The Secret Weapon PBSA Operators Aren't Using - A Deep Dive Episode with Esme Webb and Debra Yudolph on how to Transform the Lead to Lease Journey

For this episode, Sarah Canning and Deenie Lee sit down with Debra Yudolph, CEO of SAY Property Consultants and Esme Webb, Director of hereSAY to unpack the UK’s first PBSA Mystery Shopping Benchmark report and to discuss why measuring the lead to lease journey is the most powerful metric operators and investors can unleash.

This is a must-listen conversation for anyone working in PBSA operations, marketing, leasing, customer experience or investment as we explore;
- What students really experience in the leasing journey.
- Where teams shine on friendliness and knowledge.
- Where bookings are being lost.
- How small behaviours shifts can create big conversion gain
- How findings from the mystery shopping service can inform and improve sales and marketing training.

Download the full report.

The hereSAY PBSA Mystery Shopping Service is in partnership with The Property Marketing Strategists 

Find out more about the PBSA Mystery Shopping Service by filling in this form.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers, organisations, clients, or partners. This podcast is for general discussion and informational purposes only. Nothing said should be taken as professional, legal, financial, or investment advice. While we aim to be accurate, we make no guarantees and accept no liability for decisions made based on the content of this podcast. 

Transcript

Why This Report Matters

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to House the Shared Living Podcast. We are taking a slightly different approach over the next few weeks as we head towards our summer break, bringing you a series of special episodes focused on some of the most important topics, trends and innovations shaping the shared living sector. I'm Janie Lee from the Property Marketing Strategist.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

And I'm Sarah Kenning from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

And we are missing Dan today as he is in India on bird flow business, but I'm sure he will be back next week. However, today we are delighted to be joined by two special guests and we have a brilliant topic to discuss with them. As always, House brings you the latest news, views, and insights from across the rented shared living sectors covering PBSA, BTR, co-living, university accommodation, HMO, and rented later living. So if this is where you work, you are definitely in the right place and welcome. Today's special episode focuses on the UK's first PBSA Mystery Shopping Benchmark report, which is developed by Hearsay, which is part of the SA property consultants, with support from us ourselves, the property marketing strategists. The report explores what prospective students actually experience throughout their leasing journey from initial inquiry and response times through to viewings, follow-up communications, and ultimately that decision to book. We'll be talking about why mystery shopping matters, what the research uncovered, where operators are excelling, where opportunities exist, and what the sector can learn from seeing the leasing journey through the eyes of prospective residents. We'll also explore how the findings are helping operators improve performance and how they're informing sales and marketing training programs. A little bit of a shameless plug delivered by, some of them delivered by us at the Property Marketing Strategist, which are really helping the PBSA team strengthen customer experience and leasing outcomes. So whether you're responsible for leasing, marketing, operations, or customer experience, there's plenty to take away from today's conversation. But

Meet SAI And Hearsay

SPEAKER_03 1:56

before we get started, I wanted to introduce our two guests, Deborah Udolph and Esme Webb from SAI and Hearsay. Deborah and Esme, we are delighted to have you with us here today. Please can you introduce yourselves to tell us a little bit about SAI and Hearsay and what inspired you to launch Hearsay and the benchmarking reports in both BTR and PBSA?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Hi, so I'm Deborah Udolph. I'm the CEO of SAI. More broadly, SAI is a consultancy business that provides operational strategic operational advice in the living sector. So we work across all tenures, not just rental. And here's we can explain Hearsay, but it fits in very well because obviously understanding operational performance gives us another sort of uh a string to our bow in respect of providing really good strategic operational advice.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

And hi, I'm Esme Webb, so I am the director of Hearsay and Research. So I started Hearsay around five years ago, and the reason for that really was to help those within the residential sector understand what their um leasing and sales performance was like, um, and to kind of give data to the sector that we didn't really feel was there just yet. And I suppose what is different about us, and links back very well to what we're going to discuss today, is our benchmarking service. So we knew that what we wanted to be able to offer was data for our clients to not only understand how they've performed in their leasing uh journey, but also how they compare to others. And we've been working doing this in Build to Rent for the past five years and PBSA for around the last 18 months, and we are really excited to be here today to kind of discuss our first PBSA benchmarking report.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Brilliant.

How PBSA Mystery Shopping Works

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Thank you. That that's great, and I think we're excited to kind of unpack some of that data in there because there is lots of great data. So you've done a hundred and over 110 PBSA schemes have been mystery shopped over those last 18 months with over 500 mystery shopping interactions completed. We always say, Sarah and I do a lot of training in the sector, and we always say that actually we do know the sector is doing a brilliant job on site, and this showed through the staff friendliness and product knowledge scoring above 90%. But there are some gaps. Where do you start seeing those gaps appear?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, so with the kind of data that we've got, I guess just starting at looking at how we get this. So we're sending mystery shoppers, they are all students, they're making an inquiry to the scheme, they're then going in person, posing as an interested resident, and then assessing the follow-up that happens after that viewing as well. As you said, the interaction that they have with staff on site are generally very positive, though there are still gaps there as well. But where we are actually seeing some kind of spaces and areas for improvement is in a couple of different areas. So, first of all, the consistency of those viewings, things like the follow-up after the viewing, and also the level of personalization as well that is present in the viewing. And what we've been able to do within the report is seeing how small behaviours that staff kind of often might gloss over quite quickly or think, oh, is it that important? They really do stack up very quickly into building something that means that someone is likely to book a room at the end of that sort of limited window of opportunity to persuade someone.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

I think one thing that I guess on that theme of staff friendliness and product knowledge that we said is is generally quite high. We spend a lot of time talking to prospective clients about why they should have a mystery shopping service. And one thing I think that's quite often misunderstood is that this is a service to assess customer service, and it's not, it's about sales effectiveness and that lead-to-lease journey. And I think it I think it's worth us being really clear about that. There's lots of different measures out there that assess how your residents feel about living in your building, and that's really, really great. But there's nothing else that assesses what happens before they become a resident in your building. Um, and if they don't get all of these things right, then they're not going to become a resident in your building in the first place. So I think it's really key that you know a lot of the staff in these buildings are there because they're fantastic operators and they have fantastic customer service. That doesn't always translate into being great salespeople. Do you think that's an issue in the in the sector? And I know we've had this conversation before because in BTR they tend to call it leasing. In PBSA, it's still called sales. We're not actually selling anything, you're selling a leasing product, basically. So yeah, do you think that there's a bit maybe lack of knowledge and awareness in the sector about how important sales is?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I think there is massively, and I think there's you know, we know that there are really talented teams on site, as you've said, there's no there's no lack of good people, but what they need to do is have the sales skill, but also have the sales skills that are specific to PBSA, and that might not necessarily be what they have been used to, maybe if they have a hospitality background, if they have um, you know, done uh new home sales or you know worked in very different sectors. I think a lot of these things are quite specific to PBSA as a sector.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

I think also as the markets change and it's become more challenging, it's I mean, certainly with our mystery shopping, it's highlighted the importance of consistency and the ability to build a you know that there are certain things that you need to do in order to drive the buying decision, and and it's the consistency in that approach. And and if you don't uh understand your team's behaviour and measure it, then it's very difficult to have consistency measure against standard behaviours and then train. So it's also we know that the developments perform really well, the quality is generally really, really high, and so the differentiator is not just in it's one in the behaviour of the person doing the viewing, but also in the sort of what sits in the background in respective systems and processes in response times and and and following up as well, which which is done pretty badly in the report.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Yeah, I

The Follow Up Gap

SPEAKER_03 8:26

think that that the two things that came out on consistency, I think, is and and and Esme, I think you've kind of touched on this already. Around um, I think 70% of initial inquiry was responded to immediately, which some might say, well, that's 70% to doing that immediately, but that's still 30% that aren't getting that immediately. And I think the follow-up is that fewer than 50% of prospects received any follow-up after their viewing. And I think as you say, it kind of feels very much like there's a view that I can be friendly, I can say all the things that I need to say, but actually, what is the impact of not doing those things?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

It's a massive gap, and I think I mean it sounds so obvious, but it's just such a shame, isn't it? Because you've got staff, you've got high-quality um buildings, you've got staff that are often very personable, very friendly, they're building that rapport, and then at the final hurdle, which should be one of the easiest to kind of just dot the I's cross the T's, that's just not being done. And when we started doing this, when we started the service 18 months ago, in the first three months that we did it, where we were working with a number of clients across a broad range of schemes, the score for postering experience was five percent. And basically, I think we had one student that got a follow-up after. So this is even after you know, we have clients and non-clients within this benchmark, but this is after people are really driving that performance, and it's still not where it needs to be at all. And I just think it's it's such low-hanging fruit for this sector, especially when you think about how that compares to build to rent, where that follow-up is so consistent, and we've got data that shows that it's just a massive opportunity gap and it's it's a massive risk as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, we do when we do sales and marketing training, we we've actually adapted the training because of the results that we're seeing in your mystery shops, and that follow-up is now taking up much more time compared to the rest of the training. But

Personalization Starts With Better Questions

SPEAKER_02 10:30

you talked about earlier about personalization, um, and that's performing quite badly. Kind of what do you mean by that? And how do we need to tailor the view into the customer and then the follow-up?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, so what we mean by personalization, the first step of personalization has to be asking questions. You can't personalize anything unless you have asked the person that you're with some discovery-like questions. So that's things like where they're studying, why they are, you know, if they're, you know, moving from somewhere else, why they might be leaving their current accommodation, who do they currently live with? Just open-ended discovery-like questions. And what we found within our data is that that was the largest behavioural gap between high and low performing viewings. So where um someone had a personalized viewing, where someone asked open-ended questions, 93% of those students would recommend the scheme. Where that didn't happen, only 36% of students would recommend or choose to live in that scheme. So again, it's very simple behaviours that do have a massive impact.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

And that barrier is probably blocking the follow-up, really, because I guess if you haven't really built that rapport and got to know that person, maybe the staff don't know how to follow up or what to follow up with. And I think when you start asking questions and kind of moving away from what we call kind of the museum tour, just pointing things out and actually making it a really personalized, interactive thing, is that that follow-up becomes so natural. It's not even a follow-up, it's just continuing the conversation. But if you're not getting those previous steps right, then then that thought from somebody who may be not very comfortable with sales is maybe where it's going wrong because that follow-up, and we we know because we ask people why they don't do the follow-up when we're doing sales and marketing training. A lot of it is they don't want to seem pushy or salesy. And it's like, but it's not. You're just asking how you can help them make that next step. You know, can I talk through the application process? If you've got any more questions, where else are you, you know, viewing? Can I give you a call in two days' time? If you get all the previous steps right, the follow-up is really, you know, like you said, it's a tiny, tiny thing, really. But I think maybe the sector or the people, the individuals, make it much bigger than it needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And I think what is useful in that scenario when you get that challenge from on-site staff is to think, you know, we are all consumers of customer experience. Like we've all, every day, literally in every single thing that we do, we are consumers of customer experience. And so when was the last time that you had someone in a non-pushy way deliver really good customer experience to you? It doesn't always have to feel overbearing or pushy, it's just giving someone the information that they couldn't record all on their phone as they walked around saying, you know, don't worry, I'll send it to you afterwards, and then actually doing that, and it's being a helpful hand rather than a pushy salesperson. But we know that it does also then help to to close to close deals and to convert.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I think also when you think about the enormity of of what someone's doing, which is choosing somewhere to live as a student, which is is I think you know, it's very stressful, it's a a new experience, often it's something they haven't done before. That that importance of taking an interest in the person and following through is really significant because it's the the perception of what you get in the leasing journey, is the perception of what it's going to be like living somewhere. We know that from our research. And so I um I think that um for the teams to understand the importance of taking an interest, asking questions, building a rapport, it goes beyond just making someone an advocate and making a buying decision. It it's much broader than that, is about every, you know, it's the first step to having a relationship with a customer that's going to last quite a long time, a lot longer than most sales journeys.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Absolutely, and I think that's something that we've often talking to the sector about or to people in our training, is that actually it's your you're part of a supportive role, especially for those student customers because it's the first time they're probably making a purchase of that level. I think that's really important to remember that.

Why PBSA Lags Behind BTR

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Just on kind of because obviously you do do this this PBA the the mystery shopping in BTR. Why do you think that PBSA isn't where BTR is in this? Like, what is the blockers for PBSA? Do you think?

SPEAKER_00 15:11

I think um, I mean it's interesting, isn't it? Because PBSA is a much better, much more well-established part of the sector than build to rent. BuildTorrent's been going for lot much less time and is much smaller. But I also think that the history of PB of PBSA is that that there's been a I mean, we've seen this in BuildTorrent as well, where you know you open the door and then people just move in, but there hasn't been um it has we haven't had very challenging markets, and we've definitely we saw that in in build trend, particularly after COVID. And so I suppose that behaviours and and just processes and procedures and um have have not needed to be really um overseen and and driven because it's been so easy to fill up buildings and and it and we're now in a different place. So I think it's a sort of historical thing where you know it's sort of understandable that if you're launching a building and it and you just get it left and you don't have to do all these things, then why would you have them in place? It's been much easier. And we know that the teams in PBSA have a much broader, often have broader roles, and so perhaps the focus has not been on this because it hasn't been the sort of necessity.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

What what are those roles that are different in BTR that that you see? I think from the outside in, it it looks like they have specific leasing staff. Would that be right?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, that would be right. So you there's very specific roles where someone is, you know, their their day-to-day, everyday job is to drive, you know, bringing new people in and getting people to renew, and you are hiring for those very specific skills. That's obviously, you know, in contrast with you know, those carrying uh out this role within PBSA.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah, I think that is significant. It's something we've talked quite a lot about. It seems OPEX costs, staffing costs, etc. And like like Deborah said, maybe the importance hasn't been on people having those specific roles. I think also traditionally, when I guess that supply and demand balance was a little bit different, it was seen that leasing only happens at specific times of the year. So maybe people thought, well, I can't hire a leasing person because what are they going to do for four or five months of the year because we'll be full. But that isn't the case now. People are, you know, still going, you know, they're having to sell 12 months of of the year. So maybe we will see a difference moving into PBSA because, you know, in reaction to the market changes. I just want

AI And Tech In The Leasing Journey

SPEAKER_02 17:39

to come back to something that you touched on before. I think it was Deborah, you mentioned technology. Are you seeing anything in the mystery shops either through BTR or PBSA where AI is either helping or hindering the process? Or can we not tell because the sophistication of AI is so so good?

SPEAKER_00 17:57

We definitely can tell. And we've we've also, um particularly in build to rent, been asked to specifically mystery shop new AI implementations to see whether they're working or not. We had one client in BuildTorrent that though it hadn't been set up properly, so the the reminders for for action were happening at sort of three o'clock in the morning, and they were only being given sort of an hour to respond, and so that I mean it was it was a setup issue, but I think it's really important to test your AI implementations and make sure that they're working. So we've seen sort of a mixed success. Clearly, AI is really going to be critical, and when you think about things like following up after viewing, you know, the minimum you should be doing is using technology in order to do the follow-up, and it can become much more specific and bespoke the more sophisticated the system is. But we that clearly isn't happening because we haven't seen any, you know, a lot of the failure has been in the follow-up. But we also recognise that there has to be such a balance between AI or technology and human support, and and I think it's really important to use this information and the feedback that we get from the mystery shoppers to understand where that balance sits.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Absolutely. And as everyone says, you know, AI is only as good as what it's fed. So actually, if you do that really personalized viewing and you add that information into a CRM or into an AI version of a CRM, then they then the follow-up can still be really personal, but it's only going to be as good as the information that you put in. Like you said, Deborah, you the humans have still got to do that work, and especially face to face with the viewing, it's all about the human.

Turning Results Into Action Plans

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Um I just wanted to move now a little bit on to kind of what operators should do if they've done the mystery shop and they've got those results. And like I say, I think there's loads of data that gets shared from these mystery shops, and all of them kind of clearly actionable. But what should operators do next once they've got this wealth of data in their hands and knowledge?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, so what is so amazing about the process of doing the mystery shopping is you just have a huge amount of data from which to start to make a plan about how to really elevate the viewing experience where it's already good and where to solve kind of pain points that it uncovers. What I would recommend to anyone who's getting their data back for the first time is to separate what is people problems and what is process problems and kind of start by separating those two out. Then obviously, it's about identifying okay, what is business critical and what is about an elevation of the experience. So something like not a single person is getting a follow-up after their viewing, that is clearly a peep a business critical process problem. Something like having one staff member who is just inconsistent in how they carry out their viewings, that's a people problem, and that requires a separate solution. You then want to be looking at what is portfolio-wide and what is site-specific. So we're just trying to kind of ease out what those trends are, and from there you can make an action plan to really resolve them step by step, and then clearly you need to reassess and to measure the impact of what um all those changes have had. So we've had clients who have completely rewritten their processes in their CRM around their follow-up after the viewing, for example, or around their inquiry processes. And then when they reassess, they can see that kind of score in those areas just going up and up and up. So it's very satisfying. And I think for the on-site teams, it's extremely satisfying for them as well to see the impact of all of all that hard work that gets put into this as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

I think that continual monitoring and feedback loop is really, really key. Yes, you'll learn something from doing it once, but how will you learn about the improvements that you've made in those processes if you don't continually re assess and reassess. And also we know that there's high staff turnover in the sector as well. So if it's a people problem like you mentioned Esme, then you know you'll be able to identify that by you know continually kind of reassessing where you are as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Yeah. And I think it's about not just assessing when you feel like you've got to the end of that pro process. So don't just don't just assess when you think, okay, we've done everything, we think we're done, because you you might not even know which areas needed to be resolved anyway. So don't wait until you think it's perfect. Start as soon as possible and measure and track that improvement over time.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

I think the thing that we haven't mentioned really as well is it can be really used to celebrate and reward staff as well. You know, you know, on a there's so many KPI points of the mystery shopping program that actually you can really pull out a really standout performance in a particular area. Even if the whole thing isn't great, there'll be definitely things that people can find that have been done really, really well. And again if you can identify that to be a person then that person is a great you know role model and potentially mentor to get it right across you know across a whole portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And when you're speaking about staff um turnover and staff retention it is obviously really important to identify who are the staff that we really really need and want to keep because I think often the best training is having other staff members you know it is so effective for other staff members to embed and teach other staff members what good looks like and when you lose someone you lose all of that knowledge so quickly. So rewarding staff members keeping good staff members is really really important.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I also think that I mean you can see if if someone looks at the report report that we've just published that we have qualitative and quantitative data and when you read that we've got a section that has you know what good looks like and what not so good looks like and it's actually it's it's what the mystery shoppers have said about their visit or about different aspects of the visit and it really brings it to life and what we see with the teams are that that when we can give feedback that's really positive it's like a light bulb moment where they go oh I see I get it you know because I asked this and I asked this then they became an advocate for the scheme and then equally or because I didn't engage in this way then they they the the they didn't do so well. So I think it's really important to understand that the mystery shopping it is about data but it's also about giving back real sort of detailed feedback on what someone's actually said about their visit and to use that in a in a way to really celebrate success but also train in a constructive way not in a critical way is what brings teams together and we know that when teams work really well together then that's when you really see excellent performance.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

I think what also stands out with this particular service is it's actually students that are in those cities that are doing this. You know I know that internally a lot of people do this and they you know there'll be members of staff that that call sites you know but it's not without bias and it's not realistic or relatable. I mean we can see from reading the results that the students they're asking things the way a student would they want to know the things that students want to and you know in some cases they're probably actually going through that exact same thing or you know will be at some point in their student life cycle and I think that level of insight and kind of nuance in what they ask and how they ask it, you know, that that killer question at the end, you know, would you recommend this site that comes from them completely because of the experience that they've had. And I think that's the the kind of the depth of the of the report really and the and the understanding.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Absolutely and what we've also assessed within the report is we've looked at what is important to students. So for example I think you guys did some research about internet speeds and and the other things that students really want to know about by the time they get to the end of a viewing and we've got some data that shows you know only 19% of our mystery shoppers were told about internet speed only 20% were told about any sort of promotions or incentives or benefits of living at that scheme and only you know 50% which is higher than the others but it's still not very much were told about the local area which is crazy you know so we know what matters to students we know what they want to hear about. Not it's not just about the behaviours of the staff it's also they need to be telling people the information that they need to make a decision and in some areas that was really lacking as well and then that's been as you said reflected in the comments that come back from these real students.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

UK

What Students Need To Hear

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Reef we did our resident panel and a question from the audience from a young person was when all student accommodation is really similar like how how do I know what the difference is and how do I know like when people say we do well being well what do they mean? What's the specifics? And I think that's really you know that will come out really really deeply in the mystery shopping report because it's we always say at the moment particularly with the Renters Rights Act PBSA operators need to be more student. They need to demonstrate much deeper what they do that maybe BTR doesn't do or HMOs don't do and it's that level of detail like you said about the internet speed about what they actually do what are the benefits what are the services and that that probably does come down to training you know the staff may not know all of those things you know they need to learn them and they need to be able to to demonstrate them in a personal kind of conversational way but it's so competitive you they need to find those you know those marginal gains that Noelpreads do the one thing that that comes out time and time again is people don't ever talk about accreditation and that's such an important part and I mean we're just giving away all of our secrets now but we always tell people in sales and marketing training if you can talk about your accreditation then you'll you know you'll already be head and shoulders about above the competitors because nobody is discussing this. And you know some people say oh you know it's only parents that are interested in it but it's not it shows that there's a higher level of quality that is being measured and monitored in PBSA and that is something that that should be shared. So I don't think anyone could underestimate that level of detail that should come across in you know in a viewing or in any interaction.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

100% and I think all of this is I mean everything that we've spoken about it is about someone understanding that you are a professional provider of student accommodation. I think it's you know if anyone has anyone who's doing a viewing has had an older sibling who's perhaps been to university you know it might be their first rodeo but they might have already heard stories about rogue landlords about really poor quality student experience. I know that I've lived in I lived in some terrible student accommodation when I went to university I mean there are horror stories so people are coming in off the back foot maybe with a a lack of trust in some of these in some of these providers so it is really important that the sector as a whole is challenging some of those misconceptions and not forgetting that people people might have had some really bad experiences as well and and and you know need to be one background.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

And just obviously with the BTR you've been doing five years of of the benchmarking and what have you seen that that impact has had in BTR and what can PBSA expect or do to have similar impacts or make sure that actually this benchmarking is able to deliver the measurable results that we know that it can.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

So we um obviously we've had longer in build to rent and we've got really good I mean we can show prospective clients really good data where we had a client that that was not as an example following up in build to rent that their their postviewing experience was really poor. They did an internal project they included some of the leasing team in that project to really understand what their challenges were. They looked at both the processes and the behaviours they changed their CRM they changed their KPIs and SLAs and they gave the team the tools in order to improve performance and we can we can show on the data that it literally went as the worst performing measure to the top performing measure and I think that that's what's really interesting is that we can identify we know that with our built-rent clients that those that use the service regularly compared to people that mystery shop that aren't our clients that they perform at least 10% better than than our than people that we mystery shop that aren't our clients. So it it we can actually really care clearly identify that um as long as you take the information and you proactively use it in a way through different measures either through processes or training or then then we know that that that works.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

I mean and what we're talking about here is a real commercial impact aren't we you know what is the risk to not doing anything?

SPEAKER_01 31:19

I mean the the risk is the risk is everything right both in your competitors getting ahead of you particularly in the world where the rent is right act has in many ways level the field in a lot of ways for for BTR so how do you deliver that competitive edge it is a lot around um experience and service. So I think that the risk is obviously is obviously huge. I think you know we understand that a lot of clients are sitting on so much data at the moment it can feel really overwhelming to just have more data but I think what we want our clients to understand is that we are here to help them with that data and to help them use it whether that is in how they deliver those action plans whether that is you guys obviously delivering that training um so they don't necessarily have to be left alone to work out what next, what now I think also it comes down to commercial success, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

And particularly in PBSA there's much more of a distinct window of opportunity to get a building leased up in build to rent apart from when you're you're launching after that you have you know a pr a you know that it is seasonal but it's not nearly as seasonal as as PBSA. So I think it's really important to take the information and respond to it but also continue like use the this the sort of downtime to continue to improve and measure so that when you come around to your next lease high leasing period you're really well set you've taken all of the information and you're you know because yeah the the competitive um advantage is huge and and much more in PBSA you have sort of one shot don't you to to really sort of make a difference in respect of how how well your leasing's gone and also on pricing as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Yeah I think you know the data points are so specific in the report it means it I think that people can make a very specific change. Eve you know you don't have to change every single point on the report you don't you know it doesn't have to be overwhelming you could pick one thing and improve on that I mean we we look at it really closely because it informs the sales and marketing training because what's the point in us training people on things they're already performing highly on you know we want to to to target the things that people need most support with. And the same goes for any of the the points in in the report is it's not it's not vague at all.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

It's not broad you know so I think that really helps with it because sometimes like you said Esme you can get overwhelmed with with data because sometimes it's so broad and you know if if the report just showed I don't know a really broad relationship between not following up well okay but which bit you know how could we help you know and but actually it it's it's quite prescriptive I think yeah and I think quite a lot of the time teams and and on-site teams they'll have a gut feeling you know they're they're living and breathing these buildings every day they're gonna go yeah I probably did kind of understand that that was what was going on or kind of knew that this person was maybe lacking in these skills but what this enables teams to do is quantify that kind of gut feeling measure it improve it and then and then measure it again so you're kind of giving evidence to things that people will kind of have a gut feeling for already anyway um which I think can be really useful for for operational teams and for managers.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Absolutely yeah no I agree and I think it it gives that clear insight and it's a lot of it is just those steps and those processes and those procedures and that training to put that into place that that gives that emphasis and that structure around it for a lot of what's already been delivered in place.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah and I think it's it's also as as we said it's not just about the bad it is so satisfying for us when we give this feedback back to teams and you get a report through and it's just like yes they did absolutely everything incredible the comment at the end is like they couldn't have done more to be more helpful and then you get to send that to the staff member that did that viewing. I mean it must just be such a good feeling for them to be able to read that and be able to have that recognised as well you know which is is like a really lovely part of this as well.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

And finally

The Future Of Leasing Excellence

SPEAKER_03 35:35

just what does the future of leasing excellence in PBSA look like?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

I think it will be a really good balance between technology and human interaction because with that balance that will bring the most success to the businesses but also I think technology will enable businesses to really focus on that human experience both through the leasing journey and beyond. So for me it it it technology will free up time in order to really focus on the sort of the the behaviours that we're talking about in order to deliver a really great leasing journey.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Absolutely I couldn't agree more I think it's kind of that's where technology is really gonna have is going to add value is actually we can have that more human interaction which is everything that is needed and required and I think that's the the beauty of where we are with technology is that hopefully we can start to see that that kind of shift and resource happen and that we can spend the right things in the right times.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah and I also think that when you think about the future of work actually having jobs that rely on face-to-face interaction is is going to be a very attractive industry to go into because there's much more talk about you know what jobs should people be doing that are not going to be affected by AI and I think that the more seriously we take the training and development of the leasing journey and professionalize it and and it become a much more attractive job to go into because it will always rely on people and so I think that there's huge benefit of businesses investing and understanding the leasing journey and the and then the living experience in order to attract talent into their businesses because at the end of the day this is the sort of job that that people should be choosing to do because it's so reliant on human interaction.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

I think it's that it's emotional isn't it people choose homes for an emotional reason despite all of our talk of data it does come back to a a feeling and and and an emotion and you're right Deborah it's hard to imagine on the whole people making that decision without some form of human engagement really you know I think you know we've probably all rented and bought places and it's very much a gut feel and you know everybody wants their perspective resident to have that feeling and a lot of that is down to to those fantastic humans that are delivering it.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

That seems like a perfect place to to stop because I think that is a nice positive positive place to be. And that thank you so much Deborah and Esme that was a really fascinating conversation and I think just shows how understanding kind of student expectation understanding your performance in that journey as kind of competition intensifies in the sector and that delivering a great leasing experience has never been more important especially I think in PBSA where demand and customer demographics are shifting so we really do need to ensure that each lead is nurtured. Thank you so much Sebra and Esme for joining us today and also for sharing the findings from this new research to learn more about the PBSA Mystery Shopping Benchmark report, hearsay, say property consultants or to find out more about our own sales and marketing training and other Property Marketing Strategists we can find out more on saypropertyco.uk forward slash hearsay or property marketingstrategists dot co dot uk. Don't forget to subscribe to House wherever you get your podcast and join us next time as we continue exploring the people, ideas and innovations shaping the future of shared living