Technology Integration Strategies for Modern Property Management

Yolanda Muchnik:
Well, Ashley, welcome to the show.

Ashley Lipp:
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Yolanda Muchnik:
Awesome. Let’s start with you sharing how your journey and property management began and how it led to you becoming vp of residential property management at properties.

Ashley Lipp:
Yeah, absolutely. So I went to school for marketing. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted, wanted to do, but that just seemed like a safe bet. So I went, I went down that, that path and out of college I dabbled in that a little bit, but quickly realized that, you know what, I just don’t think this is, this is it for me. So I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. So I just, I took a leasing position at a smaller property management company in Sioux Falls, which is where I’m located and liked the industry, but I knew that that company wasn’t like my forever home.

So I then kind of felt better about knowing, like, okay, I like what I’m doing here, but I know that I need to find just a different company. So that’s what brought me to Lloyd companies. I’ve been here for close to eleven years now, and I started as a property manager, worked into a regional manager position, and then have spent the last five years in the vice president of residential property management position, which I love.

Yolanda Muchnik:
So, yay, you found your place.

Ashley Lipp:
I did.

Yolanda Muchnik:
So I heard you on the multifamily women’s podcast, and you said something that struck me, which is the inspiration for this conversation. We’ll chat about that in a moment. But in the podcast, you talked a lot about leadership, what it means, and how its implementation obviously depends on one’s personal factors. So for you, how does your leadership philosophy impact your approach to implementing new technologies?

Ashley Lipp:
Absolutely. So I am all about keeping things simple, and I feel like sometimes leaders and companies can just have a tendency to over complicate things and that typically just makes things harder for the employees and then the end users, which in this case is, are residents. So when it comes to implementing new technology, to me it’s really important that they can integrate seamlessly with the current technology and systems that we’re already using.

And then I always make sure that one of our current systems doesn’t already have the capability for something that we’re looking for, which you’d be surprised how often that can happen when you start asking questions to some of the software companies that you’re utilizing, and they’ll say, yeah, we can actually do that. I love that because it’s avoiding having to introduce a new system, new processes to our team, and just making sure that we’re maximizing our current systems before we look to add another one.

Yolanda Muchnik:
Now, in that previous interview that I just mentioned, I can’t remember the full context, but what struck me was when you said technology should solve a problem you have already identified. Technology solutions can be exciting and cool, and I know it can be easy at times to lose sight of the foundational principle that you just mentioned. So how do you and your team approach the identification of these problems? And can you provide a few examples?

Ashley Lipp:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I just have to reiterate that I do think it’s really important that you and your team are focusing on solving the problems that you have identified are important to figure out, not problems that sales representatives are trying to point out to you or convince you that you might have. And I love salespeople. So it’s nothing if you’re a salesperson out there. There is nothing against that.

It’s just I get, I probably get 20 emails a day, phone calls. And if I were to let everything that looks new and bright and shiny distract me from what our actual problems that our team has already identified are, that would get to be a little chaotic for our team. So I’m really, I really stand by that philosophy, and it has always worked for me. And how we go about kind of identifying those problems is every year my team and I, we hold a strateg, a strategy session where we talk about the previous year, and we talk, we talk about what went really well and then what didn’t go well.

And as we work through what hasn’t gone well, we can typically identify three to five different areas of improvement that we need to set initiatives around improving the following year. Sometimes those solutions involve new technologies or utilizing our current technology that we have in different ways. And it’s where a lot of our, I mean, we’ve come up with so many good ideas through this. I think most recently in our, in last year’s strategy session, we came up with an idea where we need a maintenance help desk, where if a manager is working through a larger capex project or a larger project to send in a maintenance help desk ticket, and then our preventative maintenance coordinator can reach out to them to get things started, get vendors contacted, those types of things. So it’s really just where the innovation happens in our company.

We also have quarterly check-ins where we check in and see how we’re doing with our initiatives, see if there’s still a priority to us or not, and if we need to pivot. And that’s very important and has been key to our success.

Charles Buggs:
Love that.

Yolanda Muchnik:
I think measuring is probably one of the most fundamental things we can do in really just gauging what success looks like. And it’s really refreshing to hear that.

Charles Buggs:
You guys are not only measuring things.

Yolanda Muchnik:
But on a yearly interval and then checking on that progress throughout the years.

Charles Buggs:
That’s big time.

Ashley Lipp:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think I was just kind of talking about how those quarterly check-ins are key for me and my team to just make sure that we’re maintaining that momentum throughout the year that we built when we were in our annual planning session. Because if you don’t have those, those touch points to make sure that you’re all still focused on the same initiatives and going in the same directions, you quickly lose sight of what you’re working towards.

Yolanda Muchnik:
That sounds like some great best practices that you’ve put in place. Now, on the vendor side, it’s common practice to develop new technologies that address challenges that maybe the market isn’t yet fully aware of. So I’m curious, from your perspective, how do you align broader industry trends and innovations with Lloyd Property’s operational needs?

Ashley Lipp:
Yeah, absolutely. So we monitor trends. We typically aren’t the earliest adopters of new trends, though. So LLD companies, we operate in moderate sized cities in the midwest, so it kind of allows us to monitor what’s happening in the larger metros and almost kind of let them be the guinea pigs, and then we implement the different technologies that we see as being a match for us. I’m also a member of the peer group that you mentioned, the multifamily leadership council, and that that group has been really instrumental to me to talk about.

It’s solely focused on new technology. And so every week, me and a group of professionals across the United States are getting together and just talking about new trends, new technologies, new softwares, AI, what disruptors could be on the horizon. And that has really kept us in touch with the larger trends that are happening in the industry and making sure that I’m keeping those in mind and bringing pieces of them back to Lloyd companies.

Charles Buggs:
It’s amazing.

Yolanda Muchnik:
A topic of AI has been sizzling for a few years and it’s only intensifying. But of course, we’re in the people business and human interaction remains crucial. So how do you balance leveraging technology and maintaining essential human contact, especially when it comes to things like resident services?

Ashley Lipp:
Yeah, so this is an area that we’re constantly evaluating. There’s a time and a place for automation, but at Lloyd companies, we strongly feel that this industry is still a customer surf service industry, and it requires human touch points. One of our main focuses is convenience. So we want to be the easiest company to rent from. So that means having options available for people who prefer to go through an automated process and those who prefer the more traditional lines of communication.

So people are able to schedule tours online, they’re able to tour themselves with self guided tours. They can apply online, they can sign their lease online, but then we also offer the guided tours, the paper applications, and we’re a little fanatic about making sure that our team members are picking up the phone right away, which seems to have been a lost art in our industry. So we just like to have options for people who like the automation. They don’t have to talk to anyone and they can just do everything themselves, or people who still, who still want someone helping them. They still want to be guided through the process.

So that’s been our philosophy and it’s worked really well for us.

Yolanda Muchnik:
Excellent. And so what about when things go wrong? Has there been an instance where you can share where technology adoption did not go as planned? And how did you address those setbacks? And what was the learning curve like there?

Ashley Lipp:
Yeah, so I have actually been trying to think of a time when the adoption actually went according to plan, because that’s the thing about technology, right? You never really know what to expect. And it’s. It always seems to be more complicated, especially in the beginning stages, than what, what you initially think it will be. But I think one of the biggest one that, ones that stick out to me is when we implemented a CRM system, it was a completely new concept for our team and we rolled it out to everyone at once.

And that was the first and last time we ever did an initiative like that because we quickly realized we should have rolled it out in phases and that we also needed a small test group of like, super users working out all of the bugs ahead of time before we rolled it out to the masses. So our poor systems manager was just inundated with questions for weeks, probably months, and we learned a lot of lessons through that adoption.

And that’s what’s important, though, is just acknowledging the missteps and then making sure that we don’t make the same mistakes twice in the next technology adoption. Because otherwise your team is just they’re going to lose trust. Trust in your ability to introduce new systems and every time you try to introduce something new to them, they’re always going to have this defensive reaction and not want to do it if they consistently go wrong.

So we really learned a lot from that and have really adjusted our technology rollout processes after that.

Yolanda Muchnik:
So awesome. Yeah, I feel like in so many things, even kind of outside of technological implementation, like establishing credibility and making sure that people know what to fact, like having that repeatable formula in place is super important for adoption or for buy in for any kind of issue. So looking forward from your perspective overseeing residential property management, how do you envision technology impacting the future of property management at Lloyd properties?

Are there innovations that you think will be particularly transformative or industry dynamics that might be challenging for your teams?

Ashley Lipp:
Yeah, so I mean, I think there’s going to be a lot of technology disruption on the horizon. It’s hard for me to say specifically what that could look like, though. I mean, I know AI has the potential to shake a lot of things up and I also know that that can be really scary for people. But in a customer service oriented industry, there will always be a need for that human connection. So that, you know, that provides me peace of mind and hopefully it provides a lot of the industry professionals out peace of mind as well.

With some of the staffing shortages that the industry has experienced too, I could see more operators becoming dependent on automation and just really narrowing down the human touch points to the most impactful areas such as leasing, renewals, and of course maintenance. So I think this industry is just going to look a lot different within the next ten years, if not less time than that. And you know, I’m not the idea person who’s going to come up with the next great technology, but I know that there’s people out there working on it right now and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Yolanda Muchnik:
Yeah, certainly. And I mean, we’ve been seeing at Zego, obviously some of these same trends that you’ve been touching on. So I’m personally interested to see where the industry goes myself.

Charles Buggs:
Yeah, and if I may, Yolanda, I have a question because I think that you said something earlier that was just, it kind of hit me in the heart strings, because we have a shared experience. I worked on site myself and so I’m just interested to know, how often do you think about your own experience under a leasing agent while you’re implementing new technology?

Ashley Lipp:
All the time. I am so grateful that my path was what it was. I mean, being on site has made me a better leader because I understand what it’s like to be on site, and I understand what it’s like to not have all the information. So you don’t understand why decisions are being made the way that they are. And so that’s another thing that I always bring to my team as I try to be as transparent as possible.

And when introducing new technologies, new policies, what have you, I’m always describing the why because they need to understand why we’re not just trying to introduce this new policy procedure because it’s fun. We’re introducing it because there’s a reason. And something happened that made us have to rethink this. And if we can just be transparent with them and tell them the why behind it, we get such better buy in understanding.

And a lot of times they have a lot of great ideas, too, that we didn’t even think about when rolling this out. So we actually have, like, committees, too, that work through these changes to poke holes in things to make sure that we’re vetting the entire process.

Yolanda Muchnik:
Yeah. And just kind of teasing out a little bit of what you were just saying. You know, considering your role in guiding teams through technological transitions, what advice would you offer to other leaders in property management who are facing hesitancy or resistance within their teams when it comes to integrating these new technologies?

Ashley Lipp:
Yep. So first is just, I completely understand the resistance. They need to understand the resistance because change is scary. And integrating new technologies, it takes a lot of patience, adaptability, and it takes a lot of time. But what has really helped me is having people on my team who have that passion for technology and can even help me see through the immediate hesitation that I have when I’m being introduced to a new system or change.

I have an amazing systems manager on my team who is so innovative, and she’s constantly evaluating our current software and technologies and make like researching the new trends and figuring out how they could work for Lloyd companies. So you just. You have to utilize your team when you’re making these decisions to ensure that you’re thinking through all the angles of the initiative and trying to predict the problems that may arise with the change before they actually happen. That is key.

So an example that I have of this is when we first switched to online applications, we actually saw our conversion ratios go down because our on site teams were just emailing the, showing their showings that they had a link to apply instead of sitting them down in the office and walking them through the application and really closing on that showing. So once we realized that we train the onsite teams on how to close when utilizing an online application, we gave them additional technology that made it easier for the prospects to apply with them in person, electronically in the office.

And we saw our conversion ratio start to go back up, but we just, we didn’t predict that problem. And so that was another lesson that we learned. And, I mean, really just, if there’s one thing to take away from this, I would just say the success of your technology rollout truly depends on the amount of thought and planning that you put into this before entering the execution phase.

Yolanda Muchnik:
That’s super interesting, and I think it ties back to there’s such a human element in this industry as well. Any kind of technology you implement, there’s still some human element involved in ensuring that when it comes to dealing with a customer or a potential client, you’re still going to need to be human in addition to using that technology.

Charles Buggs:
I think it’s also really cool that during your entire time we’ve talked, I haven’t once heard you talk about how it had to go perfect or how there had to be no mistakes. It almost seems like you’re planning for a little things to fall off the rails and anticipate that and get things back on track, which I think is just a testament to your leadership and experience. But very cool.

Ashley Lipp:
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, and that’s the other thing about the human element, right? It’s not perfect. There are going to be things that go wrong, and you just have to expect that and have the patience to work through that and have the people on your team to work through that with you. You can’t do it by yourself.

Yolanda Muchnik:
Yeah. And maybe set expectations with others, too. You know, there’s going toa be hiccups here and there, but we’re going to address them ASAP. So, Ashley, this is a perfect ending note for us. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and Charles today. We really appreciate it. We’re pumped for listeners to hear this episode.

Charles Buggs:
Absolutely. We appreciate your time and giving us a lot of good experience and tidbits for the rest of the industry.

Ashley Lipp:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me today. It was a pleasure.

Yolanda Muchnik:
And folks, hold on one moment for the good news.

The Good News

Charles Buggs:
Hello. I am so excited to get into the good news today, we have a bunch to share with you. The first one I find to be truly, truly important.

This is from Angie Jay. Angie wrote in and let us know. I recently became certified in mental health first aid through the National Council of Mental Health Welling. As a regional manager, I want to be able to identify when my employees or residents may be struggling and know the steps to take to get them help. This very same week, a resident came into our offices and was clearly struggling with mental health. I was able to use what I learned to gain trust so that she would allow me and my coworker to call the police to get her help. Thank you for that, Angie. Oh my God, that is a big deal. And I think firstly, your resident benefited from that experience you gained, and now your company can as well. And I want to say that more people should take your advice and take the time to hone their craft, not just as being proficient in the numbers and how to work the systems, but also how to be proficient in helping the people that come into the communities and may need some extra. That’s just great, Angie. Again, thank you so much for that. And we look forward to an update in the future.

The next one comes from Anonymous. Now this person says, I will be teaching at our association trade show for the first time. Wow. As someone who’s terrified to speak in public, agreeing to this was a huge step for me. Hey, kudos on that. I think public speaking is somewhere in the top fears of most people. So for you to know that and not only do it, but to do it at a trade show, big time, thank you for that good news.

The next one we have is from Claudette. She wrote in letting us know getting a resident to stay that was getting evicted, hey, that’s a big thing because getting them out of that legal process, getting them to sh up on their funds and also stay is a big win. And I think a lot of people may not understand the leg work and the hard work it takes to get a resident to stay through that process. So kudos to you, Claudette. We see you and we look forward to hearing updates from you in the future.

Next one, Robert wrote in to share that he bought out his partner. Congratulations. Ownership is a big thing. And hearing that you bought your partner out obviously means that we share some pretty exciting updates from you, Robert, in the future. So please keep us in the loop.

The next one, also Anonymous, says the best thing that happened to me this year was getting a promotion. Hey, what is it, April? It sounds like there’s time to get another one too. But kudos on the first one and we’re really excited to hear and we’re super excited that you wrote in to let us know and we want to hear updates in the future. So as you get that next promotion this year, let us know. We want to shout you out on the show.

And then for our final piece of good news, another anonymous listener wrote in and said that they found an underground water leak at one of their properties big time. It’s an expensive problem to have, and when you can find those things and address them quickly, it saves a lot of money and headache. So thank you so much for writing in and thank you to everyone who wrote into the good news. All right, that’s it for the good news.

Thank you so much for listening. And again, we want to hear good news from all of our listeners. So if you have any interest in sharing and getting shouted out on our show, please go to gozego.com/podcasts/ and click the link to contact the show. We want to hear from you. The good news we had today was very much appreciated. We had career wins, we had resident wins, we had building wins. We had just win wins across the board. And we’re happy to hear it and share it. So please, when you get a moment and you feel like you have a good win that you want to hear on the show, shout it out. Let us know and we’ll be happy to include you. Thank you so much again for listening to the Resident Experience podcast. Happy to hear you. We’ll see you soon.