Yardi Chat IQ FAQ
If you currently use Yardi for property management, and especially if you currently use RENTCafe and have Yardi property websites, you should be strongly considering using Yardi Chat IQ.
This article is a list of many of the common questions surrounding the use of Yardi Chat IQ, and should be helpful for learning some of the basic considerations. You can of course dive much deeper in our Multifamily Blog.
If you have a question that isn’t answered here, you can check our FAQ for Live Chat - Or you can send us a message on our contact page and we’ll be happy to provide some details.
FAQ: Property Websites & Yardi Chat IQ
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What is Yardi Chat IQ, and how does it benefit an apartment community?
Yardi Chat IQ is an AI-driven chatbot solution designed for property management. It’s used in conjunction with other Yardi website products as a way to allow website visitors to engage with property staff. Yardi Chat IQ is part of the way Yardi is helping communities automate and manage interactions with residents and prospects 24/7. It can provide some great benefits for properties with a digital leasing strategy, by providing instant responses, capturing leads, and enhancing resident engagement.
For more Yardi Chat IQ resources and information please review the posts in our Yardi Chat IQ Blog Section.
How does Yardi Chat IQ integrate with other Yardi products?
Yardi Chat IQ is designed to seamlessly integrates with Yardi Voyager, RENTCafé, and other Yardi systems. Essentially, Yardi Chat IQ has access to data inside the Property Management System and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) depending what products are already in use. It an provide prospects with unit availability, pricing, and basic resident information from these backend systems. As Yardi continues to make slow feature rollouts with Yardi Voyager 8, it’s capabilities are slowly improving.
Can Yardi Chat IQ handle inquiries from both current residents and prospective residents?
Yes, Yardi Chat IQ is built to serve both prospects and residents, but it is more geared towards prospective residents with capabilities surrounding unit availability and tour bookings. It can however also provide limited functions to current residents with tasks like maintenance requests and direction to rent payment links.
In reality, the Yardi Chat IQ chatbot is limited in what it can (and should) do. To provide more full featured service to prospects, and to provide a better prospect service, it can be smart to use a Yardi Chat IQ contact center like Leasing Chat.
What kind of questions can Yardi Chat IQ answer?
Yardi Chat IQ can answer a moderate range of questions for prospects and website visitors, assuming it is setup correctly. This generally includes rent prices, unit availability, tour booking options, community amenities, lease terms, and where to apply. It’s limited to information categories stored within the Yardi PMS system, and can be restricted a bit depending one what you’d like to automate and what you’d prefer to handoff to a live leasing agent.
If you read our Yardi Chat IQ Review article we go more in depth about the capabilities and limitations of Yardi Chat IQ.
Is Yardi Chat IQ available 24/7?
Yes and no. Yardi Chat IQ chatbot can be set to appear and operate 24/7 on property websites, however, live engagement is only available when there is a person there to respond - for most property offices this is during normal business hours. The benefit of a Yardi Live Chat Management service like ours is that we can greatly increase the live leasing agent support times, and provide better service and engagement overall.
How does Yardi Chat IQ handle leads?
Yardi Chat IQ captures contact information from prospective residents (like name, phone number, email) and forwards it to your leasing team for follow-up. It uses a basic lead capture form that a prospect can fill out. It’s functionality is a bit limited in this regard, but will provide better lead generation than having nothing at all. We outline the limitations and ways to improve this in our Yardi Chat IQ Review blog post.
Can Yardi Chat IQ escalate complex inquiries to a live agent?
Yes, Yardi Chat IQ gives users the option to speak with a live leasing consultant. This is generally a leasing specialist on-site at the property office during office hours.
Escalation and handoff can be setup as an option during the chatbot engagement at all times (which is what we recommend), and also only as a fallback option if the chatbot can’t determine the needs of a customer. Yardi Chat IQ Live Chat Handoff is an essential part of making Chat IQ an effective tool for
Generally, if no live agent is available to respond, Yardi Chat IQ will try to capture the lead information with a contact form and create a follow-up task inside the CRM, but often times this is abandoned by the user. Having extended hours coverage with ‘easy to access’ live chat handoff creates much more engagement with prospects, and results in a large reduction in drop-off and abandonment. Capturing more leads is what we do!
How customizable is Yardi Chat IQ?
If you ask Yardi, they will tell you that Yardi Chat IQ is ‘highly’ customizable. This is a little of a misnomer. While you can customize some of the visuals, and you do have control over some of the questions it will engage with, it’s a very limited chat system when compared to the broader market of Live Chat software, and even when compared to multifamily-specific live chat solutions.
Where Yardi Chat IQ shines is it’s built in integrations with the Yardi CRM system, meaning no 3rd party connectivity is required. When combined with a Yardi Live Chat Call Center solution it can be extremely cost effective for this reason.
For a more full featured live chat solution we developed our own in house live chat software system specifically to improve lead capture and customer experience through Yardi RENTCafe websites. For more details or a product demo, please contact us.
Does Yardi Chat IQ support multiple languages?
Yes, Yardi Chat IQ offers multi-language support, making it accessible to a diverse resident base and helping to communicate with non-English speaking residents. However, it’s important to set expectations correctly for foreign language communications, because prospects sometimes get confused when reaching out directly to a property office and not finding a person who speaks the same language. A multilingual multifamily contact center can be helpful here.
What are the setup and implementation processes like for Yardi Chat IQ?
The setup process will be initiated through your Yardi sales rep, and the preliminary installation onto the property websites will be added by the Yardi team. They will also connect Yardi Chat IQ with your existing Yardi products, and add some of the default ‘out-of-the-box’ functionality to the chatbot.
From there some of the responses and capabilities can be customized and adjusted based on what will work best for your properties. Setup and fine tuning are what we specialize in.
How does Yardi Chat IQ ensure data security and privacy?
Yardi Chat IQ is designed with data security in mind, and complies with privacy regulations. Because the chat system is built into the Yardi platform, all data is stored and exchanged within Yardi’s servers without 3rd party integrations (which can create some risk). Yardi Voyager is also built to safeguard resident information.
Can Yardi Chat IQ help reduce the volume of phone calls and emails?
Yes, one of the ancillary benefits of using Live Chat for Multifamily Properties is it will also reduce the number of calls and emails that come inbound to the property office. When combined with a digital marketing strategy for prospect lead generation, properties can expect a 30-40% reduction in calls when providing effective Live Chat services.
If you also need help from a multifamily call center, please contact us for more details about how we can help your properties perform better.
How can we track the performance of Yardi Chat IQ?
Yardi Chat IQ provides some built in analytics and reporting, allowing you to monitor chat volume, common inquiries, number of leads generated, response times, and a few other data points. For deeper insights and a better understanding of your prospect journey, we have developed the Leasing Journey Intelligence Platform. This can be used in conjunction with the Yardi Chat IQ system, and ties in additional data from website analytics, CRM, and PMS systems. These insights help optimize both the live chat performance and improve your overall leasing strategy.
Is Yardi Chat IQ compliant with fair housing regulations?
Yes, Yardi Chat IQ is designed to comply with fair housing regulations, and provides details that match with legal requirements. Tax credit compliance and fair housing regulations for multifamily properties are areas where Live Chat can be very effective. One of the biggest issues facing properties with tax credit units is making sure prospects understand the requirements are and supported while determining if they meet those requirements. This requires takes longer conversations to share information and work with prospects on a personal level. This times time, patience, and often the sharing of documentation. All of these can be handled well over live chat, and our live chat leasing agents are well trained in the needs and requirements of these properties. In general automated AI Chatbots do not serve these properties well (currently).
Can Yardi Chat IQ be used for resident engagement beyond answering questions?
Absolutely. Yardi Chat IQ can be used to push announcements, advertise incentives, send reminders, and engage residents in other ways, like gathering feedback or promoting community events. When combined with our Follow-Up service that includes Live Chat, SMS Text, and Email - keeping residents engaged becomes easy!
What ongoing maintenance is required for Yardi Chat IQ?
Regular monitoring and updating of the chatbot’s responses is very important. One of the common failure points for properties adding Yardi Chat IQ to their properties is that it isn’t monitored, updated, fine tuned, and adjusted when needed. This includes things like adding new responses as community information changes and refining existing responses based on resident interactions and feedback.
To use Yardi Chat IQ effectively and as part of a long-term customer satisfaction protocol, it will require continuous attention and improvement. Because of this, using a Yardi Chat IQ Live Chat Management service like Leasing Chat can be extremely helpful and effective.
How does Yardi Chat IQ handle maintenance requests?
Residents can submit maintenance requests directly through Yardi Chat IQ, which can then be logged and tracked within your Yardi system. What it can’t do is follow up with residents or staff to ensure issues are resolved and determine satisfaction levels. It also can’t guide happy residents to provide feedback or share their experience through positive online reviews.
What happens if Yardi Chat IQ provides an incorrect or incomplete answer?
If Yardi Chat IQ provides an incorrect or incomplete answer, it can be configured to apologize and either escalate the issue to a live agent or direct the resident to another resource for assistance. However, with proper live chat management and oversight this can be avoided altogether - prospects lose confidence quickly when an automated system isn’t serving them well.
What kind of support is available for Yardi Chat IQ?
Yardi provides support for Chat IQ through your pre-existing reps. This can include setup assistance, initial training, and some ongoing technical support to make sure the system is working properly. However, they will not help designing chat pathways, building high-probability responses, or re-designing chatbot communications when they result in a dissatisfied customer.
How do we know if Yardi Chat IQ is right for our community?
First and foremost, live chat, no matter the provider, if used well and managed properly, can provide incredible benefits to multifamily communities.
To weigh the cost/benefit of Yardi Chat IQ for a property or a portfolio of properties, assess your community’s needs, the volume of resident inquiries, and your current staffing levels and their ability to handle the workload. If you’re looking to enhance efficiency, provide 24/7 support, and improve lead capture, Yardi Chat IQ could be valuable. Request a Demo to learn more about how effective Live Chat can be.