Chatbots have come a long way since its introduction to the industry. And despite multifamily’s mixed feelings about new technology, a chatbot is now standard for most property websites.
So much, that some technology providers are offering website chatbots free of charge when you purchase other tech.
But we all know that free doesn’t really mean free, right?
“Free” often becomes costly when the basic functions aren’t enough, forcing you to make up for missing features with more point solutions. Not to mention the added time for your team to perform tasks that could be automated.
A free chatbot can be a great value, but it’s important to differentiate the good bots from the have nots.
If your chatbot or AI leasing assistant doesn’t include these features, it might be costing you more in the long run.
Natural language processing
Simple chatbots don’t have the dynamic capabilities of an AI-powered bot. Most feature menu-driven question options that limit the chatbot’s understanding of complex scenarios or typed questions.
AI leasing assistants like ResMate use natural language processing to speak like a human and understand complex written questions (even typos and slang) and can provide custom responses catered toward your community.
Multifamily training
Free chatbots weren’t developed and trained to respond to multifamily-specific queries. Most are unable to answer questions or deal with nuance, leaving potential renters frustrated with the experience and with a bad opinion of your property.
ResMate has been training since 2017, learning from millions of leasing conversations to provide the best response with 98% accuracy.
Channels to reach more prospects
Most free chatbots only live on your property website and have limited communication channel connections. Without connections to popular ILS sites, social media, and other communication channels, your chatbot will only be addressing 10-15% of potential prospect traffic.
ResMate is the most comprehensive AI leasing assistant in multifamily with the ability to respond to queries on 7 different communication channels, including web chat, text, email, phone, ILS, Google Business Profile chat, and Facebook Messenger.
Time-saving features & automations
Free chatbots have limited followup functionality and no lead nurturing capabilities, requiring your team to pick up the slack. With the added man hours needed to perform these tasks many free chatbots actually cost your team more time and energy in the long run.
ResMate has perfected automated lead follow-up and nurturing, so much that ResMate reduced the lead-to-lease time for one of our customers by 53%, and doubled their lead-to-tour conversion rate in just one month. All while saving the leasing team an average of 15 hours of work per week.
Cross-platform features and advanced insights
Standalone chatbots don’t allow for cross-platform data sharing for improved analytics. Without an integrated platform, standalone chatbots do not have the connections to do anything with the data collected, wasting valuable prospect information that could benefit your marketing strategy.
ResMate is the brains behind our platform which was designed to pull various data points to analyze and provide insights to help leasing teams make more informed decisions. Additionally, our platform approach allows users to unlock more features to automate and manage social media content creation, reviews and reputation management, and more.
So, is that free chatbot really free?
Your chatbot is supposed to make your life easier, and by upgrading to an AI leasing assistant like ResMate, you can unlock proactive insights, automate 100% of prospect inquiries (on any channel), and streamline 95% of follow-up and lead nurturing.
When considering a free chatbot or an AI leasing assistant, simply ask yourself, ‘Is it doing everything we need it to?’ if the answer is no, then it’s not really free.
Check out the quiz below to find out if your chatbot or AI leasing assistant is really working for you.
