The surveys help Waterton identify service problems and fix them before residents express their frustration online. “It’s brand protection—not in a defensive way, but in a proactive way,” Lozinak says.
Managers in general also pay attention to reviews and comments to identify systemic problems that annoy residents. “I can embrace the negative review and try to learn from it,” Seiler says. “If it’s a bad review, we’ve got to fix the system that created it.”
A Dual Focus
Apartment companies that focus on providing great service and responding to customer feedback are using that focus to brand themselves to both their customers and their employees. Denver-based REIT Aimco bases its messages to customers on its service, with a long list of promises and guarantees. The firm has a reputation for communicating its offerings by avoiding some of the more prominent branding techniques used by other real estate investment trusts. It does not, for example, typically splash its name in print ads, and the Aimco logo runs small on its properties’ websites. The firm avoids flashy language, as well.
“We’ll say ‘Olympic pool’—we won’t say ‘shimmering’ Olympic pool,” says Keith Dodds, senior vice president of marketing for the firm, which owns and manages a portfolio of 105,000 apartment units in 38 states. That doesn’t mean Aimco doesn’t take a lot of care to craft consistent, branded messages to its customers, however.
For instance, Aimco promises residents they can “Move With Confidence,” assuring them their apartment will be ready for move-in and will have been inspected by the property’s managers. If a resident isn’t happy with the apartment after 30 days, Aimco will cancel the lease obligation. “It’s a tangible example of standing behind your brand,” Dodds says. The REIT even promises customers its employees won’t enter a resident’s apartment without wearing shoe protectors to avoid tracking in dirt. Service promises like these are part of the Aimco brand, Dodds says. Waterton Residential uses a similarly comforting branded message. The company conveys the message “Waterton Brings You Home” consistently, repeating the tag line in all its ads, with the same colors and logo placement. But most important, the message is consistently reinforced by the service Waterton’s employees provide to residents, Lozinak says.
