalf of property managers like Jonathan Glisson of Neighborhood Revival. Glisson provided custom FAQs for the ShowMojo team to use when responding to questions about Neighborhood Revival units. That way, Glisson can still influence how questions are being answered, without actually having to do the answering himself.
With the right steps in place, self-showings can actually improve the customer experience by giving your team the time it needs to focus on providing personal touches.
Save Time and Money with Self-Showings
Self-showings can seriously cut down on the time you spend coordinating viewings and showing units, so you have more time to focus on strategically growing your business. You could even expand your rental portfolio without having to increase your headcount, like the team at A Step Ahead Management did.
As the company’s president, Chad Stickley, said, “ShowMojo helped me focus on growing the business. It’s like we have a marketing person handling the leasing process. We don’t have to touch anything until the lead is 80% ready.”
With the right self-showings partner, you’ll be able to customize the process and rest assured that you have the right security in place to protect your units. It’ll almost be like the units are showing themselves.
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For the avoidance of doubt, the foregoing disclaimers and limitations on liability set forth in this Section 10 shall apply to (in addition to all other Services) your use of any Products [THIS IS DEFINED AS “electronic lock boxes, smart locks or other digital access devices”] and any related services provided by ShowMojo (Products and any such services, the “Self-Showing Services”). Without limiting the foregoing, in the event you elect to enable any Self-Showing Services, you acknowledge that there is risk inherent in the Self-Showing Services given the nature thereof, and that, by enabling the Self-Showing Services, you assume all such risk. While use of the Self-Showing Services remains at your own risk, ShowMojo offers certain security and/or anti-fraud services that are designed to mitigate such risk, which may include, without limitation, anti-fraud screening, custom watermarking, prospect identity validation, anti-fraud messaging and identity decisioning (collectively, “Security and Anti-Fraud Tools”). Your ShowMojo account gives you the ability to enable or disable one or more of the Security and Anti-Fraud Tools. It is highly recommended that you enable all such Security and Anti-Fraud Tools, as doing so may decrease the likelihood of fraudulent or other criminal activity relating to your use of the Self-Showing Services or your ShowMojo account generally. However, you acknowledge that, even with implementation of all Security and Anti-Fraud Tools, it is impossible to eliminate such risk entirely, and ShowMojo shall have no liability whatsoever to you or any third party for any unauthorized, fraudulent or criminal activity committed by third parties in connection with your use of the Self-Showing Services.