CRE’s Guide to Buildings with the Best Tenant Experience
Due to constantly developing tenant and office building needs, the adoption of proptech and technology partnerships has become a necessity in a world adjusting to rapidly evolving work models. Tenant experience technology and office space software not only help landlords and property teams bring new life to the overall building experience, but also reinforce a competitive advantage in a shifting industry. Additionally, proptech companies have begun to emerge to help the commercial real estate (CRE) industry create buildings with the best tenant experience — which is accomplished by the adoption of a more customer-centric model for the workplace.
Growing flexibility in working preferences means that the workplace and its community have now officially transcended the four walls of the office building — not only do landlords have to find ways to create great experiences for those who choose to come into the office, but also for those who follow a more hybrid work model approach. It’s also been an important time to focus on making time in the physical office valuable as a way to attract tenants to office spaces as a preferred work location. Thus, the industry has reached a point where technology is needed to bridge the gap between the physical office and the digital workplace to create omnichannel office experiences, while also connecting employees in a way that is both engaging and thoughtful.
Tenant Experience Technology: CRE’s Differentiator
When thinking about a typical commercial real estate tenant, many overlook the small details of their day. From their morning commute coffee to post-work activities such as doctor’s appointments or fitness classes, tenant activities are more ingrained in your building community than you may think. Great tenant engagement even incorporates the actions that occur outside of your building, such as tenant commute and transportation needs. These workplace experiences all come together to create what we refer to as the tenant experience (TeX).
Cultivating this ecosystem is critical. Each tenant activity presents a new opportunity to improve the property experience with technology tailored to the individuals who are in the building every day. These opportunities harness the power of a modern, digital tenant experience: helping landlords put relevant technology into the hands of a building’s population that they don’t regularly connect with, and using that technology to improve tenant retention and attraction and to add value to their assets.
Thus, tenant experience technology has become the driving force behind bringing commercial real estate (CRE) leaders and property teams closer to their building occupants than ever before. Tenant experience software can not only be leveraged to create new and exciting engagement opportunities for tenants, but also to collect meaningful data on what building occupants really want, and how they really use a given space. In the modern commercial real estate landscape, it will serve as the biggest differentiator between your building, and everyone else’s.
The Many Forms of Tenant Experience Software
Tenant experience software can take many forms — typically, a single app for tenants can be made up of multiple prop tech apps to accomplish various workplace solutions. At HqO, we know that tenant experience startups and proptech companies have a lot to offer, but can be difficult to navigate on your own. Therefore, the best approach to tenant experience tech is by using an end-to-end tenant engagement platform that aggregates multiple technologies into one, easy-to-use command center. This way, solutions can be found and integrated into buildings across all key pillars of the tenant experience.
With this in mind, we made sure that our HqOS Marketplace of best-in-class technology partners can activate services and technologies to meet any building’s needs through the following categories:
- Access Control: Through access control capabilities, owners can enable tenants to gain access to their office buildings with just the tap of a phone.
- Emergency Communications: Another critical tenant experience component is the ability to communicate critical safety information to building occupants in a quick and efficient manner.
- Order Ahead: A smart-enabled technology platform can increase safety and convenience for your tenants, such as integrating with local retailers to allow them to place orders ahead and reduce friction.
- Resource Booking: Even resource booking can be more seamless. Smart building sensors coordinate with your existing software to assist in more efficient room booking management, from conference rooms to event spaces and everything in between, making organizing your day completely frictionless.
- Service Booking: Technologies can also be utilized to activate your building amenities. Tenants can take advantage of easy-to-book services, fitness classes, and more.
- Service Requests: Building and maintenance staff play an essential role in tenant experience. Enter service request solutions, where tenants can communicate with building managers for work orders, cleaning services, and more.
- Shuttle Tracking: Shuttle tracking technologies can help you understand your tenants’ commuting behaviors and determine the best-fit transit solutions for any property.
- Ticketing: Smart ticketing can help grant tenants access to key property experiences and partner services with scannable visuals. The process is quick, convenient, and contactless.
- Visitor Registration: Contactless visitor registration can also be easily integrated into a building through a tenant experience platform. Speed up the visitor registration process while also ensuring modern safety and security protocols are met.
An HqO Building is a Successful Building
At HqO, our clients have already begun to implement creative tenant experience solutions through their respective tenant apps. An app for tenants, alongside our end-to-end tenant experience operating system to support it, can achieve many different results. Below are just a few examples of how property teams can take advantage of the HqO platform to generate customer satisfaction and property value. After all, an HqO building is a successful building:
- In early 2018, Bulfinch launched HqO across three of their suburban assets in Needham, MA — 75 Second Avenue, 117 Kendrick Street, and 250 First Avenue — totaling nearly 400,000 sq ft. As a forward-thinking company that seeks to utilize technology for the next wave of great tenant experience, Bulfinch sought to attract and retain its tenants by providing the best workspace possible and ensuring an amenity-rich work environment. Through the HqO app, they connected tenants with retail building amenities like food vendors, fitness and recreational classes, and more. They also took advantage of its data collection capabilities, helping them curate what works and what doesn’t work for their tenant base and eliminating much of the guesswork normally associated with property management tasks.
- In February of 2018, National Development launched HqO at their 1.3 million sq ft business environment complete with office, retail, and restaurant space, nestled outside of the city in Burlington, MA. At the time, The District had already boasted a lively environment and several tenant-focused events, but the large nature of its campus meant that they needed a more streamlined way to reach and connect every tenant and employee. The HqO app provided The District technologies that were able to successfully disseminate information to everyone, spreading their workplace culture to people they were previously unable to reach.
- In July of 2020, JP Morgan launched HqO at Foundation Park, a 260,000 sq ft business park, just to the west of London, UK. Foundation Park’s management team needed to communicate important return-to-workplace information — such as updated health and safety protocols related to the COVID-19 pandemic — in a quick and effective manner. They also sought to digitally translate the connected nature of the park through a mobile platform. To achieve this, HqO delivered notable custom solutions around transportation, including a real-time tracker of the shuttle bus that supports commuting to and from the property. Foundation Park also provides service and resource booking for on-site amenities, a neighborhood guide that aggregates key facilities and services available in the local towns, their own bike share scheme, and virtual workplace events for its active users.
The HqO Valuation: Growing at a Global Speed
As leaders of tenant experience, HqO has been gaining momentum for the office sector around the world. From our headquarters in Boston, MA, to HqO NYC, Dallas, Los Angeles, London, and Paris offices, we’re connecting employees to the communities in and around their buildings and empowering them with tools to control their workday. Here are just a few successes that our dedicated team, customers, partners, and investors have recently fueled:
- The introduction of HqOS™, the end-to-end operating system for CRE. Made up of three layers: the Tenant Experience Platform, Digital Grid™, and Marketplace, HqOS revolutionized the way property teams manage all customer-facing technology tools within their building. Since then, we’ve further enhanced these offerings and launched HqOS Headquarters, our desktop-based command center that allows customers to rapidly deploy and configure data-driven tenant engagement strategies across their portfolio — with absolutely no coding required.
- Since we announced HqOS, we’ve digitally launched our Tenant Experience Platform among over 200 new properties. We’ve also integrated over 180 developers and vendors within our Marketplace — many of which provide services and tools that are vital to modern safety and health regulations and are shaping the future of work. Alongside those partnerships, we’ve added over 200 assets to the Digital Grid to help make it easier than ever to surface data on building companies, spaces, amenities, and technologies.
- As of 2020, we’re powering 120 million square feet of property technology across North America and Europe. This includes fifteen U.S. Markets, as well as operating in the U.K., Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Notably, we occupy 3.7 million square feet in the U.K., and over 300,000 square feet in France.
To learn more about HqO and our end-to-end operating system, schedule a free demo today. If you’re interested in HqO careers, you can check out the HqO Glassdoor page, HqO LinkedIn page, or our official Careers page.
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HqOS — the tenant experience operating system for commercial office buildings — enhances physical spaces with digital experiences, accelerates the implementation of innovative asset strategies, and enables data-driven decision making
- Create rich digital experiences for the people who occupy your buildings with the Tenant Experience Platform
- Find and manage apps in one place with the Marketplace
- Capture & structure all data on how people use your buildings with the Digital Grid™
- Deploy your tenant experience strategy with Headquarters