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Seattle AppFolio meetup
The document is a presentation outlining AppFolio's payment solutions and additional services, emphasizing the importance of user feedback in product development. It discusses trends in online payments, highlights features such as resident screening and professional websites, and showcases the growth in demand for tenant insurance. The presentation concludes by encouraging community engagement and support for current and potential customers.
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Seattle AppFolio meetup
- 1. Seattle, WA April18, 2013 - 11:45 AM
- 2. The TeamHere Today BrianDeignan Regional Director Erik Sexton Account Executive - Regional Stacy Holden Project Director
- 8. Agenda Your Feedback Payment Solutionsand Other Services Hidden Features Coming Soon! Have Some Lunch and Meet Some Friends
- 9. The Product DevelopmentProcess The buildingprocess • Share findings with the development team • Build a feature and test it with clients • Make updates if necessary HowAppFoliofeaturesare conceived • We listen to our Users’ Feedback • Research heavily • Follow Market Trends • Innovate
- 10. Your Feedback isKey! UserForum FeatureRequests UsabilityTests and ValidationCalls 5,500 received in 2012 6,000+ posts to date 600+ in 2012
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- 12. Thank You! Greg GarrettProperty Management Gifford Management Group Most Number of Feature Requestssubmittedby: Everyone with their hand up Most Forum Posts made by:
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- 14. Industry Stats 68% 15% 2% 15% Check ACHCredit Card Cash or Money Order
- 15. Rent Payments –what is changing? WSJ says - 70% ofAmericanswhoaccessedthe internetin Q2 made an online purchase Buysight (internet research company) says - 88% ofAmericansmade a purchase onlinein the past 12 months 80% of shoppersare betweenage 33-44 Brian says - How many checkshaveI writtenin my life?
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- 18. Cost Cost Of HandlingAPaper Check
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- 20. The Story The 90’scalled… they want their scanner back
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- 22. Comparison 53% 35% 0% 12% AppFolio Check ACHCredit Card Cash or Money Order 68% 15% 2% 15% Industry Check ACH Credit Card Cash or Money Order 28% 60% 0% 12% AppFolio Checks AppFolio Online Credit Cards Cash or Money Order
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- 25. Industry Stats 68% 15% 2% 15% Check ACHCredit Card Cash or Money Order 26% 62% 0 12% Checks AppFolio Online Cash or Money Order AppFolio
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- 27. How It Works NoNSFs!
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- 29. 26% 62% 0 12% Checks AppFolioOnline Cash or Money Order AppFolio Payment Services 26% 74% 0 0 Checks AppFolio Online
- 30. AppFolio Payments Start influencingthe adoption now!
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- 33. Resident Screening Our reportsare… Built In no separate login or duplicate entry Instant Results get your screen in 60 seconds Easy to Read Simple Storage Auto attached and stored in APM
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- 36. Professional Websites Website Features •Purpose-Built for Property Management • 100% integrated with AppFolio Property Manager • Custom website URL for your company • Variety of styles and colors to choose from • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices
- 37. Professional Websites AdvancedFeatures • Individualsites customized for each property, including image galleries and floor plans • Mobile version of site(s) • Google Analytics for tracking site metrics, traffic and visitors • Social media integration, including Facebook, Twitter and more • Blog
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- 39. AppFolio Insurance Services 20082009 2010 2011 2012 24% 44% 66% 62% 84% Apartment Firms Requiring Tenant Insurance Annual NMHC ACOR Survey RequiringInsurance
- 40. AppFolio Insurance Services Whyare we seeingthis trend? • Transfer risk away from owners o Reduce claims on Property Insurance • Increase owner’s profitability o Reduce expense of resident caused damage o Reduce property insurance rates (MFR) • Competitive advantage for fee managers
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- 43. AppFolio Insurance Services Whatcustomersare saying: Keeping track of all our tenant policies and enforcing our insurance requirement used to be a big headache, but with everything managed right in the AppFolio software it’s just so easy to mandate renters. We now have the confidence that every unit in our portfolio is protected. “ Pricing
- 44. UsingAppFolio ValueAdded Services OneUnderwritingProcessforALLServices Payments Screening Insurance
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- 50. Direct Connect Expeditethe bank reconciliation process Reconcile on a more regular basis Allow AppFolio to match transactions View warnings for transactions that have not been found
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- 56. Help Resource Center help.appfolio.com FullResource Center • Recorded trainings (65+) • Downloadable resources • Live Training registration • Online help file • Submit support requests
- 57. User Forums: Shareand Succeed Together Online Community • Others best practices • AppFolio participation • Feature discussions • Accounting section • Tips & Tricks • Read, learn and contribute
- 58. Support Team: Therefor You support@appfolio.com
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- 60. Questions? Not a CustomerYet? •Talk to Someone Here •Ask Questions •Make Friends
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Editor's Notes
- #4 We’ve had the pleasure to work with thousands of [property management companies] / [investors] over the years and it’s really been exciting to watch the changes in our industry and help our customers stay ahead of market trends. + In 2011 over 1 million renter households were added. We see news articles everyday that showcase renting as the new American dream – rents are increasing and vacancy rates are going down. + This is all great news for companies like yours but the truth is that there is a new generation of renters with different needs and everyone, from residents to investors expect more from you and your business.
- #5 And your challenge is to meet the changing needs of owners and residents while you stay ahead of the competition, and the reality is that the tools you will need today and in the future to grow your business and become more profitable are dramatically different than just a few years ago and will continue to change at a rapid pace.
- #6 The modern renter wants and expects to communicate online. + They use the Internet to search for their next home - from Craigslist to your website they will find, research and ultimately apply for the home online. + Once a resident, the preference is to pay rent online, submit maintenance requests and communicate online. Making it easy to communicate and stay connected is directly tied to your resident retention and occupancy rates.Residents aren’t the only ones who have higher expectations.
- #7 Owners and Investors expect more too. They want….To receive payments online -- the money gets there faster and you save valuable time as well. Online access to property information, reports and statements so they stay connected to their investments.Unique branding for properties with even better marketing that stands out from the crowd.They want insurance that protects their investments from accidental damage.They also want you to find the highest quality residents and fill vacancies fastBased on what I have learned about your company so far this will be important to your business along with (BUSINESS GOAL)
- #8 And this is exactly why a group of SaaS experts created AppFolio and the types of market changes we are most interested in. The exciting thing is that by providing a combination of a great innovative product that capitalizes on market trends, along with incredible customer service has built a foundation for fast growth. In fact, there are over 5 thousand companies today that rely on AppFolio products.Our team is very experienced at building successful Software as a Service products that are innovative and meet the needs of the modern property management company but, the most exciting thing for me isn’t the stats about our company, it is the stats about our customers and their success using our service. It is the success our customer are having that validates our focus. For example, our customers have the highest adoption rate for online rent payments in the industry, last year alone we processed over $3 Billion in online rent. And, I will share with you in a little bit how we are going to make it even better.
- #9 The agenda today. We are going to give you some incite into your feedback, where it goes and how it is used. I will share with you how we are looking at payment solutions and other innovative tools that you can take advantage of to really capitalize on this changing market.I will share some hidden features you may not be aware of and every ones favorite topic, share what we are building today in the coming soon section. Ultimately I will feel our time is successful if I can share one or two things you can take back to your office that you may not have been thinking about before today and if you make some new friends that you can share best practices and experiences with.
- #10 One element of AppFolio that is so unique is our development process. I won’t bore you with the nerdy details about the differences between waterfall development, the old way, and agile development which is what we practice, and how our practices are so ahead of the curve we hold seminars in our office on the newest, most effective ways to develop web based software. What I do want though is to give you incite into the process, what you can expect, and how you can help.At the core of our development is our customers. We spend a huge amount of time listing to our customers through various channels. We have the Feature Requests built into our system, we read the AppFolio Forum and our product team reaches out to hundreds of clients a year to have conversations about their business needs. This is step number 1. Now, as a good technology partner we believe it is our job to take all of this information, along with keeping an eye on future market trends and innovate. Come up with the best possible solution to the business problem, not just build some way to solve it that has been around forever.
- #12 2012 was a busy year. Here is just a sampling of some of the major enhancements we made and 2013 is going to be just as fast, if not faster.In fact, we averaged1.2 new features every single week.These features don’t include the ongoing infrastructure and security work to ensure that we’re reliable and available 99.99% of the time. Ensuring a web based product is always available is no easy task and no one is perfect but we come pretty close and are confident we are the best in the industry.
- #14 One area that will be a heavy focus for AppFolio this year is payments. The reason is that we prioritize our development based on the amount of impact we can make to your business. And when we look at the parts of your business that take the most time, receipting payments from residents is a significant time expense. Every single month, every single tenant, hopfully, is paying you and you have to handle the payment, deposit the payment, record the payment and reconcile all of them as-well. I hear property management company owners tell me all the time that they are always under staffed the first week of the month and “rent week” is a time of increased stress in the office.
- #15 So we started with research. Remember, a huge part of our development process is to research, look at current and future market trends and come up with the best possible way to solve business challenges.We looked at the industry in general to understand the current landscape of payments. Here is what we found. 68% are paying with a paper check, 15% are paying online with an e-check, 2% are paying via credit card, and 15% are paying with cash or money orders with surprised us. Once we understood the current landscape we needed to research market trends and understand if this was changing and if so what direction. I think everyone would agree that conceptually we all feel this is changing but when we started to research we were surprised at how fast it is changing.
- #16 Fortune magazine was a good place to start. One of their recent publications shows a hundred dollar bill being shredded by an iPhone. I am guessing most of you have had person expertise with this, it is amazing to me how many creative apps are coming out with new ways to pay.We dug a little more and found that the wall street journal says that 70% of Americans who access the internet in Q2 mad an online purchase. 70% of the people who touched the internet in some way were comfortable to make an online purchase. Ok, well I have property managers who tell me all the time that THEIR residents don’t use the internet. So we dug deeper. An internet research company found that 88% of americans made a purchase online in the last 12 months. Now it is getting interesting. 88% of americans made a purchase online. So as long as your renting to americans… please don’t tell me if your not… 88% of your renters are comfortable paying online. The other thing I hear from PM companies is that they don’t have a bunch of colleague kids and those are the ones online – here is the most interesting stat. 80% of those online shoppers are between the agres of 33-44. This is absolutly main stream.
- #17 So now we know the landscape today and the direction it is going and it was time to understand the process so we could improve it. The old way is something we are all very familiar with, someone writes you a check.. From 1866… and brings it to your office.
- #18 You then need to record the payment and later bring it to the bank and deposit it. Doesn’t sound that hard but we sent a research company out nonetheless to determine how much it was costing you in time.
- #19 The average time spent by your staff handling a paper check cost you $2. Every single paper check that comes into the office is costing you $2. That can add up quickly, just think about how many checks come into your office every month! Now we aren’t the only ones to understand this challenge.
- #20 About 10 years ago someone came up with this great idea to create a check scanner. A piece of hardware integrated with another piece of hardware and some software that I could scan a check through and at least eliminate the need to go to the bank. Ok, that makes sense, even thought it is a lot of stuff to try and get to work together, those of you with scanners know what I am talking about. Anytime you are dealing with hardware it can be a hassle updating, changing computers, banks etc… not to mention that sliding that thing through doesn’t have a 100% success rate.
- #21 Even though you eliminate the trip to the bank the big story is that they are still coming into the office and your staff has to handle those payments. So maybe you reduce your time spent and each check costs you $1.50… but we wanted to help you eliminate that completely. And besides, the 90’s called us and said they want their check scanner back.
- #22 So we set out to solve this problem and the first thing we did was build an e-check system. If you’re a customer you know how this works. It is our system, not an integration with a third party so it has some unique advantages. Residents can see real time what they owe, when they pay you see it real time and the best part is there is no transaction fee for anyone.
- #23 And comparing AppFolio customers to the industry validated that we were pretty successful. Out of all the units in AppFolio 35% of the rent is being paid electronically. That is twice as much as the industry average. Going back to our development philosophy this is a great example of how we listed to the need and developed something innovative that gave you a huge advantage. Had we integrated with some payment provider we wouldn’t have been able to eliminate the transaction fee which is a huge factor when you talk about adoption. Now the reality is that this 35% stat is skewed by all sorts of factors, our customers that actually deploy this and promote it to their residents have a much higher average percentage of adoption. Who here is proud of their adoption and would like to share?Great! Thank you for sharing. What are some of the things you did to get that adoption?When we talk to clients that are promoting this the reality is they have closer to 60% paying online. Imagine your office with 60% less checks but you are still getting paid! Here are some ideas, charge a nominal fee, $2, to people that pay with a paper check, put a terminal in your office for folks without a computer, run a contest for everyone that pays online in a particular month and draw a winner from a hat. Give them an ipad mini – the $300 expense will have an extremely quick ROI.So that is great, 60% paying online but we still have a few pesky payment types left. The 28% checks doesn’t worry me, social and economic pressures will take care of that and the more effective you are on promoting the online e-check the quicker it will dissapear. But we still have 15% paying with a money order and 2% with a credit card.
- #24 If you don’t know yet, we built a credit card processing system. It is already available for application fees and just like the e-check it we built it and are able to provide you with some unique advantages. Just like the online payments now it is completely built in and real time with your accounting system and one of the other advantages is we can control the experience to ensure it is easy for you. One example is that if you decide to refund an application fee it is as easy as clicking a button in AppFolio and whalaw.
- #25 In the near future we will release this for rent as-well.
- #26 The 2% is taken care of, and now we have at least 62% paying online, in a way that eliminates all your time expense handling the payment. But there is another slice of the pie, the money orders, that is substantial. Now, the size of this slice surprised us….so, you know what we did, research.
- #27 We found that 24% of us families don’t have a bank account or credit card. So yes, this is a big challenge and we need to solve it.
- #28 We looked at the current experience for your tenants paying with money orders and it is very inconvenient. They go to a CVS or wallgreen, wait for the manager because the clerk can’t run the western union desk and then often get multiple money orders to pay the full rent. After all that they still have to drive to your office and hand it to you, which is way the inconvenience starts for you!So here is how we are solving this. This year, we will launch a solution that allows your resident to take a stack of cash, go into any 7-11, radio shack, or Ace check cash express, pick up a slurpy and head to register to pay for Rent and slurpee all at once. In fact, the cashier doesn’t need to be trained or know anything about it. They scan a barcode the resident hands them and puts the cash in the register. Then the magic happens, we receipt the payment in your AppFolio accounting system and transfer the money to your account. WOW!
- #29 And unless you are in Montana, the locations are everywhere and growing! In fact, 90% of our current clients properties are within 3 miles of a payment location. Research shows this is the average distance between a residents home and where they get a money order, the great part is we eliminate the need for the resident to make a second trip and bring you a money order and more importantly we completely eliminate the time you spend handling them!
- #30 So what is the result? You can easily have 74% of your residents paying in a way that is completely hands off for you. Now all you need to worry about on rent week are the people who haven’t paid, or other activities that help the business make more money. And, over time, the 26% will continue to shrink and disappear.
- #31 So start promoting the online payments now and get those paper check to disappear. Because if you do, when we add credit card payments and the money order solution called Pay Near Me something else will disappear…
- #32 You on rent week!
- #33 I said I would share with you the innovative way we are looking at payments along with some other tools that can help you stay ahead of the curve. There are three more I am going to share with you today.
- #34 The first is our online resident screening solution. This is built into AppFolio, in the same way as the payment solutions and gives you some unique advantages. First, let’s cover what is in the report. Full credit report with FICO scoreNationwide eviction searchNationwide criminal search (optional) (includes OFAC, sex offenders, Interpole)One huge advantage is the way we re-organize the report to make it extremely easy for you to teach your staff how to assess. We summarize everything on the first page and literally good things are green and bad things are red. Another advantage is that the report doesn’t need to be printed or stored in some filing cabinet, the report attaches and stored in AppFolio automatically. Now all of that is great, but I will tell you what the real advantage is. The real advantage is that it enables you to capture prospective residents when they are interested. Significantly reducing the chances that they pass you up. Imagine you are searching for a new place to live on craigslist, you find something you like, click on a link to the pm company website, try and find the PDF application which you then need to print… do you even have a printer, and then fax or drive down to the office. What do you do? You consider it and continue your search on craigslist. Contrast it with this situation, you find something on craigslist, click a button to apply, and 1 minute later someone calls you and says, “you have been pre-approved, stop your search!” Or, you show up at an appartment or house for a showing, love what you see and the leasing agent hands you a paper app that again you are suppose to fill out and send via fax. On the way home you see something else and take a look…. Or, at the end of the showing the agent sits you infront of a computer for a few short minutes, clicks a button and 60 seconds later tells you, “You are pre-approved, stop your search!”Powerful right?
- #35 We have a new partnership with Experien. Who here knows what RentBureau is?Exactly. RentBureau allows PMs to report rent payment history to Experian and better yet, we have started returning the results on our screens. There’s a benefit to good tenants – their on time rent payments help them build good credit history.Plus PMs who participate report fewer skips and collect more successfully because RentBureau makes it harder for a bad tenant to find a new place.Another totally free service for customers using AF screening, there’s no extra work because rent payment info is automatically provided to experian from your AF database. If you were to go directly to Experian and add RentBureau there is a cost… how much would you guess it is to add this to your appfolio reports?Nothing!
- #36 Our standard pricing hasn’t changed.
- #37 The second tool our customer are taking advantage of is our purpose built websites. These are 100% integrated with AppFolio, use your custom URL and include SEO best practices. We know that you have plenty of other things you could be doing to help increase profitability and spending time messing with a website is a hassle, so we wanted to make it easy, and affordable. Now, the market continues to change and there are some new tools, important tools, that have developed since we launched our website offering a few years ago so we have added some advanced functionality.
- #38 With our professional website offering, which is only $1000 to setup and $50 per month for each website, you get a whole host of new tools to help you attract business. We will create individual sites if you have multi-family properties that you want to have their own identity, all under the same setup fee. Extremely important, these sites also come with a mobile version. I am sure you would all agree that the majority of your tenants and potential investors or owners will find you initially on a mobile device. The reality is that the old saying “your first impression is key” is absolutely true, but they aren't looking at your shoes or watch anymore, their first impression of you is your website and if it isn’t impressive you may not even get the chance to compete for their business. We also build in Google Analytics. This is a system that allows you to track visitors to your website and when you have so much extra time during rent week, you can find some very useful data. For example, you can see where visitors are coming from so you can spend your marketing dollars where they are most effective. You can also track visitors experience with your website and if you find something like everyone who visits spends 45 seconds on three different pages but when they reach one specific page they spend 3 seconds and then leave your site… that page is boring, you need to change it. Additionally, we will build in all your social media as well. I can’t talk about why that is important because we will be here all day! But it is and we make it easy. Finally, we build in a blog for you. Some of you are probably asking, why do I want a blog, or what is a BLOG! Anyone here blog???Here is the most important thing about a blog – on average sites with a blog get 55% more traffic than those without. Sites with a blog get 55% more traffic! That is huge! Don’t worry, if you are not a writer, like me, I’ll give you a tip. Blogging isn’t as hard as it seems once we setup the technology part for you. All you need to do is spend a few minutes finding an interesting industry article, copy part of it along with a link to the full article and say, “I have been saying this for years, I agree with this smart person”
- #39 And these websites look amazing, here are a few customers. These aren’t the site your cousin made for you in his spare time or a site that is 5 years old, ancient in terms of the internet.
- #40 On to the third, and very exciting topic. Who here makes renters insurance mandatory. Great, this is a trend we have been watching for some time and it is absolutely increasing. Last year in fact 84% of apartments required renters insurance. This isn’t new anymore, renters will not be surprised by it. Requiring insurance is a best practice that will absolutely become an industry standard.
- #41 Why are we seeing this trend? It is all about the bottom line. The liability portion of renters insurance transfers risk away from owners. In the case of accidental damage, a kitchen fire for example, it protects the resident from a huge bill but more importantly it eliminates the need for an owner to make a claim on their property insurance or incur the cost of the repair. We all know that most renters don’t have an extra 40 thousand dollars to repair an accidental fire or flood. More importantly though, today it is a huge competitive advantage if you are a fee manager. Imagine you are an investor shopping two management companies to take care of this very expensive asset you have purchased. One says, “I can guarantee that every unit or property you have is covered 100% of the time with liability insurance” and, the other guy says, “oh we strongly recommend it to every renter.” Which one will you pick?So big reasons to make it mandatory, but what is a big reason some haven’t? What is the hardest thing about making it mandatory?
- #42 Sign up and you can instantly grant a tenant a basic liability insurance for less than $10 a month. So when a new tenant shows up to sign a lease without their proof of insurance you can easily (and always) keep your property protected – enroll with the click of a button. This is a great service to market to owners, it saves claims on their property insurance – or covers the deductible in more serious incidents.
- #43 Tracking 3rd Party Coverage