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Fair Housing
Doesn’t Mean Poor Customer Service Empower your employees with continual education on the topic and support an open dialogue for discussion while also preparing the team for common pitfalls. By MEGAN ORSER, Smart Apartment Solutions & Smart Moves
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ne of my most favorite things to do is work with people that are new to our industry. They have a fresh take on our processes and often make us more efficient from the customer’s perspective. Another reason I like to work with new perspectives is because I like to get in on the ground level of connecting the dots of fair housing for others, while demonstrating that we, as an industry, can still give good customer service. I like to inspire them before our industry has the chance to scare them so badly, that they eradicate any human elements from their canned responses. I believe that if you empower your employees with continual education on the topic and support an open dialogue for discussion, while also preparing the team for common pitfalls, they will be more engaged in the topic. Better yet, they will continually sharpening their swords to respond from a place of confidence and service, and not fear. For example, a potential resident enters your community with an ESA – our industry drills it into our leasing professionals that
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they are the front-line police – and often this scenario is riddled with fair housing challenges that don’t have to be. At my company, we conduct a lot of mystery shops and have found that often, the mere mention of an animal triggers our sales teams to fire off probing questions that could easily be answered or discussed further along in the sales cycle, specifically at application time. I ask this question: Can we just tour the apartment without getting in the weeds about rules and regulations? I mean, come on! Take the tour, show off your wood-like flooring and let’s see if they even want to live there before we put up barriers. There are fantastic services that remove the “in the weeds” conversation entirely from leasing professionals and moves it directly to the application process where it belongs. Maintenance Isn’t Immune From Fair Housing Fair housing pitfalls can even rear its ugly head in the maintenance side of things too, from work order management to contract
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