With over 23 years of commercial real estate experience, I serve as the head of Flex and Experience Management by JLL for the Americas.
When it comes to the workplace, people have always been the main event. But if people come first in the office hierarchy, what comes second?
In a recent informal poll of colleagues and customers as to why they come into the office, their number one response was experience, followed closely by technology. Physical space was a distant third. This ranking makes intuitive sense to me since connecting people and experiences via technology is my drive.
Learning From Disneyland
No less an experiential master than Disneyland has been making updates to its reservation system, initially put in place to manage crowd control during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The company recently announced updates to its now-permanent reservation program, based in part on customer feedback, that will make it easier than ever for visitors to reserve their park visit and connect to more of what Disney has to offer.
For its effort, Disney is being rewarded with operational efficiencies in supply chain and talent management, increased revenue from learning buyer behavior and a more holistic park experience that stays with visitors long after they leave.
I believe offices need to find a way to be more like Disneyland—without the nightly parade or fireworks. Office building owners can prioritize a better experience for tenants while also improving their understanding of occupancy and utilization. Both challenges can be met by adopting more advanced technology solutions, which provide data on user preferences and behaviors. Those insights can then help you tailor your digital, physical and experiential solutions and optimize your real estate portfolios over the long term.
By leaning into technology to connect tenant experience across the physical and digital realms, more offices can learn about their customers’ preferences and behaviors.
From Bit Player To Center Stage
As the purpose, design and occupancy of the workplace continue to evolve, I’ve seen cutting-edge technology and particularly tenant experience apps emerge as vital tools in keeping workers connected across physical locations.
More property owners are expanding access to their entire portfolio of buildings and spaces and leveraging technology solutions to help tenants take advantage of all the amenities they have to offer. For example, some owners are piloting facial recognition software to help users move freely from one office location or amenity space to another without having to remember an access badge or ID card.
Tenant experience apps have also emerged as a key tool to deliver the communication, collaboration and productivity tenants crave in today’s hybrid work reality. Property owners can use these tools to help tenants navigate the complexities of the modern workplace while improving their own insights.
Offering Connection Across Locations And Organizations
As consolidation and maturation have improved the functionality of tenant apps, landlords can now tap into comprehensive platforms that streamline operations, reduce complexity and empower their approach to experience management, aligning owner and investor interests with end users to create desirable, purpose-driven spaces.
In the past, an app would help users navigate through a building, from turnstiles to elevators. But there is now an even greater focus on portfolio-wide integration. With next-generation apps, users can reserve quiet space anywhere within their landlord’s portfolio.
It’s important to find ways to facilitate, say, people ordering and grabbing lunch in between meetings—even when they are traveling to a new portfolio building. You can also help them more easily access a host of wellness amenities—from green space to yoga classes.
In an increasingly hybrid world, I believe property owners should move beyond analog means of communication to help bring their properties to life. The new generation of tenant apps can aid in delivering an improved tenant experience while also showing greater insights into utilization and occupancy. This is a win-win for tenants and landlords.
Unifying Users And Functions
Currently, occupier and investor applications tend to operate as separate platforms due to security and complexity concerns. And larger tenants and operators have their own apps and aren’t always eager to adopt third-party technology.
In my experience, flex operators’ established apps do not integrate well with those of the buildings that house their space. And even when there is a willingness to integrate, there can be considerable technological hurdles.
But a unified experience must eventually include the digital realm. I believe that eliminating silos between buildings and tenants and merging functions like communication, access control, facilities management and community engagement are essential steps to overcome these integration issues. This approach aims to create a comprehensive and streamlined experience, ultimately elevating tenant satisfaction and optimizing building performance in the years ahead.
We are in an era when the commercial office is rapidly evolving. To keep pace, owners should test and try new approaches or else risk being stuck in legacy office traditions.
Revolutionizing Data Analytics
When tenant engagement and building operations are aligned across a portfolio with robust technology, landlords can collect more consistent data, which ultimately powers intelligent decision-making and creates a valuable brand.
Despite the promise of valuable data insights, though, there are currently limitations due to a lack of integration, as well as a lack of a scientific and analytical approach. I believe it is important for management teams to partner with analytic firms and other technological businesses to help discover benchmarks that can provide insights and power the next wave of tenant experience.
Unlike traditional surveys, this collaborative effort should provide more informative, user-driven data as well as benchmarks from thousands of organizations worldwide, helping you to more holistically gauge tenant satisfaction, identify pain points and pinpoint comparative operation shortfalls.
The Future Of Tenant Apps Is Integrated And Experiential
I see tenant apps of the future being key in helping landlords enhance the functionality of occupied spaces, adding value to their assets and expanding their service offerings. The goal is to consolidate various functions, streamline processes and simplify the tenant experience. I believe that landlords who win this technology race will be better equipped to attract and support their tenants’ experiences, ultimately driving engagement in an increasingly hybrid world.
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