Resident Buddy launches for renters, property managers
Marketing, tracking, reputation management, resident retention and search solution provider, rentbits.com has launched Resident Buddy, a new product designed to “simplify rental living,” giving renters a simple way to pay rent, submit and track maintenance requests, meet and connect with neighbors, post items for sale, find a ride share, or even a sitter.
The company tells AGBeat that “Resident Buddy was designed from the ground up for renters BUT it is truly a tool for property managers, and was created to help close the backdoor on resident retention by giving them a simple way to expand their reach far beyond the apartment leasing office.”
What sets Resident Buddy apart
First and foremost, the user interface blows potential competitors out of the water, as most products renters are offered to interact with come with horrible colors from the 90s, tons of text in size 8 font, nearly impossible navigation that is almost never mobile friendly, and as a whole is completely outdated, making them difficult to use. Not Resident Buddy. While they focus on various features unique to their offering, the most notable feature is its quality design.
As for features, the maintenance request is the brightest shining in that residents can submit a maintenance requests from any device, but instead of throwing them into a black hole with fingers crossed, residents can track requests in real time rather than just a red light green light system others have implemented.
Dan Daugherty, CEO of rentbits.com said, “For maintenance request transparency, a top frustration from residents is not knowing where their maintenance request is in the queue. Did the office receive it? When will it be completed? Do they need more information? etc. Setting expectations with the residents, and surpassing those expectations dramatically increases resident satisfaction.”
The Exchange is a fascinating feature that could go a long way toward retention. “Think Pinterest, meets Craigslist, but only accessible to residents of one community,” the company notes of their closed, secure network. “It’s a hyper local way for residents to tap into the opportunities hiding all around them; finding the concert tickets they’ve been searching for, finding a ride share to work, or a babysitter from someone in their community that they can trust. It’s a pretty cool feature that actually gives renters an easy way to connect and get to know their neighbors, not to mention, make and save some money.”
Emulating the simplicity of the hotel industry
Additionally, unique to their offering is that each community with Resident Buddy gets one unique, central phone number to use. The cost for property managers is $1 per unit per month, and if they opt into allowing residents to pay rent online it is $2 per pay rent online transaction.
Daugherty said, “We built Resident Buddy from the ground up with a very strong focus on user experience and simplicity. I believe the User Interface is the best in the industry. Residents come to Resident Buddy to take action. That might be to pay their rent online, submit a maintenance request, post an item for sell, post an event, etc.”
“We took what the hotel industry has been doing for years and brought it to the apartment industry,” Daugherty added. “All in an effort to make life simpler for renters.”
Resident Buddy video and photo tour:
[pl_video type=”vimeo” id=”56786133″]
