Rewarding Behavior: Carter-Haston Boosts Resident Satisfaction, Loyalty, Reviews by Incentivizing Community Engagement

Resident satisfaction is about more than beautiful interiors, incredible amenities and timely repairs. Often overlooked by multifamily property managers is the importance of actively fostering a sense of community that makes an apartment feel like a real home among friendly people. Renters who feel they’re part of a community are far more likely to tell others about it, post reviews, renew their leases and even accept renewal increases. Property managers do their best to make their properties pleasant places to live, with polite and helpful staff, trusting community spirit to grow organically. However, even at a well-run property, engagements between residents – and between residents and staff – rarely rise to a level that constitutes what most would call a real “community.” Where it pays to engage with renters Nashville-based Carter-Haston has taken an active role in fostering, and even rewarding, engagement among its residents. They’ve adopted RealPage’s Community Rewards platform, which rewards residents with redeemable points for doing things like participating in contests and events, answering polls and sharing photos and more with the community. In engaging in these and other ways, residents create prime material for social media promotion highlighting the pleasures of life at the property. The activity also spurs a big increase in posting of online reviews, which have become a critical component of apartment marketing. Ariel Garcia, who serves as VP of Marketing at Carter-Haston, says she’s been thrilled at how Community Rewards has motivated the sort of behaviors that promote community spirit. “We’re using Community Rewards to get people to stay longer, stay active, stay happy,” she says. “It creates a social environment; it’s fun and it’s exciting.” Garcia lists some of the many participatory activities that Carter-Haston properties have initiated using the Com...