Gables Residential Tops Mystery Shopping Survey

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorAtlanta–Gables Residential’s leasing performance of its on-site associates is better than that any other participating company, according to the fourth quarter 2008 Ellis, Partners In Mystery Shopping’s (EPMS) quarterly EPMS Benchmark Survey.The company scored 97.82 percent, the highest individual company score in the eight-year history of the survey.”Obviously, this overall score is representative of each individual’s commitment to not only the organization but to themselves,” says Joanna Ellis, CAPS, principal and co-founder of EPMS. The EPMS Benchmark Survey allows participating apartment-management companies to assess how the leasing performance of their on-site associates compares with that of their peer companies. Using the 10 leading performance questions most common in leasing presentations, the survey is conducted through mystery shopping visits in which participating management companies are scored on how well each question is answered by leasing associates. A total of 42 apartment management companies participate in the quarterly survey. Jana Muma, Gables vice president of learning and development, says, “Given these challenging economic times, we are proud that our associates instinctively know that sales quality must be at its highest level during these market conditions. This shows that our leasing teams are doing their part to maintain best in class sales quality in our industry.”In addition to this quarter’s record-breaking score, Gables has achieved the top benchmark score in six of the last eight quarters.