ROCHESTER, NY - Home Properties, Inc. announced the 10th anniversary of its Resident Contact Center, which took its first phone call on November 23, 2001. Since then, the Contact Center has answered over 3.3 million calls and developed into one of the industry's few in-house, multi-channel support centers for apartment residents and prospective clients. The Contact Center currently serves Home Properties' 121 apartment communities with 41,285 apartment units.
"A decade ago, most companies in this industry used answering services staffed with non-employees, primarily for any maintenance needs that surfaced," recalled John Ridge, Director of the Resident Contact Center. "Home Properties began to look at things a bit differently, knowing it was important for us to be personally – and immediately – connected with our current residents and future residents. Answering services just couldn't achieve that same level of service. We ended up hiring our own employees to staff the new 'Call Center,' as it was referred to back then."
In addition to that higher level of service, Home Properties estimates that the cost of maintaining an internal Contact Center is about 40 percent lower than it would be to fully outsource this function.
Today, the Resident Contact Center is open seven days a week, 365 days a year, and is staffed by Home Properties employees who work at the Rochester, New York headquarters. If any of the 121 communities' team members can't answer the phone immediately, those calls are automatically forwarded to the Contact Center. In addition to phone calls, the Contact Center team responds to e-mails requesting leasing information, handles requests for 24-hour Emergency Maintenance Service, and supports the live "Web Chat" function through homeproperties.com. The Contact Center provides support for Spanish-speaking residents and clients, as well.
Home Properties is a publicly traded apartment real estate investment trust that owns, operates, develops, acquires and rehabilitates apartment communities primarily in selected Northeast and Mid-Atlantic markets. An S&P 400 Company, Home Properties owns and operates 121 communities containing 41,285 apartment units.