THE SOLUTION
Implementing TouchTour and branding it 'Elle'
Quarterra was already familiar with Engrain as part of an ongoing partnership with other products and services, including website design and SightMap. In addition, some Quarterra properties – those that didn’t feature the initial proprietary touchscreen software – had been using a basic version of TouchTour. Although it was a rudimentary version, it possessed many features that leasing teams liked. LMC initially passed along general feedback to Engrain, before Engrain took things a step further by visiting LMC teams onsite to gather input from those using the product on the frontlines. Engrain wanted to learn the particular nuances that would help enhance the prospect and associate experience.
"That was a turning point for the evolution of our proprietary software."
Beth Tuttle
Vice President of Marketing
Quarterra
“Engrain was able to get out there and ask our associates what they really wanted. Our marketing and technology teams were fairly unified that this was a better solution for our company. So we engaged Engrain to build the software that our leasing teams needed.”
Quarterra adopted TouchTour across its portfolio and has branded the product “Elle.” With roughly half the portfolio regularly in lease-up mode and experiencing ever-changing availability, Elle helps assist prospects with a fully interactive, customizable and visual experience that concentrates only on the parameters they are interested in.
As part of the process, Engrain incorporated Quarterra’s Matterport virtual tours into Elle’s availability page to enable prospects to view apartments that aren’t yet ready for tours. Additionally, Engrain was able to build Quarterra’s YieldStar pricing matrix into Elle, which would have been impossible without a bidirectional feed.
“A bidirectional feed is absolutely imperative if you want to use this as an actual leasing tool,” Tuttle said. “It allows us to show real-time availability on the screen and to push guest card information back to our CRM so it doesn’t have to be entered multiple times.”
"The process is so streamlined when you’re giving prospects only the information that they need, while also giving them all of the information that they need."
Beth Tuttle
Vice President of Marketing
Quarterra
THE SOLUTION
Streamlined, visual prospect experience, more effective lease-ups
Elle has become the leasing tool Quarterra first craved when it initially sought a visualization platform—one that catered to the specific needs and breakneck pace of the apartment industry. Prospects and leasing teams benefit from the timesaving component, and as Tuttle puts it: “from the lack of having to pick up and start over” once you move away from the screen.
As an example of the improved functionality, Quarterra has many different floor plans but often doesn’t have prime availability within certain floor-plan types. Onsite teams don’t want a prospect to become enamored with a particular floor plan and then realize none are available. Elle’s filter options ensure that only available homes are displayed within certain parameters.
“It’s a much better process, especially when going from a lease-up to a stabilized community,” Tuttle said. “We can start out with a collection of lifestyle videos and sub them out for actual clips of the community once we’re up and running. The mixtape has been a huge timesaver, and from the marketing perspective, that’s one of the biggest advancements in the Engrain iteration of our software.”
Beth Tuttle
Vice President of Marketing
Quarterra
While the first iterations of Elle consisted of the filter tool and the ability to scroll through floor plans and available homes, current iterations have expanded visual options. These include amenity and floor-selection breakdowns for residents who desire particular views or access points from their home.
Another visual enhancement for Quarterra’s Elle is the software’s mixtape feature. Quarterra previously displayed a four-hour video loop when its screens were idle. If anything changed within that video, such as an updated amenity space, the entire video needed to be re-edited, which was time consuming and cumbersome. Now the screen displays a mixtape of various video clips, which can be subbed out and replaced at any time. As an added bonus, lifestyle videos within the mixtape ecosystem can be used at Elle platforms across the portfolio, providing Quarterra with a substantial supply of options.
Because Elle can be modified in perpetuity, Quarterra frequently engages in quality-control measures by sending quarterly surveys to collect feedback from associates. Through these surveys, Quarterra has determined that an increasing number of associates regularly utilize Elle—and the numbers steadily rise each quarter.
“By listening to our teams and incorporating their feedback into new iterations of Elle, we’re making it more useful and a more valuable part of the leasing process,” Tuttle said.
"That was a turning point for the evolution of our proprietary software."
Beth Tuttle
Vice President of Marketing
Quarterra
