Tech can make us faster and smarter, but student housing is still about people and connection. 💛🤝
A humorous skit illustrates the tension between using technology to optimize student housing operations and maintaining genuine human connection with residents. The conversation shows a company considering a $30,000 leasing bot to reach efficiency targets, but ultimately emphasizes that kindness and personal care should remain central to student housing.
Summary
The transcript presents a workplace dialogue at a student housing company facing pressure to reach 95% occupancy while operating under budget constraints—specifically a reduced marketing budget despite plans to raise rents. A vendor pitches an automated solution called a 'leasing bot' (humorously mistaken for a robot vacuum) priced at $30,000. The bot's capabilities include predicting why prospective students don't lease, sending personalized emails around the clock, and even delivering automated apologies. When one colleague questions whether this allows them to fire staff, another colleague intervenes to redirect the conversation back to the company's core mission: supporting students by providing a place where staff knows residents by name and genuinely cares about their wellbeing. The skit concludes with a practical example of human engagement—a staff member greeting someone with genuine concern and offering to chat—demonstrating that meaningful connection requires actual human presence. The piece ends with an invitation to the Student Housing Insight Top Golf mixer at an NMHC event sponsored by Sherbet, supporting a project focused on human connection in student housing.
Key Insights
- A student housing company proposed raising rents while simultaneously cutting the marketing budget, creating a contradiction between revenue goals and the resources needed to reach prospective tenants.
- A $30,000 proprietary 'leasing bot' was pitched as capable of predicting why students don't lease and sending personalized emails 24/7, but notably could not answer front desk inquiries.
- One colleague questioned whether adopting the automated bot would allow the company to eliminate staff positions, suggesting technology adoption was being framed as a workforce reduction opportunity.
- A colleague redirected the discussion by reminding the group that the underlying purpose of their work is to support students by providing a place where 'somebody actually knows their name and cares about how they're doing.'
- The skit concluded by demonstrating that genuine help requires human presence—a staff member asking 'how are you?' with authentic concern proved more meaningful than any automated system could provide.
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] Hi, I've been trying to talk to Are we at 95% yet? Oh, um, well, we're raising rents either way and cutting the marketing budget. How am I supposed to reach more people with less money? Market smarter. Get the word out there. As I was saying, I've got a solution. Introducing the leasing bot. That looks like a robot vacuum. >> Oh, we get that a lot, but no, [clears throat] this is proprietary. >> Oh, how much is it? Only $30,000. Only Well, can it answer the front desk? >> No, but it can predict why nobody does. And it can send personalized emails 24/7. I haven't heard back in days. It [0:30] can even apologize, too.…
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