Customer Support
Many commercial real estate (CRE) and multifamily professionals consider managing their own resident or tenant satisfaction surveys. On the surface, a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach seems simple and cost-effective — after all, online questionnaire tools make it easy to send a few surveys and collect quick responses.
However, in practice, DIY surveys can produce inconsistent data, limited insights, and results that stakeholders don’t fully trust. What may seem like a small-scale effort to “check the pulse” can actually have a significant impact on your reputation, retention strategy, and investment decisions.
For portfolios spanning multiple properties, markets, or asset classes, unreliable surveys can impact tenant retention, renewals, portfolio performance, and investor confidence. CRE and multifamily professionals can’t afford to overlook the trade-offs between DIY and third-party surveys; understanding them is essential to making informed decisions that drive credible, actionable insights.
To make the right choice, it’s important to look beyond convenience and cost. Let’s examine what’s really at stake — and how each approach impacts results, resources, and reputation.
Jump to a Section
DIY vs. Third-Party Surveys: What’s at Stake?
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Should I DIY my surveys or partner with a third-party survey provider?” you’re not alone. On the surface, DIY surveys look like an easy win. They’re quick to set up, low-cost, and flexible. For many CRE and multifamily leaders, that sounds appealing when budgets are tight and decisions need to be made fast.
But when it comes to CRE tenant satisfaction surveys or resident surveys that multifamily portfolios depend on, the stakes are high. Feedback doesn’t just measure how people feel — it drives renewals, influences retention, shapes investor confidence, and impacts NOI. And saving a little time or money upfront can cost far more if the results aren’t trusted, consistent, or actionable.
The first step is understanding what you want to accomplish. Are you aiming to improve renewals, increase retention, benchmark property performance surveys against market leaders, or demonstrate credibility to owners and investors? The purpose of the survey should guide the approach.
Then, consider your portfolio. DIY surveys may work if you manage a single property, but most CRE and multifamily leaders oversee diverse portfolios spanning multiple markets, property types, and classes. In those cases, comparability and benchmarking are critical. Without a standardized approach, you’re left with fragmented data that can’t be rolled up into a single, clear story of performance.
The Hidden Costs of DIY Surveys
When portfolios grow or survey goals get complex, DIY approaches often backfire, revealing hidden challenges. Here are three of the most common challenges leaders face when attempting a DIY approach:
- Inconsistency — With every property creating its own survey, differences in wording, timing, or scales make results nearly impossible to compare. Owners and investors expect clean, apples-to-apples reporting — not a patchwork of disconnected insights.
- Participation — DIY surveys often miss the balance between too few and too many questions. Short surveys yield shallow insights, while long ones cause survey fatigue that drives down completion rates. Either way, results don’t provide the reliable tenant and resident experience data that leaders need.
- Credibility and Response Bias — Bias matters in survey programs. When tenants or residents believe their feedback goes directly to property staff, they may soften their comments or avoid sharing critical insights. Owners and investors may also question results that appear self-reported. Even accurate data loses influence if it isn’t trusted.
6 Inherent Risks of DIY Surveys
Even with the best intentions, DIY surveys often introduce more risk than reward and fall short of delivering business value. Without a standardized framework, strategic design, or expert oversight, teams can ask questions that don’t align with strategic goals, providing data that’s inconsistent, incomplete, or misleading. This misses the mark entirely on resident and tenant survey best practices, which should always connect to business outcomes.
1. Inconsistent Methodology and Data Gaps
When each property builds and distributes its own survey, subtle differences in wording, timing, and response scales create major inconsistencies. One community might ask about “maintenance response time in days,” while another asks about “maintenance satisfaction on a five-point scale.” The result? Fragmented data that can’t be compared across regions or asset types. Without a unified methodology, it’s nearly impossible to roll results up to the portfolio level or spot actual performance trends.
2. Unfocused or Misaligned Insights
DIY surveys also risk collecting data that doesn’t tie back to real business goals. A team might gather detailed feedback on new lobby décor while overlooking a parking issue that’s actually driving dissatisfaction. These mismatched insights can feel informative but fail to move the needle on renewals, retention, or NOI — the metrics that matter most.
3. Survey Fatigue and Design Challenges
Even experienced operators struggle to balance survey length and depth. Too few questions lead to shallow insights; too many cause fatigue and lower participation. Add uncertainty around distribution channels (email, SMS, web) and question types, and it’s easy to see how DIY surveys can produce uneven, low-quality feedback that doesn’t represent the broader tenant or resident experience.
4. Lack of Benchmarking and External Context
DIY results exist in isolation. A 55% satisfaction score may seem solid — until you compare it to industry benchmarks showing top performers at 70% or higher. Without that external perspective, leaders may draw false conclusions about portfolio performance. Recognized benchmarks, like the Kingsley Index™, add essential context and credibility, helping organizations understand where they truly stand.
5. Limited Analysis and Actionability
Collecting responses is only half the job. Interpreting open-text comments, identifying sentiment trends, and quantifying the impact of issues requires analytical expertise and tools. Property teams already juggle competing priorities, and few have time to learn how to analyze resident feedback effectively. As a result, important signals — like early indicators of dissatisfaction — may be overlooked or, worse, misinterpreted, and the opportunity to improve operations or retention is lost.
6. Failure To Close the Loop
Many DIY programs stop at data collection. Without structured follow-up or accountability, results sit unused, and respondents see little evidence that their feedback made a difference. Over time, participation rates drop as residents and tenants lose confidence that their voices matter. A survey isn’t the finish line — it’s the starting point for continuous improvement.
So while DIY surveys may appear cost-effective, the lack of consistency, credibility, and strategic alignment can undermine the very goals they aim to support.
How Third-Party Surveys Drive Real Results
Third-party surveys overcome these limitations by providing the credibility, benchmarking, and expertise that CRE and multifamily leaders need.
Credibility and Objectivity
With independent third-party oversight, residents and tenants feel safe sharing candid feedback. Owners and investors also place greater trust in the results, knowing they’re unbiased.
Benchmarking and Recognition
The Kingsley Index provides industry-leading benchmarks, comparing your scores to millions of data points across property types, asset classes, and regions. The Kingsley Excellence Awards further highlight high-performing properties, providing recognition that strengthens reputation and instills stakeholder confidence.
Expert Design and Tenant Feedback Analysis
Survey experts design programs around business goals, not guesswork. Rather than leaving staff to sift through raw data, analysts highlight the drivers that matter most, from renewals to tenant retention. With Grace Hill’s Survey solution, AI enhances the process by categorizing open-text responses and surfacing insights in real time, making it easier to know how to analyze resident and tenant feedback and act on it.
From Data to Continuous Improvement
Third-party surveys don’t stop at data collection. They’re paired with recommendations, action planning, and follow-up measurement. This ensures feedback supports resident and tenant retention surveys, property performance surveys, and long-term portfolio health. In other words, they answer the big question: How to improve resident and tenant retention with surveys in a way that’s consistent, credible, and measurable.
When DIY Surveys Makes Sense
DIY surveys aren’t always the wrong choice. For smaller operators managing only one or two properties, a simple DIY approach can provide quick insights without the expense of third-party support. In these cases, DIY surveys can serve as a feedback tool that delivers a brief snapshot.
But when portfolios expand, renewals are at stake, or stakeholder and investor reporting really matters, third-party surveys remain the best approach for multifamily or CRE organizations.
Conclusion: Finding the Right Fit
Every survey should start with two questions:
- “What is the goal?”
- “What does my portfolio look like?”
While DIY surveys may offer tactical, small-scale feedback, CRE and multifamily leaders typically need consistency, credibility, and strategic alignment that DIY approaches cannot provide.
With Grace Hill, third-party surveys become more than feedback tools. They become a strategic advantage — backed by award-winning benchmarking, expert analysis, and actionable guidance — that improves satisfaction, strengthens operations, and builds investor confidence.
More Survey Tools and Insights
2025 CRE Emerging Trends Report
The Future of Resident Amenities: Meeting Rising Expectations
