Power Leasing is an intensive lease up and marketing firm that provides outsourced leasing, marketing and training. The company works with numerous clients to help market and fill vacant properties throughout the US.
Power Leasing came to Amadeus Consulting because the company needed to help bring its vision for enhancing the leasing experience to reality. A vision that could streamline the apartment leasing process and increase productivity, increase lease sales and improve data management. The current approach in most apartment communities requires the use of pen-and-paper "guest cards" that prospective residents or leasing professionals fill out and submit.
These guest cards include basic demographic and interest-based information that can help Leasing Consultants filter potential apartment home alternatives and narrow down the choices for potential residents. However, this sales process can be inefficient, often leading to lost or missing information. The manual process historically has been difficult to track for company's who manage these communities. In the end the experience often is seen as tedious from the perspective of potential residents.
The goals for Power Leasing included finding a solution that created a memorable experience for apartment hunters and streamlining the leasing process for leasing agents, all the while enhancing the professionalism of the customer experience. However, creating a digital solution that could be used by leasing agents or customers required the integration of multiple disparate technologies into one functional and easy-to-use application.
Amadeus Consulting's mobile application development team developed an iPad™ application for Power Leasing that replaced the apartment communities' outdated paper form process as well as combined multiple technologies into a single client-facing app. Amadeus Consulting also helped with the user interface design of the iPad application.
Features of the app include:
- A simple and elegant flow of screens which invite the customer to share key contact and demographic information about housing preferences
- The ability to process customer information and display relevant property leasing recommendations
- Integrates with 3rd party property management systems to provide recommendations among available properties as well as available floor plan options
- View pictures and floor plans of available properties
- Schedules visits, schedule follow up appointments, and take notes
- Allows back end administration through the web
- Manages secure and public data (private personal information versus property marketing information)
Rather than filling out a paper form, leasing consultants can enter the prospective client's information and preferences directly into the app. This data is used by the leasing agent to follow up with the client, and to provide recommendations as new properties come available.
Customers and agents can also use the app to enter preferences about the type of property they were looking to lease. This includes the number of people that would be living in the property, number of bedrooms, specific amenities, etc. The app then displays available properties that match those preferences.
In order to provide a list of available properties, Amadeus Consulting used RESTful web services to integrate with Yardi™ and OneSite™, which are two of the largest property management systems.
Through these integrations, Amadeus Consulting enabled the ability to push up user preferences to a Power Leasing server and pull down information about each available property, including pictures and floor plans related to those preferences. Agents could then schedule visits and take notes as needed. It was also necessary to ensure that private user data remained secure during the process and that nothing was stored locally on the device.
Amadeus Consulting also helped develop the back end management system for the app that helps manage inquiries, available properties and agent assignments, and tracks important information about the process. Throughout the process Amadeus Consulting worked with Power Leasing to design the look and feel of the app. This included coordinating on the app's UI design and layout, as well as the overall structure and flow. During the early design phase, Amadeus Consulting also created a working UI prototype to showcase the look and feel of the app for Power Leasing. This acted as a preview of the final product and allowed the company to make further improvements and design tweaks before completing the back end development and coding.