Letter from the Executive Director for September 2018

In August we prepared for our 2018 – 2019 event season, continued work on the directory revamp, and maintained all of our processes for member service.

For this event season, we have prepared a bimonthly postcard. Members in good standing “near” an event location may receive a postcard showing all of our events for the next two months. Save this postcard and refer to it. It’s a great summary, and it will be a more persistent reminder than our marketing emails, which we know have decreasing visibility.

We have also figured out how to track attendance using our point-of-sale system by adding barcoded membership cards. Initially these cards will just be business cards with sticker barcodes that let a member “check in” without waiting for a last name lookup.

The event tracking cards will be manually tied to our database and given out to member attendees at events. Attendance tracking will at some point in the future be an optional credential that members can turn on in the planned “lookup” service. “Lookup” will enable a prospective renter to check the credentials of a participating owner before signing a lease. Lookup is not yet developed. We will however start aggregating event credentials (“continuing education”) for our current members.

Before we develop “lookup,” we may develop other projects. First on this list is certainly the “directory revamp.” Our current directory has 279 member recommendations for service providers (384 listings total including self-nominations). This is a small number relative to the demand for recommendations. The “first version” of the software for this directory was centrally administered and grew slowly.

In the directory revamp, members will be able to add and edit their own entries and indicate recommendations and separations from service providers without needing admin participation. We have made a list of the data needing to be migrated into the new directory. The user experience has been designed and was being implemented in HTML and CSS at time of writing. We will let you know when it is ready for use.

We are maintaining our processes for member service, including referrals to RentHelper for rent collection, message board questions & answers, and better renewal processes.

We are also looking to the next legislative session, which starts in January 2019. See later in this edition for our policy priorities survey, and participate if you haven’t. This will set which bills we file.

Let us know what we can do for you. We’re here to help you run a compliant, quality, profitable rental business.

Sincerely,
Douglas Quattrochi
Executive Director
MassLandlords, Inc.