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Tap In to Tax Time: Providing Resources for Residents

Posted on 09. Feb, 2010 by Heather Blume in Resident Retention

It’s the start of the new year, so inevitably the thing in the forefront of everyone’s minds right now is the same: tax time! Okay, maybe not. When it comes to taxes, you’ve got basically two camps of people. You have the ones who know they’re getting money back, so they want to file as quickly as possible. Then you have the rest of us, the people who have to pay in, and who want to procrastinate payment as long as possible. Whichever camp you fall in, even the standard 10-40EZ form has gotten extremely complicated over the last few years.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, taxes are universal. Everyone has to deal with them, and more importantly, every renter has to deal with them. Why not capitalize on one of the few things you can be sure affects everyone? Break out the outreach marketing and talk to your local accounting and tax firms. Tax season gives us a few great ways to court resident retention.

One of the ways you can help your residents out is to compile an info sheet of local and online tax resources, such as the free filing options on Turbo Tax, H&R Block, or other large national tax firms. Another item of information you might want to consider including is online locations for state and federal tax codes / laws, as well as the government resources for printing free tax forms. An additional idea is to work with your local library, a place that often keeps tax forms open and free for the public to use.

Another successful idea that I saw implemented last year was a community that brought in a free tax advisor once a week for their residents during tax season. They used Tuesday nights, but I would guess that any evening or even a Sunday afternoon would work just fine. Imagine as a frustrated and confused resident, being able to turn to someone on site as opposed to making call after call and sitting on hold for 30 minutes or more. One of the best ways to connect with any resident or any client is to reduce their stress, and remember, when we connect, we retain!

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Tags: Accounting, internet marketing, resident retention