Originally published by Realync
The Challenge
Evan Erichsen is an Assistant Residential Operations Manager at The Pitch, a Wellington Management, Inc. property. He started at Wellington Management in November 2021. Prior to this new role, Evan was a leasing consultant where he began to dabble in virtual showings of his properties. He made it a goal to develop a virtual-leasing skill and considers it to be one of his strong suits professionally.
However, Evan began to struggle with the different video platforms—Zoom, in particular—he used at the time for virtual showings. Those platforms limited the duration and capabilities of Evan’s tours.
Evan and The Pitch team needed a consistent virtual touring platform to meet prospective renters’ preferences for virtual showings while converting leads to tours quicker. So, Evan and The Pitch team turned to Realync in January 2022.
The Impact
The very first time Evan utilized the Realync platform for a virtual tour resulted in not only a closed deal, but the prospective renter emphasized that nobody else’s virtual tour compared to the virtual tour experience Evan provided!
At The Pitch, Evan has had a very strong conversion rate on tours to application. In fact, his in-person tours close at around 50%. Then, when he started using Realync, he had just a few virtual tours each month and continued to close those virtual tours at around 50%.
Wellington Management contracts Cadence Marketing Solutions to help their teams with marketing efforts. It’s been a goal of Cadence Marketing Solutions to convert The Pitch team’s leads to tours faster as this property is in a market full of lease-up properties.
“Evan has jumped in front of the camera and created video greetings to meet his prospects faster, as well as short tours and tips for moving. But, we can’t thank our local Realync rep enough, Ellen Timmers (and her beautiful dog Sunny), as she has visited the property a few times to help us capture fun and informational videos, and train our team to keep the momentum strong,” said Janet Rosseth, Founder and CMO at Cadence Marketing Solutions, LLC.
“The entire Realync team has been incredibly supportive to launch and leverage this unique tool and we’re thrilled with the results so far!”
The Outcome
In May 2022, Evan’s supervisors challenged him to provide an instant virtual tour option to prospective renters so then Evan was less likely to lose them to the competition. With determination, Evan stepped up to the challenge! In just 15 days, Evan had completed nine virtual tours and converted virtual leads at 55%. Plus, he had already increased the lead-to-tour rate by a whopping 15% during May with this strategy!
In May 2022, with Evan’s help The Pitch team outperformed their highest monthly tour count year to date. And, this was their strongest month of net leases year to date as well!
“Realync has also been great for marketing purposes and resident engagement efforts. By creating videos for both prospects and residents, I have found Realync to be incredibly helpful in my day-to-day work! I’ve created different videos like walkthrough videos for prospects before they arrive for specific tours, walkthroughs/how-tos for residents moving in, and even for resident events!” said Evan.
In addition, The Pitch team shared that their Realync live tour conversion rate is equal to their in-person conversion rate but with shorter tours! Their average virtual tour is less than 30 minutes and their average in-person tour is 30 minutes to an hour. Now, that’s what we like to hear—the Realync platform has allowed Evan and The Pitch team to close leases faster!