Modern access control solutions play a crucial role in the tenant experience. The right technologies can achieve any number of property management goals, like enhanced physical security for your building; a seamless, touchless journey throughout a property or portfolio; and increased activation points that provide important occupancy data.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that the access control market is expected to reach $11.7 billion by 2026, largely fueled by the residential and commercial industries. In fact, HID Global reports that “over 50 percent of […] companies have already upgraded to mobile, are in the process of upgrading to mobile, or have plans to deploy mobile access in the near future.”
To meet commercial real estate (CRE) teams where they are, we’ve spent years investing in the top access control solutions in the industry. In fact, we’ve built an entire Access Lab in our Boston headquarters for this very cause. Here’s a quick look at what goes on in our Access Lab, which is managed by a team of dedicated experts who work side-by-side with our best-in-class Marketplace partners:
Streamlining the Development Process
Part of our access control goals is to ensure that our integrations are truly turnkey. Therefore we have an entire dedicated Customer Success team that can not only provide extensive customer support and implementation services, but also do all the heavy lifting so that our clients don’t have to. In our minds, the less a property team has to worry about the technical aspects of procuring, testing, and deploying a solution, the better.
Therefore, we take the time to streamline the development process and handle all of the complexity through HqO’s Partner Portal. Clients only need to send us a list of prerequisites, and then we create all credentials and activations (which form a unique configuration instance) on their behalf. We also make sure we take a consultative approach to connecting CRE teams with potential vendors. We help facilitate conversations to make sure that all considerations are addressed, while also encouraging customers to directly interact with various products on-site or in our Access Lab to get an accurate sense and feel of each system.
Increasing Product Quality
We also make sure our clients get the best bang for their buck. With HqO, property teams are not required to upgrade their building hardware in order to leverage a best-in-class product. Since we work with the top access systems in the industry, our platform can already easily integrate with a building’s existing systems. In the chance the client wants a more robust solution, we can also select a new system and scale it across entire portfolios to ensure that every experience feels the same. This way, clients can always get the best product for their individual needs and that works well with the other technology systems in their building infrastructure.
Testing New Integrations
We want our clients to be able to select and integrate with an access control system, and to then forget about it. Yes, you read that correctly. Tenant experience strategies shouldn’t be focusing on fixing locked doors, or contacting IT teams to upgrade access credentials. Instead, utilitarian functions like building entry should always work, establishing frictionless experiences every step of the way. This reliability can only be guaranteed through extensive testing. We conduct all preliminary and ongoing testing for each of our client’s preferred systems, both on-site and through our Access Lab at no extra cost. Clients can even send us readers that they have on-site at their properties, allowing us to make sure their hardware works (and works well) within our platform.
Ongoing Testing for Existing Integrations
On top of preliminary testing for our access control integrations, we also conduct ongoing testing through our Access Lab once a system goes live. This ensures that our integrations are always up-to-date with the latest product enhancements. This also allows us to get ahead of any bugs or errors that may come with these updates, so that customers can rest assured they always have the best experiences in their buildings. Additionally, we provide our customers with user guides, FAQ documents for troubleshooting, and tenant-facing training materials to ensure every need is addressed.
Want to learn more about our access control solutions, and how HqO can set your portfolio up for success? Check out our new industry guide on access control and visitor management solutions for the office.
