What Renters Want with Jessica Fiur: New Facebook Emojis and Getting Resident Feedback
Facebook improved its "like" button, giving people more options to show their feelings. Is it time for multifamily to do the same?
Facebook has changed the “Like” button. Well, you can still like things, but now you can also pick one of five other emojis, “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry.”
What a time to be alive!
This makes a lot of sense. After all, a “like” is not appropriate on every Facebook post. And if Mark Zuckerberg thinks we need it, who are we to complain. I’ll personally still probably use the like button, but the only “emoji” I really use is the colon and the right parenthesis to make a happy face. Well, that, and of course this one 💩, because that is hilarious. But it’s nice to have options.
Which got me thinking about ways to get apartment feedback from your residents. After all, there are probably only a few ways that residents can communicate their feelings right now, maybe by posting on the community Facebook page, or by complaining to you the property manager (or maybe to the doorman, although I’m not sure how effective that one is). But for those methods, you might only get negative feedback. (Haters gonna hate.) And, while it’s useful to hear negative feedback, because then you can make changes to improve the situation, it’s also nice to hear what you’re doing right. Of course, you’ll never get 100 percent feedback, but if you give people more options, you might hear from a wider variety of residents than you might typically hear from.
Here are some ideas.
Send residents surveys. You can email them surveys, or you can go the old-fashioned route and put paper copies in their mail boxes or under their doors. If you do it by paper, allow them to answer anonymously if they so choose, so there is no fear of retaliation. (Like if they say their toilets are never fixed, they don’t have to be afraid of getting the maintenance guy in trouble and having him come even more infrequently out of spite.) Also let them know where they can drop the completed surveys off so there is no confusion. It also might be useful to give an incentive, such as a Starbucks gift card, to those who complete the survey (or to the first 10 people to complete it if you think you’re going to get a ton of coffee addicts answering. Like me. Gimme gimme).
