Reinventing The Scion Group's Property Management Operations with EliseAI

As the largest global owner/operator of off-campus student housing communities, The Scion Group has shown itself to be adaptable, innovative, and forward-thinking in its pursuit of delivering excellent resident experiences for students across the country. With a portfolio that has grown to encompass 140 active communities across 82 college and university markets, Scion offers a combination of regional and national experience that has roots in the firm’s 25-year history as advisor for universities, foundations, and private-sector providers across North America.

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But like all student housing operators, Scion has unique operational considerations and challenges due to the seasonal nature of its business, the resident profile, and the fast-paced nature of the sector.

Despite a strong market presence and well-managed properties, Scion knew it had an opportunity to both optimize its lead conversion rates and enhance the overall student resident experience with better technology. With a meaningful portion of Scion’s students renting their housing without an in-person visit, any delay in communication to guide prospects through the leasing process negatively impacted the prospect journey. Components of earlier solutions were not fully centralized, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities in driving leads through the sales funnel.

Scion first sought to address these operational issues with the help of a private consultant, spending seven months experimenting with a variety of strategies and technical solutions. While these strategy changes brought about a variety of positive impacts, including automated trigger emails and high conversion rate of leads converting to applications without human interaction, Scion recognized the need for a more sophisticated solution to truly transform the process of interacting with prospects and residents. With that in mind, Scion turned to the leading conversational AI platform for student housing—EliseAI.

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The implementation of EliseAI’s solutions yielded immediate and significant results for the Scion team. The AI outperformed human agents in converting leads, particularly appealing to students accustomed to digital interactions and comfortable with renting without in-person tours. The AI’s responsiveness and ability to handle inquiries around the clock led to a notable increase in contracts signed without an in-person visit, directly impacting Scion’s occupancy rates and revenue. For a student housing operator with an international clientele, having AI to handle after hours communications also significantly enhanced the ability to serve the needs of students in different time zones.

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The operational impact of implementing a leading conversational AI platform has been significant. Scion has been able to reduce the time its team spendings handling repeatable tasks, tasking AI to handle after-hours queries and proactively manage maintenance issues, in turn reducing response times and delivering better experiences. With multiple unique AI personalities, trained with Scion-specific language, the Scion team has been able to deliver services to residents at scale without losing the human touch that differentiates Scion from its competitors.

‍One of the key drivers of the push to implement AI for resident services came from the fact that Scion was paying a variety of different vendors for single-solution software. The team at Scion felt that they were getting value out of the solutions, but not as much as they should have been considering the cost of the services added together. In addition, team members were tired of fragmented resident and prospect information and key details living across a variety of different locations. Before partnering with EliseAI, Scion relied on multiple vendors for various services, including:

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• Vendor A for surveys and Net Promoter Scores (NPS)

• Vendor B for phone services

• Vendor C for text-messaging

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This fragmentation complicated Scion’s day-to-day operations and impeded efficiency. Adopting EliseAI’s platform and providing training to help the team understand how to use AI effectively enabled Scion to consolidate these services, in turn simplifying its operational processes, reducing costs, and delivering better experiences to residents and prospects alike.

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Scion’s journey with EliseAI began with a shared vision of centralization and efficiency. Today, Scion is reaping the benefits of that strategic investment in a new way of working and adoption of emerging technology. By leveraging advanced conversational AI, Scion addressed the initial challenges, achieving remarkable improvements in efficiency, resident satisfaction, and profitability. The consolidation of vendors and the centralization of operations have streamlined processes, further positioning Scion as a forward-thinking leader in the student housing market.