For most residents, outside of the occasional maintenance ticket, interaction with the property manager ends after move-in and all of a sudden begins again 30 days from the lease’s end. Chances are, those residents have already looked at other properties and made their decision whether to stay or go.
Gables Residential is hoping to fix that situation with a newly revamped resident rewards program to drive increased loyalty to their communities. Earlier this year, the company launched CAPTIVATE!—a Gables-branded resident-rewards platform—across its portfolio. The program gives the company’s former Gables Great Rewards initiative a serious face-lift.
“The [Great Rewards] program wasn’t digital or interactive. Although successful over the years, it needed an overhaul to cater to today’s savvy resident,” says Gigi Giannoni, vice president of marketing at Gables. “Bottom line: We felt it was time our industry entered the loyalty market encompassing points redemption just like the hospitality, hotel, and retail industries have been doing for years.”
The Great Rewards program, which had been in place for more than 20 years with a few updates since, initially added some perks that catered to residents’ apartments or renewals, such as carpet cleaning, spring cleaning, a front-door face-lift, a waived late fee, and more. Not being digital or interactive, the process was one that property managers had to track themselves.
In contrast, CAPTIVATE! will reward residents for engagement throughout their lease by giving them the opportunity to earn points for joining the online resident portal, following or posting to social media, responding to a community event, completing a survey, paying rent online, referring new residents, submitting feedback or suggestions, placing service requests online, celebrating lease anniversaries with Gables, and renewing their lease.
CAPTIVATE! can be accessed through a responsive website on desktop and mobile devices, as well as through its app, which is available for download from the App Store and Google Play. Residents can use the website or app to track their points and receive prizes, which has been a proven method of keeping customers engaged with a brand.
Gables also allows residents who are ready for a move to continue racking up points at any other Gables community across the country, thereby driving home brand loyalty. If there are any points still on an account when a resident chooses to leave the Gables family, the points can be reinstated if the resident returns at any time later on, according to Giannoni. Since the goal is to drive resident engagement and long-term loyalty, this was crucial to the application of the new program.
The new platform is supported by Dallas-based software-as-a-service company Modern Message, which created the Community Rewards program. Gables first piloted Community Rewards at some of its properties, but the company chose to work with the vendor to create a branded service with additional features.
The branded option was important as a marketing tool to make Gables residents feel it was an exclusive service, leading them to more closely identify the rewards with the property manager. For such a product, Gables paid for the launch and continues to pay a monthly fee of 50 cents per unit as part of a three-year contract with Modern Message.
To redeem their points, Gables residents can exchange them for prizes whenever they want, via their devices. There are pre-set levels for various rewards, and residents can opt for multiple small-value items or a single, more valuable item.
Modern Message partners with several services and companies to increase the number of redemption options and maximize the ways users can get excited about earning points. According to Kevin Patterson, marketing and operations manager at Gables, that’s part of the beauty of the program—customer choice.
“Depending on how many points they earn over time, they can cash out for over 250 gift-card choices or other rewards or continue to build their points over time for greater-value gift cards, trips, etcetera,” says Patterson. “In conjunction with Community Rewards, we continue to build our reward redemption opportunities by adding additional cruises, retailers, hotels, and more.”
“We expect Gables to see the same type of return in CAPTIVATE! that we do with our clients using Community Rewards,” says John Hinckley, CEO of Modern Message. “Our goal is not only to help them see more engagement, referrals, and retention, but to help create a better experience for the company’s residents under their own brand.”
Since the program’s implementation in January, Giannoni credits it with a boost in the firm’s online reputation management scores, social media interactions, and improvements in other industry programs, such as research surveys, on-site events, and community-specific program promotions. In the first 30 days, 30% of Gables Residential residents had started using CAPTIVATE! and managers will focus on driving that engagement in the months ahead.
“The program will continue to evolve to keep it fresh, exciting, and engaging,” says Giannoni.
