February 20, 2018

Heather Palmer Addresses Yardi Marketing Forum: The Future Is Now

Heather Palmer Yardi Marketing Forum Panel

Heather Palmer, Director of Leasing Strategies for CRC, participated as a panelist at the Yardi Marketing Forum entitled “Marketing Automation: The Future Is Now.”

As the head of multifamily sales for CRC, Mrs. Palmer is an avid user of the Yardi sales platforms and has successfully implemented several of the innovate products that Yardi offers.  Ms. Palmer noted, “Customers have developed a comfort level with automated interactions. We live in a time where the customer expects immediate response and more touch points.”

One such modernization is a Smart Text option which CRC has added as a trial to some of their community websites.  The texting platforms allow CRC to utilize keywords to automate responses.  For example, if someone sends a text that includes the word PET, they will get an automated response with information about our pet policy.

Mrs. Palmer added, “When researching the Smart Text functionality, we found that text messages had a 98% open rate and a 45% response rate.  Email was significantly lower for both.  Adding Smart Text to our strategy, gives customers the attention they need, when they need it and enhances the customer relationship.”

With a diverse portfolio of properties CRC has varied technological needs.  Therefore, another Yardi advancement CRC has implemented is the Get Notified Feature.  This feature has been added to many community websites allowing the customer to sign up for an alert when the floor plan of their choice becomes available.  The customer then receives an email as soon as a resident gives notice on the floor plan of their choice.

“We recognize that customers enjoy self-service and like to be in control specifically during the application and administrative process.  We see this in the retail industry as there are multiple brick and mortar stores with self-checkouts and kiosks. By using this feature, we have been able to shorten the sales cycle at three of our properties.” Mrs. Palmer stated.

Heather Palmer has worked for Continental Realty Corporation for nine years, joining the corporate support team in four as the Director of Leasing Strategies, where she heads a team of leasing strategists responsible for the sales training and CRM systems at the company.