Change agents: Funnel Leasing

Editors’ note: This post features Clay Bavor, Co-founder of Sierra, and Tyler Christansen, CEO of Funnel Leasing.

Transforming the renter experience: Funnel’s human-first approach to AI.

There's a strange irony in the world of “customer experience”: all too often, the technology that's supposed to bring us closer to the products and services we enjoy, feels like it keeps us at arm's length. We've all been there—trapped in phone trees, repeating our account numbers to unhelpful chatbots, desperately shouting "representative!" into the void.

But what if AI could actually make customer experiences more human, not less?

Over the past nine months, Sierra and Funnel partnered to reimagine what customer experience looks like in multifamily housing.

The multifamily or rental housing industry is where a third of Americans make their largest monthly financial commitment—a transaction that is not only a significant spend, but deeply emotional. Where you live has wide-ranging implications on your life, impacting everything from mental and physical health to professional or social opportunities, and factors such as crime, access to nature, and healthy food can all play a role in your well-being.

At the same time, finding a home isn't like buying an iPhone; it's securing the right school district for your kids, staying close to your job, or finding a place that welcomes your Labradoodle (or cat or yes, your iguana).

Funnel has invested deeply in making the relationship between renters and the operators they rent from more meaningful. Funnel's AI assistant is powered by Sierra and handles the entire front end of the renter journey through conversational AI—via web chat, and voice. When a prospective renter reaches out at 2 AM on a Sunday asking about pet policies or school districts, AI answers in real-time, in over 20 languages. It books tours like that one directly into Funnel’s CRM, answers prospect and renter inquiries about community, amenities, availability, and pricing, and handles complex, multi-turn conversations that feel genuinely human.

More than simply answering questions, the AI assistant takes action—even in novel, highly complex scenarios. Case in point: At one of Funnel's large partners, a resident reached out through the online AI chat asking to update their license plate number. Rather than breaking down or responding with "I don't understand," the assistant stayed conversational, captured the information, and created a task in the CRM for the on-site team’s next steps. It's exactly the kind of nuanced request that would have stumped traditional ‘chatbots’—but it's also the kind of everyday interaction that defines whether a renter feels taken care of or frustrated.

Elevating the human element

Before partnering with Sierra, renters could get their questions answered through Funnel's existing AI assistant. However, they sometimes hit a wall—often on weekends when human teams were unavailable. Since deploying Sierra, the AI assistant handles 94% of inquiries on the first conversation.

This shift, combined with the industry's broader push to centralize operations—creating specialized roles for different steps of the renter journey—didn't eliminate leasing associates. It made their roles even more human. When associates pick up conversations now, they're not scheduling the 73rd appointment of the day or buried behind their computer answering the same basic question about pet policies for the hundredth time. They're having high-value conversations with qualified prospects ready to make decisions, or deepening relationships with current residents, ensuring they love their home. This concierge-level service turns apartment hunting from a miserable chore into a curated experience.

Buy over build: From playing catch-up to innovation

With AI evolving rapidly, Funnel decided to partner rather than compete with the world's largest AI providers. While they'd been building proprietary AI into their platform for five years, the explosion of new AI capabilities created an opportunity to work with Sierra's best-in-class conversational AI, extending their original text/email assistant into chat and voice channels.

When you're building conversational AI in-house, you're constantly playing catch-up. The partnership with Sierra shifted Funnel's focus from "how many questions can we answer?" to "what work can we do?" This partnership allows Funnel’s in-house teams with multifamily industry-specific domain experience to concentrate on the complex workflows within the CRM and identify the most impactful ways to deploy them.

Working with Sierra is allowing Funnel to dream big—and to make those dreams a reality. Today, renters book tours and get answers to questions. In the coming months, Funnel's roadmap includes leveraging AI into mid-lease changes, renewal negotiations, and authenticated conversations where renters can securely discuss payment plans—all workflows that Sierra and Funnel are building together right now.

The bigger picture

The real question isn't whether AI makes experiences more or less human. It's whether we're using AI to free people to do the work that actually moves the needle for our customers.

In multifamily housing, that means leasing associates spending less time scheduling appointments and more time building relationships. It means renters getting answers in the middle of the night in their native language, then getting white-glove service from human experts when they're ready to sign.

At a broader level, it means companies can finally resolve the tension between providing exceptional service and doing so economically.

That's the human promise of AI. And in multifamily housing, we're proving it works.