What the latest Youth Forum findings say about how you want your accommodation to get in touch, and where we’d like your view.There’s a fair chance your inbox has a message from your accommodation that you read straight away, and a few you’ve never opened. A fire alarm test notice lands in the same week as three event invitations and a reminder about the bins, and only one of them needs you today.
The Youth Forum, a student panel run by The Property Marketing Strategists, asked 347 students from the UK, the EU and further afield how they want their accommodation provider to get in touch. Listening to residents is part of how we work, whether that’s a survey after a campaign or a chat at an event, so we read the findings closely. Here’s what stood out, and we’d like to know whether it matches what you see.
Email Comes First
70% of students trust email most, and 55% would pick it if they could only have one channel. Apps and social media get a lot of attention, but when something affects your room or your contract, email is where you’d expect to find it. If you’ve ever missed a maintenance visit because the notice went to a channel you don’t check, you’ll know why the channel matters.
Relevant messages get opened
53% of students say they’re more likely to open a message when it’s clearly relevant to them. A note about the laundry room on your floor gets read. A note about a laundry room in a different block doesn’t, and it makes the next message easier to skip. Students want fewer, better messages, sent to the people they apply to.
Apps for the everyday things
In an app, students most want important updates (56%), parcel alerts (46%) and events (44%). Parcel alerts are the ones you notice when they’re missing, usually a week after the parcel arrived. On push notifications, 66% either like them or don’t mind them when they’re relevant, so a notification is welcome as long as it’s about something you care about.
When to hear about rebooking
30% would like to hear as rebooking opens, 18% in January and February, and 17% don’t mind when. Only 11% want to hear in September or October, which makes sense when you’re still working out where the nearest supermarket is and how the heating works.
What students have told us
The report says energy and sustainability messages land better when they’re practical and about your own building. That matches what we’ve heard directly. After a Resident App pilot in ten student buildings across the UK and Ireland in 2024, we surveyed the students who took part. 88% of those who joined the first energy challenge told us it was an email that got them there.
At pop-up events with Collegiate in winter 2024/25, students got a spin of a prize wheel each time they downloaded a guide to how their heating works, which is one way to get a heating guide read…!
Both come back to what you’ve told us: keep it useful, keep it friendly and send it where students will see it.
Tell us what you think
Let us know whether any of this matches your experience. The poll below has five quick questions and takes about a minute, and we’ll share what we hear in a future post.