ActiveBuilding Testimonial - Heather Calcagni
It was easy online payment capabilities, not community-building, that turned Wingate Companies on to the ActiveBuilding resident portal . The company had sought a user-friendly, reliable solution that would encourage residents to move from writing checks to paying rent and other expenses online , spinning off many benefits and cost savings.
But it wasn’t long before Wingate began to recognize just how effective ActiveBuilding was at creating a sense of community between residents, and between residents and staff as well. This benefit went directly to the company’s bottom line, as Heather Calcagni describes here.
A Sense of Community
She says the more connected residents feel to one another, and the less they feel like strangers living among strangers, the more likely they are to renew their leases, accept higher rents and recommend the property to others. At a property that uses ActiveBuilding, residents get to know one another in a common forum, share information about activities in and around the property and keep up with events and notices posted by property staff. Calcagni says it’s no coincidence that properties with the highest renewal rates and customer satisfaction have extremely high activity on ActiveBuilding.
In this video, Calcagni provides the example of a group of Wingate-managed properties in Boston that house many medical professionals. They come from all over the world, leaving family and friends behind, and ActiveBuilding has become the go-to venue for them to meet one other and learn what’s going on.
Hyper-Targeted Communication
Social media is important to most people these days, and ActiveBuilding fills a role traditional social media doesn’t: it is hyper-local and specific, extending only to the residents of a particular property. While the residents are very unlikely to run into one another on Facebook, they’re all together on ActiveBuilding. And while not every resident is available to (or even necessarily wants to) attend a pool party or mixer, they can access the portal at their convenience, 24/7, to engage with other residents.
An Open Line of Communication
Staff love how ActiveBuilding opens for them a line of communication with residents that goes beyond the usual complaints, questions and requests. Instead of engaging with residents only when they drop off rent checks (particularly since more and more of them are using ActiveBuilding to pay online), property staff can project the property’s friendly personality and get to know residents by engaging in a forum that makes them part of the community.