We Are All Tenant Experience Managers

By Kirk Layton, President & Co-Founder, The Tenex Group

Prior to launching The Tenex Group and eServus, I worked in the world of property management. More specifically, I worked with the building management teams at Marathon to create and deploy our tenant service initiatives, which included our in-lobby concierge service, lobby events and tenant surveys. These initiatives were part of the company’s service excellence strategy, and I had the title of Manager of Service Excellence. I always loved that title because I thought it perfectly described what we as a company were setting out to do: Provide excellent customer service to our tenants with the end goal of increasing tenant satisfaction and retention. Sometimes a title is worth a thousand words!

Over the past 20 years, the terms that PMs use to describe how they keep their tenants happy have evolved, from service excellence to tenant retention, to tenant engagement … to today’s tenant experience. While the terms may change, the objective of a PM’s service strategy is still the same: To create a building environment that engages the tenants in meaningful ways so that, come lease renewal time, they have more reasons to stay than to leave. And with the worst of COVID behind us, an effective tenant experience strategy is critical in helping your tenants attract their employees back to the office.

The trick, of course, is finding the time, and often the budget, to deliver events and activities that enhance tenant experience and, ideally, create a sense of FOMO among the work-from-home crowd. What’s more, recent advances in technology – like the proptech platforms provided by Lane and other tech companies – have made engaging your tenants a lot more efficient and cost-effective. Good thing, because it’s hard to carve out time to organize events that add to the tenant experience when you’re busy running the building!

While committing to a tenant engagement strategy might seem like a full-time job, it doesn’t have to be. Even though you can take advantage of resources that are designed to help improve the tenant experience – like The Tenex Group! – it’s more important to have a proper mindset, which starts with believing that tenant engagement can help you succeed. Whether or not it’s on your business card, we are all Managers of Tenant Experience, and it’s up to us to deliver, day-in day-out, to create a building community that is designed to engage and retain tenants.

How do you maintain a tenant-centric focus when dealing with the everyday demands of property management? Please share your thoughts in the “Leave a Reply” section below.