Stop Losing Leases Before They Even Walk In
What 1,100 Digital Mystery Shops Reveal About Follow Up, Tech Gaps, and the Moments Prospects Decide “Nope”
In a world where prospects can learn almost everything about your community before they ever step foot on the property, the battle for the lease is won long before the tour. And after digging through more than 1,100 digital secret shops, one truth stood out loud and clear. Let’s recap what Eden Chai of Flair learned.
We are losing renters in the messy middle.
The space between the guest card and the front door.
The space where follow up, technology, and consistency make or break trust.
If leasing is a game of small wins stacked together, we are dropping the ball on the plays that matter most.
Let’s break down the biggest insights from the study and give you clear action steps you can put into play today.
1. Your Data Is Getting Lost
And prospects can feel it
Only about half of all submitted questions ever got acknowledged. That means half of your ready to act leads walked in excited... and heard nothing that actually answered what they asked.
Why?
Because forms break. Integrations fail. Teams skim emails. AI bots get only partial information. And in many cases, your systems are not actually talking to each other.
Action Steps
Audit your tech stack quarterly.
Send a test guest card through your ILS, your website, and your chatbot. Confirm it hits your CRM exactly as the prospect typed it.
Check your AI bot’s intake.
If your bot is asking people to opt into text again after they already opted in, you have a settings or integration issue. Fix it.
Review the actual messages your systems send.
Three different email addresses and two different phone numbers scream disorganization. Clean it up.
2. Email Is Eating Your Follow Up Alive
And not in a cute way
Over 60 percent of all follow up came through email. The Promotions tab swallowed most of it whole. And yes, your templated CRM campaigns count as “promotional.”
If your follow up strategy is email heavy, you’re basically whispering into a hurricane of 200 unread messages a day.
Action Steps
Pretend email is your weakest channel.
Because it is. Build your plan around text and phone. Email should support your follow up, not carry it.
Use the 3 channel rule.
Every lead gets touched through text, phone, and email within 48 hours.
Kill the “pretty but useless” templates.
Plain text beats graphics. Always.
3. Texting Is Wildly Underused
And prospects are begging for it
Less than 40 percent of prospects received a single text message. Even when they opted in. Even when they preferred texting. Even when it was the fastest path to conversion.
Texting has a 90 percent open rate.
Email is lucky to crack 20 percent.
Why are we ignoring the clear winner?
Action Steps
Add a Text Us button to your homepage.
If they prefer texting, let them start on their terms.
Send one meaningful text within 10 minutes.
Not “Thanks for contacting us.” Give value immediately.
Example:
“Great news. We do allow large pets. What move in date are you targeting so I can check availability for the exact floor plan you want?”
Check your text number branding.
If a prospect receives messages from multiple numbers, you’ve already lost trust.
4. Phone Follow Up Is Barely Happening
And it is quietly killing conversions
Only about one in four shops combined email and phone. And many of those calls came from AI systems, not humans.
Phone is still unmatched for building rapport quickly.
One call can do what five emails never will.
Action Steps
Commit to one outbound call within 24 hours.
Even if they never pick up, your voicemail sets the tone.
Use the call to answer the actual question they asked.
Not to “check availability.” Not to “schedule a tour.”
Show you listened.
Stop scripting empathy. Start training for it.
Warmth wins. Every time.
5. Prospects Don’t Care About Speed to Lead
They care about speed to answer
You can blast an auto response in five seconds and still lose the lead if you never answer their one real question.
The data shows this clearly. Speed to lead is easy to automate. Speed to answer is where the human wins.
Action Steps
Make answering the question your top KPI.
Review five guest cards per week.
Was the question answered in the very first response?
If not, fix it.
Train teams to lead with clarity.
Prospects are stressed. Moves are hard. Every simple, direct answer builds trust.
6. Eight Touchpoints Gets the Tour
Ten Gets the Application
The average property delivered five and a half total touchpoints across 30 days. No wonder renters ghost.
The top performers in the study hit 11.
Action Steps
Build a 30 day multi channel sequence.
Days 1 to 3: Text, call, email
Days 4 to 7: Text, email
Days 8 to 15: Text only
Days 16 to 30: AI assisted nurture with human check ins
Stop giving up after Day 2.
The magic happens long after most leasing teams stop trying.
7. Mystery Shop Beyond the Tour
The digital journey predicts the in person experience
If the prospect experience before the tour is inconsistent, robotic, confusing, or slow, the tour will almost always match.
Everyone shops the tour.
Almost nobody shops the process that leads to the tour.
And that is the part doing the most damage.
Action Steps
Run digital shops monthly for problem properties.
Use Flair’s tool or any tool, but do it consistently.
Follow the People, Process, Technology framework.
What did the humans do
What process did they follow
Where did the tech break
Fix the friction before you fix the tour.
The Big Picture
AI is not the enemy.
Humans are not replaceable.
And the future of leasing belongs to teams that combine both with intention.
AI handles long term nurture, speed, and consistency.
Humans handle trust, empathy, and the moments that move someone from curious to committed.
The win is in the balance.
And the teams that fix the digital experience today will be the teams that hit their occupancy goals tomorrow.