From 4.5 Stars to ROI: Opiniion's Data-Driven Approach to Resident Satisfaction

Have you ever wondered how the reputation and resident experience of your property actually impact marketing success and NOI?  In this episode, Devin Shurtleff, CEO of Opiniion, shares their data around the ROI of reputation.  In addition, the conversation highlights the critical role of resident satisfaction in multifamily marketing, emphasizing how positive online reviews and feedback directly impact key performance indicators like occupancy, retention, and net operating income. Shurtleff also addresses the future of the industry, focusing on consolidation and the increasing influence of AI in analyzing resident feedback and automating processes to enhance the resident experience.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everyone and welcome to the Apartment Department, the podcast for multifamily marketers by multifamily marketers. Our guest today comes to us from Opinion. He is the chief executive officer and his name is Devin Shirtliff. And we are so excited to have Devin here today because, as everyone knows, resident experience is really one of the most important things when it comes to marketing. We all know how important it is to ensure that our residents are having a good experience from a retention standpoint, from a reputation standpoint, uh, which ultimately makes sure that our properties are operating successfully from a financial standpoint. And so uh with that, I am gonna go ahead and let Devin introduce himself.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, where uh where do you want me to start? Uh, how far back, how far forward, where we're at now? Uh, you tell me.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah, so tell us about opinion and then tell us, you know, it looks like you've been there for about eight years or so. So tell us um what drew you to opinion, um, you know, as you've kind of grown from a career standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

So uh opinion is a resident satisfaction software. Um, and what our job is to do is to to guide the resident journey and to understand the resident journey all the way through um attracting somebody to your property, uh to engaging with them while they're at the property, um, and then ultimately retaining them uh long term. And so we have built uh a series of tools. I think we're best known for uh our reputation management products, uh, but we do far more than that. And I think that's you know, sometimes kind of misunderstood from the industry that, oh, opinion is a review software. And uh the reality is we focus on satisfaction. Um, we want to build product uh that increases uh resident retention. Um, we want to increase resident satisfaction, and we do that by measuring and managing it uh at every single touch point that a management is gonna have with uh with a resident through the prospect, uh, all the way through uh even to a move out. Uh, we're measuring and managing uh that entire experience uh for them. And uh I will tell you, so so that's that's what opinion does. Uh a little bit about me. We didn't start there. Uh we actually didn't start in multifamily at all. Um, so my my background uh is in marketing, uh uh my education's in finance uh there. But uh really I I started uh building small software products for uh for the marketing world. Um so uh a couple products that would do bidding software uh for PPC for Google. Uh we built a software that would manage uh mass email uh marketing. Uh so because there was nothing that was sending email fast enough um to some of these larger lists, and so that's really kind of where I got my software starts. Um I then uh kind of moved in uh into this uh arena of of using marketing and then getting into uh skincare products and supplements online and and things like that. So I was running that, uh, do affiliate marketing uh there. And um anyway, so I I eventually built built an agency uh that did uh that did marketing for um and uh for uh on behalf of Google actually, uh this complicated product we can get into. Uh but um but yeah, basically started marketing and then um moved into kind of uh product uh doing uh skincare sales online and uh doing affiliate marketing online. And uh then uh my old college roommate uh called me one day and said, Hey, I'm I'm not happy with what I'm doing. And uh he was working for a dealership software, and I said, Okay, you know, a little bit to to kind of help him, help him out, feel a little bit better about his life. I said, Okay, well, what do you want to do instead? And he said, Well, I I I don't know. And I said, Well, I'll tell you what, Morgan, I'm not getting off the phone until you give me a business idea. And so he said, Well, I don't I don't know. And I said, Well, Morton, I'm not getting off the phone, and so um, you know, kind of going back and forth. He was at this dealership, uh, and uh there was, I I guess this dealer had asked him to set up a series of of links and click funnels to get reviews uh for this dealership. And so um, so I said, and he said, But I think we can do it way better, and so that kind of got my gears turning. I asked him a couple questions. I say, Yeah, I'll call you back. So I got on, I was a little tech savvy, went and built a series of kind of WordPress pages and click funnels to uh to get reviews online. I called him back a couple hours later and said, Hey, this is what I got, send him a link uh through text. And he said, Oh, this is way better than what I implemented for this dealership. And uh that was really kind of the inception uh of opinion there. So we started there. Uh we started selling to just salon, spa, medical offices, you know, anyone who would take our phone call at a couple buddies that were using it in their software or in their uh yeah, their their software companies and and their businesses. And so uh I have a sister who owns salon, she was using it. Uh, and so, but it was really hard. It's kind of a saturated space. And um, we got a call one day from uh from an ownership group that's here uh in Salt Lake City, and we went up and met with them, and their management group uh was AMC, uh, so part of management consultants, right? So they're up in Salt Lake, and uh my old business partner and I, uh uh Justin Bingham, he uh he and I walked into AMC and said, Hey, Millburner Company wants us to implement this software. So we put it on like six properties or something, and uh turned on the software, uploaded the residence, turned on the software, and overnight uh we got 30 reviews for one software or for one property. There was a gal over there, she called us and she said, What did you do? And we said, Well, I didn't, you know, uh just this is how it works. And she said, This is incredible, this is game changing for the uh for the industry. And we said, Well, okay, she said, Can you come back? So we we went back, um, met with her, and uh she said, Well, you know what, uh we want this on all of our properties, and so uh that was our start, and we had no idea that AMC at the time was number three in the nation there, and so once we started dropping that name, and we said, Hey, this is working really well for property. Um how do we get more? And so um, with a couple of different uh different connections, we ended up uh starting with AMC. And once you kind of drop AMC's name to, you know, a bunch of other management companies, we started to get a lot more traction there. We got the attention of RET Ventures, which is a Park City uh venture, uh venture group there. Um, and they're they're pretty well known in the space, have a lot of product now that they've invested into a lot of portcons there. And that was really our start uh into multifamily. We soon discovered that reviews weren't just gonna cut it, that we really needed to focus on this satisfaction piece. Um, and really that's what was gonna move the needle for our clients long term. And so uh kind of the rest, uh, you know, that was uh 2019 and uh started in 2017, kind of found our footing in multifamily in 19. And now um here 2025, you know, almost two million units, well, uh just over two million units later, 9,000 communities uh that use our product. Uh, I would say that um that we've we've really kind of mastered being the experts in this space, and we feel like you know, we bring a really good product uh and we really help our products or our properties be successful uh using our product. So uh how's that for for an intro of opinion and where we're at and and my my background there?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

I love it. That's you know, I I think uh as you were talking, first of all, it's amazing. I love stories like that because it's just I don't know, that's kind of the American dream, right? Like you tried something, it worked, it was amazing. Um, also I have to tell you that I grew up in pay-per-click agencies. That was um my start into marketing too. So I was smiling when you were talking about automated uh bid software, but that's a wonderful introduction. I tell us, you know, I I don't know, Chris. You're you're a user, jump us off here. Like talk to us.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I know you love opinion, but tell if you love opinion, it yeah, it works. They do have a really good product, but I want to dive into something that I know Devin is is really working towards in helping our industry use this feedback that we get as a key driver uh for occupancy retention and performance overall. What are you seeing, and what can you tell us on what these reviews are actually doing and the feedback, the direct feedback, and I think people should know uh the audience should know it's not just the public reviews that we're getting. We get a lot of private feedback with this system and it allows us to really have an understanding of what's going on on property because of how they how we are gathering this data through the touch points. So I'd really like to hear the data that you have, Devin, on this product and and how it's helping us with these key KPIs that we're all looking at.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, I I think there's uh a couple different ways to approach this. We recently did a uh did a case study uh for um, you know, just kind of throwing some of these metrics is is uh we we really struggled for a while, like tying reviews to ROI um there, and and we've started to tie it through clicks and visits to the website. Um, and this will kind of get into you know some of the reason why, you know, we we most recently made an acquisition here as well. But we know that um telling the message of the resident experience doesn't start when they come on property for a tour. Uh, it starts way before that. Um, and it starts with what does your presence look like online and what are your business listings look like online, right? And so some of the some of the study that we've done recently is that properties that have a a 4.5 star rating, they achieve a 43% lower cost per click and a hundred and sixty percent higher conversion rate uh when they uh when they have uh a four four point five star or more, right, online. And so what we're doing there is we're reducing we're reducing your marketing spend uh on the front end, right? Um and then as you as you tell the story and you present uh better uh online, that leads to more clicks, review volumes up, um, uh, which means your your higher clicks to the websites up, uh your conversions up uh there, uh your lead time, your leads are up, uh, which ultimately influences your your tours, uh, your occupancy all the way down to NOI. Um, and so that's what we're trying to do is to say, okay, from from attracting somebody to the property, telling the right story, and then delivering on that all the way through uh through the tour, um, and then ultimately through uh through a lease there. So that's kind of our our attract product on the front end, and then engaging people long term um is really where we focus on that next. It that that quite answer your question. I missed a piece of it there.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

No, I mean that's it. And and I think we all know this, but you put numbers to it um with the increased conversion rate, which uh is pretty big time. Yeah, 4.5. Yeah, I was just gonna just one last thing on this, and then you go because 4.5 is a number we're hearing that uh some generations below us, they're only searching 4.5 and above. Um, which I I can tell you that's not how I search. I know you have to take your bias out of it. I'm okay with a four, but I I think hearing those numbers it's pretty shocking in how important reviews are to your overall marketing program and keeping your residents happy who are the ones that are probably going to end up leaving most of these reviews for us since they're interacting with the site. Ian, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

No, same. I mean, I think you're right, like fundamentally we knew that, right? Like it all makes sense. You have a higher rating, people are more likely to be interested in you. Um, especially I think price point too. I've always said that if you have a higher rating, then you can charge a higher price point too than competitors. Although maybe one day you can give me data around that, because that's just like my gut feeling. But um, I I think to be able to have data and say, like, this is why reviews are so important, because ultimately, a lot of times, obviously, you can use a program like Opinion to gather reviews, but a lot of times marketing departments are asking their site teams to to go out and and get those reviews. And so really having a why behind why it's important and how it's going to help the property is huge. And I'll also say, Chris, we've started using 4.5 as our new benchmark. It used to be four, and now we're saying 4.5.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

I think you have to, the data's there.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah. I think one of the things though to keep in mind too is you know, there's I maybe listeners, property managers, regionals out there saying, well, we're not a 4.5. Like, what do we do? Right? We've got a sub four. Um, you know, and to your point, and you can use a software like ours to uh to help you get there. But at some point, though, there's such massive review volume that, you know, I don't want people to give up when they're like, well, we're never gonna get to a 4.5 because we have so many reviews. But the other piece, uh, you know, one of those that that we look at as well is is that if you have over 200 reviews uh on your property, um you are gonna have 270 270 more increase uh in traffic to your website. So it's not always just about the score. Um, we on average have a 4.2 star 4.2 star uh across like the portfolios that use us, right? And and some are some are gonna be less, right? Because it's an average there, but uh but does mean you're uh kind of SOL a little bit too that you can say, okay, look, let's focus on yes, getting five-star uh reviews, which is gonna drive that score up. But even if it takes a while, the volume piece is important as well and consistency. So the recency of reviews and also the amount of reviews that you have really lends itself well to the organic side that um you may that you're going to show up uh more in search. You know, when people are on maps looking at apartment scare me or Google Apartment Scare Me, um just having that review volume up consistently um and having recency of reviews leads to that 270% increase uh in traffic there when compared to someone who's got sub-200 um and uh and doesn't have uh very recent reviews within the last, and we say recency of reviews within the last 30 days.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Oh, wow. Yeah, that's very interesting. And you said something else too that that was interesting to me that um this kind of idea of like you can't just necessarily go out and ask for reviews and get positive reviews that will increase your score if there is a resident satisfaction issue at your property. And so can you talk to us? You talk to us about the attract, you know, the attract phase. Talk to us a little bit more about how um you're seeing your clients use data, um, you know, the data that you're gathering around the resident experience, and then how are they using that information to improve operations?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah. Um that was great question. So to back up a little bit on how our software works to uh to kind of educate. So what we're doing is every single touch point the resident has with the uh with the management company, we're measuring that. So when someone tours the property, we're surveying that resident with a very quick pulse survey. How was it? How do we do uh when they move into the property? We're pulse survey, how do we do uh maintenance, same thing, and the lease renewal on the move out, right? So those are our key touch points. But one of the things that we do consistently on a quarter to quarter basis is we're also measuring what the the resident NPS score is consistently. So on a quarter to quarter basis, um, even if they have uh moved in in the last 60 days on a quarterly basis, similarly to you know, larger companies or companies will do with their employees, they're measuring what's my employee satisfaction score. We're doing that with the resident. So we're taking all of that feedback on a quarter to quarter basis, and we're saying, what's my satisfaction score this quarter? Okay, and if the satisfaction score, uh, so we measure that over time to see, okay, uh, are our residents getting happier or are they not? Right. And if they're not, that brings to your point, which is what are you doing about that? So we're collecting that feedback. So if someone rates us lower, uh, we're doing two things. One, we're asking them uh on a follow-up survey, you know, why, like what's what's going on here. Um, and we collect all of that feedback, and AI has really changed the game for us on this, right? Um, and I'll get to the point of um, we used to just have a lot of information, and so we would take we would just take all this information that we had and we would um just here it is, it's on you. We had a word cloud that would kind of go through, but hey, it's on you to kind of scour all the feedback that you're getting. Um, and we send that on a one-to-one basis. If someone has a bad experience, we send that directly to the manager uh within 30 seconds of them leaving that, saying, Hey, uh, Chris, here's the problem that this resident has. Uh, they're upset about this. Um, here's the contact information. We suggest reaching out now, right? Um, but we take all that information and um in the last uh it's by 18 months, maybe 24 months now, uh, we built our insights tool. And so what our insights tool does is it aggregates all of all of your feedback data, all of your review data, feedback being internal data, review data being all the public data, and we analyze that. And we have different prompt questions that are saying, hey, what are the top five things uh that are going right in this property? Uh, what are the top things that are not going right in this property? And so we're using AI to solve that problem of saying, okay, hey, these are the five things that I need to be looking at on a quarter to quarter basis and changing within our property, right? And so uh the reality is it's it's on the management group um or uh on the onsite team to really make those changes there. But that's how we're solving that problem is we're not just saying, hey, here's a bunch of reviews, analyze it yourself, great, whatever. Uh, we've actually built an inside tool into our tool uh that analyzes all that for you and breaks it down and says, look, to be successful this next quarter, you need to work on these five different things uh that your um that your residents are telling us, not just things that anecdotally you think are wrong or whatever. No, this is real true resident feedback that you can then implement in your property. And as you make those changes, that's how we see that satisfaction score increase on a quarter to quarter basis. And uh and it's important to do that quarterly because you know, review data is, you know, when you look at Google reviews, they've got reviews on there 10 years old, right? It's no longer relevant. So when you do an analysis on all of your reviews, you know, saying, hey, the the property is messy on a six-year-old review is no longer relevant to what we're doing today. And so we look at that data on a quarter to quarter basis, which allows us to say what's relevant now, what did we need to work on right now? Um, and our tool allows you to do that. And and as you make those changes, you will have happier residents there. So uh hopefully that uh that that that went through your question uh and answered that a little bit. But our insights tool helps us do that for us.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Okay. No, I mean that's amazing. Who are you seeing? You know, you talked a little bit about managers getting feedback. Are you seeing that a lot of your clients, I guess, are marketing teams? Are they customer experience teams? Are they regionals? Like who's who's interacting with opinion on the property management side?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Primarily it's the marketing teams uh that are using us. But um, we are also seeing a lot of the regionals, they want to understand at an aggregate level, like what are we doing and and what are we doing right and what are we doing poorly? Um, we're seeing it actually from ownership groups as well, uh, where an ownership group actually wants it on their property because a lot of times uh the management companies managing the property, they're the on-site, they are there all the time, but the ownership groups don't have a lot of insight into what's happening at the property. So they don't know if their residents that are living in their properties are being treated well, if they're happy, if they're not happy. Um, and this gives us insight uh into their it allows the ownership group to have insight into what's actually happening at the resident level. And are their residents being treated, being treated fairly with respect, all of that other stuff. Our tool can catch that and help the ownership groups kind of police their property from from afar, right? And so we're seeing anywhere from ownership groups uh at the executive level um to uh to management groups at the executive level, the ops level, the regionals are using it, um, the uh the on-site teams are using it, uh, and the marketing teams are using it. So, kind of all the way through the organization, our tools applicable there.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

That's really great. Yeah, I think you know, we were talking about before the call that there's sometimes that challenge of like you're gathering all this data, but then where does it go? How does it then infiltrate an organization on multiple levels in order to be able to drive change? So I love I love hearing I love hearing what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

And I'll just come in because at my company, marketing takes care of all the public reviews uh with the help of the tools from opinion, but our regionals are answering all the feedback, and we did that on purpose. We don't have the property manager doing it. The regional is the one reaching out to the residents when they when we get a negative feedback or one that could be negative to find out what's really going on so they have a pulse on their properties. Of course, they're gonna talk to the manager and figure out what the two sides of the story is or whatever. But we did that purposely and intentionally so that our regionals have a pulse of what's going on with that day to day feedback because we're getting all kinds of it. And then on the reviews, they see them as well, but marketing handles the outfacing to the public responses on it. So that's how we split it at our company, uh, and our and our executives get reports. quarterly as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

We yeah, we have a scheduler tool as well. So, you know, you can put anybody you want in there. You know, if they want to log in, they can do that. But you can also just add an email. So if like, hey, on a quarter, on a quarterly basis, I want one of our executive team to receive this report, you can plug all that in uh there. Because, you know, as uh as you guys know, there's there's a huge problem with vendor overload. Uh there's so many platforms, so many logins, so many things like that. You know, a lot of uh a lot of software companies, they focus on well, how many users can we get in the platform on a monthly basis? It's a success metric for us if we can get you out of the platform, right? Um, because that is something everyone is asking us for. So we want to provide tools on our side that are automated um and just kind of do their job in the background, right? Otherwise why would you have software if it's not if you have to be in it every day managing it. We want to automate the process for you. But then we also want to make sure that the reporting comes straight to your inbox as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

How big is resident I mean is resident satisfaction like the next big thing? Is that is that the the next trend that that everyone in property management is is moving toward or I don't know. Tell us you know from a 3000 foot view what you're kind of seeing.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah I I think it's getting a lot more attention uh than it has in the past and uh I think most owners and operators know that uh that resident satisfaction is important uh but it often gets um relegated to like soft or non-financial metrics and the and the the truth is it's one of the clearest uh business drivers in multifamily in my opinion right I'm a little biased right because you know we're on the software here but um uh but happy residents renew their leases uh which cuts down turnover costs uh I was with an ownership man a manager ownership group top 10 and my c top 10 uh this last week and I was asking them I said hey how much does it cost to turn a property and uh their policy is if if carpet is older than 12 months they replace it um and so if it's under that they clean it they also do paint uh they'll sometimes do appliances and they'll kind of do a walkthrough on there uh but they were saying it can cost anywhere from 3,000 uh to 6500 bucks to uh to turn an apartment right and that's an enormous amount you know especially some of these apartments that are you know let's call it on the low end a thousand dollars a month uh to rent you're losing you know six and a half months of of rent just upfront on a turn and so the the reality is you can uh you can save that by just understanding what your residents want right and and surveying them and so if they're if they're unhappy you know it's it's an age old question you know it costs way less to retain a customer uh than to get a new one but it's absolutely true and uh you know and and so like breaking that down a little bit further you know I I mentioned that happy residents renew their leases which cuts down turnover costs but happy residents also leave authentic and positive reviews uh which drives new leases for you um they you know and they recommend the community to friends and family uh and that reduces your marketing costs right and when scaled across a portfolio that satisfaction uh translates into uh into higher occupancy stronger retention and you know portfolio wide lift on on NOI and so satisfaction is no longer this side metric that people should be focused on uh it really should be the foundation of growth because you know as I stated earlier it can cut your marketing costs um it can cut your your you know your cost per lease it can cut your turnover costs it can cut all of this if you just focus on keeping uh your residents happy uh that are already there no I agree with you um not this industry but I worked at another company and uh the owner basically was like we don't have to have a good experience for our customers because we'll just get new customers and I was like yeah there's only so many customers and um we ended up spending a lot of time focusing on NPS and the you know the experience that our customers were having when they were coming into our locations and it was incredible um we started to see an increase in repeat customers we start of course to see our net promoter score going up we start to see kind of the average transaction go up I mean so it was really interesting to be able to tie those satisfaction metrics to to financial ones what are you do you guys kind of aggregate the data of all of your customers to to look at trends um and the reason I'm asking that is I was kind of wondering if you have a sense of when residents are dissatisfied and they're not renewing their leases like what are what are the common reasons for that? Yeah I would say it's not it's not necessarily a timeline issue um but residents leave because they feel neglected a lot of it's maintenance right that's uh so resident you know the main reason residents leave is that they're usually relocating right that's that's usually the number one um is why they leave they they've either bought a house they're moving states they're you know life life has changed so you know they're having kids things like that so use it's like a life thing that's that's the number one which is you know pretty positive you know um and uh but yeah the the other issue is uh is maintenance um staff they don't feel like uh they don't feel like maintenance is being done on the property properly or quick enough or up to their standard um you know that also kind of includes uh you know the apartment's kind of getting run down right and so regular maintenance items aren't being done um and then the second thing uh you know well I guess it's the third thing right beyond you know when you when you go into the problem areas it's the second thing which is uh management just doesn't care. You know we get that feedback a lot that like management just they just don't care. Like they don't care. They just collect my rent and they're not being listened to and heard. And again that's you know it's points back to opinion. It's like implementing our software is sometimes uh the un the unseen or the unheard truth about it is just putting that in front of them and saying I want to hear what your experience is just shows that you care as a management company in the beginning. And so but that's a key piece of like yeah I just don't think they cared about me or you know the flip side is they didn't listen to me right not that they didn't care but they didn't listen and so kept telling them over and over and over you know this is a problem but they just they never did anything about it. Um that's that's a a typical problem as well you know and then and then you get into the other ones cleanliness and you know it's kind of a maintenance item but kind of gets into cleanliness security um noise complaints like you kind of get a mix of all the other ones but the major ones are um yeah maintenance wasn't done on time or the property's getting kind of run down not proper and uh management just wasn't listening and they didn't care.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

And when you get this direct feedback I can tell you from experience you already show care if you call them and say we're sorry and then try to fix their issue. You can't fix everything nobody we know in this industry some stuff is unfixable. But at least you can try and at least you can listen and I think that's a huge piece of it. So I have a question about how reviews have kind of reshaped how we do business but I want to take it to the next level how is it going to work with AI and how does AI pull these reviews we know how it works on Google but what about chat GPT for example which I think pulls from Bing.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

So how does that what's the future look like with these AI bots and still getting this feedback out there for people to know about yeah so AI is AI SEO right is a GEO is the new term gender engine opter engine optim optimization right and um you know it's kind of interesting the last week again I you know I went to the summit and um uh with RET Venture Summit. And so I was sitting with uh some of their LPs and they had the same question about um how do we get this more on the forefront of uh of geo and like how how are we influencing like search engine there and I think that's a that's I think generally a problem we're still trying to solve of like what are all like the different facets of it. One of the things that um that is important is business listings and making sure your listings are updated uh correctly there. Um I uh I have not seen evidence that it's pulling from Google reviews yet. And so um trying to figure out exactly where it's pulling from on some of the stuff and how it's ranking some of these I think is still a problem we're trying to solve uh for but um but I think a lot of it does start with uh generative content making sure that your content your websites are updated uh there uh all of that uh will be a piece of it we haven't gotten into necessarily the generative side of that yet um but I believe it's gonna come back down to um to making sure that uh that your websites are updated and your scores are posted there um the experience stuff that you guys are posting on your websites and what people are saying about that um you know previously to the call you guys both told me hey we're using our feedback data um to help generate content on the website I think those are things that uh GEO is looking at um you know across not just ChatGPT but like all of the other ones as well the the collots of the world and you know every other uh AI uh search engine that's out there I think I believe that AI search is going to take over right and you you know that's why you see a big push from Google to try to do the generative search on their site as well just to keep up but um but yeah I think it's about uh consistently maintaining your websites and making sure that content there is uh is fresh, updated but also like not just content but experiential content there and that you're posting the experiences that your residents are having uh back there. And that's something that we're focused on as well is making sure that um we're building product that that helps with the generative search that's happening.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Oh it's the wild west it's like when Google first started I'm old enough to remember when that happened and what we needed to do for SEO which I still care about.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I know I'm tired. Why do we have to do this again?

SPEAKER_02 32:27

I think that's interesting. I I would like to know where they are pulling this stuff. I know Yelp definitely plays on like Apple maps and stuff and Yelp's a real hard one to for us to tackle in our industry for sure. But it would be interesting to know where some of these others are pulling and how we can get that data out there without just posting our site and saying oh people love us. Here's our 4.2 review you know from Google um so that'll be I guess to be determined at some point maybe you can get back to us if you get any more insights and could we can give an update to the audience because I think we all care about it.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

How are reviews changing how people are searching in general do you think and let me ask it a different way do you think that reviews have become number one now when people look once they've determined where the location is and what price they're at my personal belief the reviews is if not the major factor one of the major factors of why people even put it on the list of properties that they're willing to tour. Right. I think the experience that they're having with that uh with seeing that a lot yeah I mean I think I think that's why they're choosing uh different apartments is that they want to um yeah they're looking what other people are saying and this uh this kind of leads into a little bit of why we made our acquisition our acquisition that we made as well uh which is with rent grata right and so uh beyond reviews of just attracting them to the property you know a lot of times people they want a review uh from somebody that uh that lives in that property and and that's uh basically what rent grata facilitates right and so for those you know listeners you guys maybe not familiar with that product so let's say I wanted to live um in uh the we we created a fictitious uh and it runs all of our demo accounts called lofts on main and so uh let's say I wanted to live on lofts on main the reviews are great online the photos are great uh I talked to the manager uh she was great or he was great um but I haven't been to the property yet but I'm on the website right you can actually chat with a resident that lives in lofts on Maine before you even go visit the property and so you're saying look I you know and and you're texting with that resident uh and it's all um it's all encrypted to make sure that uh you know there's anonymity there between the two but uh but then I can ask and say hey Ann how do you like living in the property and you go yeah it's great um or uh yeah great pool great this and I can ask you kind of anything there that's a form of having a review because you're getting it live uh from from an from another resident there and so uh but yeah I mean I believe that all of that matters um I believe that having those having those reviews having those live experiences really matter and they also bring a human a human element back to leasing uh as well um and then you know to to add on to that a little plug for for the Ren Grata side but let's say I I leave a tour but I'm not quite convinced um Rencara then follows up with prospects as well saying hey look uh and let's say I haven't chatted with a resident yet um but I've I've looked at online I've seen the photos I even took a tour um but I'm still in this prospect phase because I'm still trying to decide should I live in a property or not. Rencara's following up and saying hey um I live at this property do you want to chat like what else can I do? What else can I say uh to uh to help uh answer any questions that you may have so uh we're we're utilizing the residents that live at the property to actually convert uh people from this prospect status into a lease uh as well but to answer your question Chris I I think reviews play a part uh whether in what form they do whether that's uh a a written review online or that's an actual review I'm getting uh from a text-based conversation I think all of it um is an important step in signing a lease that people just don't buy product anymore without looking at reviews.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yeah or being referred by someone or that social proof like whenever I've talked with Zach it's kind of this idea of the social proof right and how do you how do you get that and it's that person to person especially when sometimes the the review uh landscape is fractured and you have Yelp and you have Apple maps and you have Bing and you have apartments.com and you have Zillow and you have Google and you have like all of a sudden eight to ten different places that people can leave reviews kind of a fractured story exists. So I I love Rankrata for that fact that now it's like this live person telling you a real story instead of you know one that might be hard to piece together on your own.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah you know it was a it was a match made in heaven I think most of us who knows knew your company and knew Zach and his company it was a it was a perfect match. We've had a lot of consolidation I I mean I would just say if like if you were to ask me at the beginning of this year and where we're at now with everything that's happened in our industry with some of this stuff going on um there were some big surprises. This one didn't surprise me it was like this is perfect. You guys have two products that really work well together. And I think with the data that you'll be gathering from the residents that you already have you know the the ones that love being there it's a it's a it's a perfect match for them to then get on and and have those live conversations I've also had many conversations with Zach and it's a good product. And you can actually lower your referral fee if you play it right if you're offering referral fees at your community because really um you're you're getting the live the live referral from somebody who actually lives there and it's talking the talk. It's not just Chris behind a desk saying how great this community is or and or whoever it's somebody who's there experiencing it. So that was really exciting. I'm sure you guys are excited about it. I'm sure it's it's actually changing the landscape of what you're doing along with some of the other cool products I mean you have listing now and you're kind of becoming a one-stop shop for helping us marketers kind of unfracture it and you know in some of these areas that we all struggle. I don't know if you want to touch on some of that.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yeah I mean we've we built and released a lot of product this year um you know that that was one of our bigger initiatives to say look we're listening we're listening to what our clients are telling us we're listening to the management companies we're listening to the ownership groups telling us hey we we want consolidation of of product uh we want consolidated pricing um and we are trying to deliver on that so um yeah in uh in q1 we released we re-released a long form survey platform um we had one before that was much like kind of Google Forms is very uh simple uh we've relaunched that as more of a long sort long uh form more robust you know you could offer 50 question surveys if you want we don't recommend that no one takes them uh that long but you know you can offer that there uh yeah we we launched business listings which will manage over 270 uh different online uh domains all from one uh central dashboard with an opinion um we launched social media which a lot of people I don't think knew um which uh which now you can manage all of your socials for those that have you know 20 50 100 properties you know and then you've got all the social domains that come with them um you can manage all of that from one place and all of your postings so we have an AI that generates uh content for you um and you can generate one post and you can watermark it with all of the properties and push it out to all of them uh from one central location um and then we also centralize your inbox so when you've got you know five different uh socials for one property you've got a hundred of them that's 500 inboxes you're supposed to manage you can manage that all in one central location uh with us so we push that out uh as well so kind of those three products and then um and then the fourth being uh rent grata adding that to to the mix of what we're doing this year we are genuinely and really trying to own the entire resident experience we are trying to be a one-stop shop uh an all-in-one kind of resident uh operations platform uh that's the messaging that we're putting out uh and we're we've got a lot of work ahead of us uh to kind of brand ourselves out of this like reviews reviews reviews bucket and really push us into this no we are a platform uh that is focused on property success we want to help your properties be successful and we're gonna give you all the tools to be able to do it and manage it all in one central location that is the messaging that we'll be putting out you know through this quarter next quarter and and into 2026 uh that is what we are doing that's our mission is really we are trying to build a platform that really influences the resident uh experience throughout whatever step of the journey they're in we want to be a positive impact and be able to measure and manage that for all of our uh all of our management groups and ownership groups that use us and ultimately the properties I love it incredible yeah great so Devin we like to do kind of a future thing at the end of our podcast it's been great learning more about opinion and and what you kind of all the information and stats you gave us it's one of those things Ann likes to say her mind is blown it's given her something to go think about um always and Ann and I will then text furiously for the next couple of days on how we can take all this information and go implement it right away because we like to do that.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

But what do you think is coming down the pike? What's the future? Um let's start there and then Ann I will let you ask our favorite question of all what's the what's the future for uh for opinion here for opinion for our industry just technology in general where do you think it's all going um and how can we be better and that and that can include the the things that you're gonna be doing um like making a one-stop shop platform.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Okay wow this is a this kind of a loaded loaded question of it like for us um you know we've got to work it out for us trying to integrate this uh Rinkarata product back into what we're doing um one of the cool pieces and we've touched on this a couple of times throughout this podcast which is we want to give a lot more direction to our management groups um and not just kind of hey here's the five things and um you know that you can be working on but really getting a lot more intent uh behind that and and even some of the follow-up uh with that and making sure that we've kind of even got checklists there uh of these are the things that you should be implementing in your property. Are you focused on these so that all the way through from the executive level all the way through the property level they can understand what's being worked on and what they should be focused on to be able to increase resident satisfaction. I think here in the next couple months we're gonna see rates drop, which uh will be interesting to see if we get a lot of asset transfers happening or new properties moving. You know that that always uh is something that we're keeping our eyes on uh there. I think you know I just I'm not gonna put this out there anyways but I think um I think there's gonna be a lot of movement um from some of the bigger players in the space from the PMS systems. Um I think some of those are they're at their cycle where you know they're probably gonna start seeing um you know going public or seeing some of that. So it'll be interesting to see uh what moves on the technology side. But ultimately I think the entire industry is moving towards a consolidation method um and towards AI. So those two things put together um and so we're trying to implement AI as much as we possibly can to analyze the feedback data and the review data and now the conversational data to give that back to our ownership groups. But um but I think those like the elises of the world the nurture bosses of the world I think those are going to succeed um just because um because AI is doing kind of uh you know three different things. They're uh augmenting analyzing uh and then automating process and so I think anyone who's doing anything in that space is going to do really well and we're trying to compete there as well. So um I don't know if that's uh you know I don't have a crystal ball I wish I did um but for me those is yeah those are the things that uh that we're kind of focused on and have our eye on is uh is uh when we when we talk about the future is like getting ready for uh for some of those events and figuring out how we can implement some of those uh in in what we're doing today. Amazing we're going in the right direction.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

We're a slow industry we're there now I like it.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

I love it. I think um I think you're right there's always these cycles of um consolidation uh even I and I used to my longest tenure was in franchise marketing and we would see that cyclical where these kind of technologies would pop up that I mean very similar to multifamily where you have these technologies that are helping you know franchise brands manage multiple locations. Right. Very, very similar concept, but we would definitely go through these cycles where where you would see the consolidations. And then you needed the innovation to cause the consolidation. And then it would start all over. So I think you're right. I I think we saw the innovation for a little while. Now we're starting to see the consolidation. So we're going to end with my favorite question, which is a forward thinking and it's kind of this debate. And Chris swings back and forth on what he thinks. But my question is do you think that Google search will be replaced? Like, you know, people are like, let's go to Google and Google it. Like, do you think that that's going to be replaced by by AI search?

SPEAKER_01 45:29

You know, um, I don't think it's going to be replaced fully, but I think it's going to be chipped away. Um, and I think Google search is too entrenched in, you know, even the way that we talk about, go Google it, right? You know, the uh the ad revenue, even the browsers, right, that are uh, you know, because half of us, if not more, are on, you know, on a Chrome browser, right? Um, but I don't think that uh I don't think it's gonna go away fully, but I absolutely think that they are eroding right now, uh, for sure. And I think that uh Google's trying to stitch itself into all this right now. Um, you know, the AI overviews, the Gemini's, the YouTube first results, those, but I think the biggest risk um is that people stop using search as their first step. Uh if if AI assists or social platforms um, you know, default become, you know, quote unquote the front door, uh, Google just becomes another backend data provider. Um, and so I don't think that they're gonna disappear completely, but I do think, you know, the ultimate answer to this is I think the way that search is happening right now is fundamentally changing. Um but uh is Google gonna die itself? No, uh, but they're definitely gonna get diminished over time, uh, unless they do something wild, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I mean, I I think that they will disappear, uh not so I not as a company, because Chris is like, what about Gmail? I'm like, I don't know, okay, like maybe Gmail will stay, but like I do think that just like Yahoo kind of basically went away as a search engine. Uh, you know, I don't think wasn't really ever that big of a player, but Yahoo. Um, I I can imagine yellow pages. I always think about the yellow pages just all of a sudden no longer being relevant. Um, I think Google's gonna end up in the same place. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

And Chris, do you not agree then, huh?

SPEAKER_02 47:19

I think that I'm not wavering. I just I think that people use chat. I'm uh I just call out chat GPT. I know there's others out there, but let's just say chat GPT, I think they use chat GPT differently than they use Google. And so I I agree that maybe it's gonna erode in some of the end searches, but I think people use it differently. I have said, and I am on record of saying that if if chat GPT somehow gets maps and can give you directions and can like really give you the whole story of somewhere where you're going, along with all of this other narrative that it provides, and I think that becomes game-changing, and that would definitely that would that could potentially end what Google is doing on the search side. Um, but I think as a you know, just as a search engine, I think it's gonna be there for a little while, especially with YouTube, uh, being the second most used search out there. I don't think those those die. I mean that that's gonna take a long time for that to cycle through, but who knows with these younger generations. We talk about it all the time. They use TikTok for search. I catch myself using Chat GPT more than I ever have, and I know we're not on video, but you know, I have my little Google poster that I got at Google when I went and visited, I don't know, 15 years ago. So, you know, just how people change and how they use it. I as I've said on this pod today, you know, and all of us on this call experience Google kind of coming from a baby to what it is today, and now we have AI search doing the same thing, and we're trying to figure it out, and it's kind of fun to be a marketer in that and and figure out what's gonna happen in the future. I gave a long answer because I love Google and I I don't want it to die. Um it's been so good.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Chris wants an invite back to Mountain View.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

He's like, it's look at my coaster. I like it. Um, it's answered so many of my questions, you know. I I hope that they figure it out, but I I can absolutely because I've I'm doing it on my own, and I know again, we take our bias out of it, but I am doing more and more with Chat GPT and the conversational side, but it doesn't give me everything I need, and I have to double check some of it. Their data isn't great, not that Google's is, but at least with Google, the way that they've kind of evolved over the years, they are better at giving you the results at the top of the page that means something. So I'm in the camp with Google, but you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens be.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

So, um, well, Devin, is there anything else you want our listeners to know before we say goodbye? I'm so sad. I'm like trying to drag this out. Like, I don't want to say goodbye to Devin, but um, is there anything else we should know?

SPEAKER_01 49:48

No, I just uh no, I I I don't think so, other than uh you guys have been great. Uh, I think you guys are asking a lot of the right questions. Um, I'll plug you guys for a minute. That uh, you know, it seems like uh, you know, a lot of the conversations, even some of the talking points that you know we were we had previously talked about, all those things, I think you guys are are awesome. And I hope that uh people continue to to look at that. I uh, you know, selfish plug for ourselves. Um, you know, there there's this meme that I like that's like uh if you knew me in high school, you didn't you don't know me anymore, right? I don't know if you've seen that, but but I will say if if you uh if you saw opinion two years ago, you don't know us anymore. We are a very different product. Um, we are trying to do something big, uh, we're trying to do something new. Um, and uh two million units can't be wrong. And so I will plug that for ourselves that uh we feel like we're trying to really change this industry and do what's right, um, buy it. And uh yeah, I'll leave you guys with that. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Thank you. Well, Devin, thank you so much. Opinion, thank you so much. Flamingo, our sponsor, thank you so much. Carlos, our producer, thank you for making us sound good. Of course, thank you to Chris, um, who always asks the best questions. And until next time, this has been the apartment department. Thank you.