Charm City Concierge CEO explains the importance of building—and maintaining—good relationships with tenants.
Many companies are having their employees work from home amid the Coronavirus pandemic, but vacant offices do not mean that commercial real estate owners and property managers need to be estranged from their tenants. In fact, it would be beneficial for CRE owners to develop or maintain relationships with their tenants whether they are working on location or remotely. Doing so will help them stay on top of what their tenant’s changing demands and needs are and address them quickly. Meeting tenants’ demands will keep them happy—and likely to stay where they are when their lease is up.
Charm City Concierge founder and CEO Tina Urquhart recently spoke with Connected Real Estate Magazine about how her company can help the CRE industry, why it is important for property owners to stay involved in their tenant’s business, how they can prepare as tenants return to their offices following the health crisis and more.
Connected Real Estate Magazine: How do Charm City Concierge’s services and its Simpli app work in the CRE industry?
Tina Urquhart: Charm City Concierge is a workplace experience company focused on delivering a differentiated work experience through concierge services, wellness programming, experiences, amenity management and technology and ensuring work/life harmony. In the 26 years we have been in business, we have learned that an engaged and activated office community leads to happier tenants and happier tenants lead to more leases, lease renewals and satisfied owners and investors.
Like many other companies, over the past two months, we have completely pivoted our platform from an on-site service provider to activating completely virtual programming across portfolios. We are beginning to plan for workers’ re-entry into the office and what that will look like.
Connected: Why do you believe it’s so important for CRE owners to stay somewhat involved in their tenants’ affairs as opposed to just leasing the space?
TU: In this day and age, companies looking for office space have endless options. There are outstanding office buildings across the country that offer truly unique amenities from state-of-the-art fitness centers to golf simulators in the lobby. Because the competition is fierce, owners know they have to go one step further in providing that custom experience for their tenants and that is precisely what we do.
We offer another level of bespoke employee experience by doing a deep dive into what our users want and need. We have years of data to back up what works and what does not work. So, when owners bring us on board to provide workplace experience services, they are showing their tenants that they care about their community experience and their well being.
Coming out of the current COVD-19 crisis we are in, that differentiation will be more important than ever.
Connected: How will the Simpli app’s significance be magnified in light of COVID-19?
TU: COVID-19 completely changed the work place as we know it. It will be more important than ever to differentiate and provide those experiences to tenants to keep them engaged and in the office. We have been providing many of our programs virtually and we don’t see that changing as we begin to get back to normal.
We see employees still wanting that connection to the office, but having the option to access it from anywhere. Especially taking into consideration our app, Simpli, we are able to provide a streamlined process for users to reconnect, re-enter and re-energize with their workplace communities both inside and outside the physical office walls.
Connected: How can CRE owners benefit from working with Charm City Concierge and using the Simpli app?
TU: We are a full-service, one-stop-shop for workplace experience programming. We are able to completely fulfill the needs of each tenant from top to bottom, on-site and virtually and that entire experience is streamlined in our app, Simpli. It facilitates the connections that engage and encourage interactions between our office communities and as we all work from home and begin to plan to get back to work, these interactions are more important than ever.
Commercial real estate owners can rest easy knowing that their tenants are being genuinely cared for with wellness programming, day-to-day concierge services, as well as exciting, innovative experiences to activate, engage and inspire.
Connected: Tina, thanks so much for your time. Is there anything else you’d like our audience to know about your solutions?
TU: We are a differentiator for real estate owners helping their buildings stand out from the crowd by offering deeper and more personalized connections to their communities and to their spaces. We are able to pivot quickly to our clients’ needs and we place the highest importance on experience, wellness and engagement as we have seen that workers who are engaged with their communities are happier and more productive. We want every employee to work happy.