On the heels of last month’s annual BOMA International Conference, commercial real estate professionals may be reflecting on the experience, implementing ideas from their sessions, and contemplating how to earn the coveted TOBY award next year.
The BOMA conference is not only an opportunity for professional development and networking but also a time when commercial real estate can be celebrated, including honoring excellence in building management and operations.
The Outstanding Building of the Year (TOBY®) Awards is a prestigious and comprehensive program that recognizes quality in commercial buildings and rewards excellence in building management. Competition in the CRE industry can be fierce, and earning awards is one way property managers can attract new tenants while providing an experience that retains current tenants.
Beginning the journey: It starts with understanding your tenants
As is often the case, the best things in life don’t come easily, and earning a TOBY award requires effort and commitment. All facets of a building’s operations are thoroughly evaluated, judged on everything from community involvement, tenant relations, and site management to environmental and “green” policies and procedures.
A common thread among winners is their focus on understanding tenants’ needs. Strong relationships with onsite staff go a long way, but conducting regular surveys about their satisfaction levels is imperative. Strong relationships with onsite staff go a long way, but conducting regular tenant satisfaction surveys is imperative and a highly recommended part of the award submission process. In fact, what sets these winners apart is how they act on the results.
Top performers understand the importance of using data to drive decisions instead of relying on gut instinct or anecdotal stories of tenant sentiment. Conducting formal surveys on tenants’ satisfaction with all areas of your property can help building management more accurately understand where to improve.
Stay the course: Use survey data to make decisions that improve tenants’ experience
Leveraging the results to direct investments ultimately improves tenant satisfaction, increases renewals, and attracts new tenants. By implementing a comprehensive survey program, you can create a formal feedback process that gathers survey data, analyzes client sentiment, offers relevant benchmarks, and establishes action plans.
Building relationships with tenants is important, but having data that speaks to their actual perceptions is essential. The challenge is that creating, distributing, and analyzing survey results on your own is not an easy process. Several of this year’s TOBY winners leveraged KingsleySurveys to streamline their survey process, calculate their results, benchmark performance, and translate the data into actionable insights.
Take the direct route: Leverage trusted industry solutions to streamline surveys
It’s possible for property management companies to develop and administer tenant surveys on their own, but for most organizations, that is not the best option. Capturing unbiased data on how your tenants feel about your properties is best accomplished through third-party surveys.
As a trusted partner to the world’s leading CRE organizations for nearly 35 years, KingsleySurveys makes it easy to capture insights on critical topics such as tenants’ current needs and priorities, renewal intent, and the likelihood of recommending the commercial property to others. These insights are relevant and valuable, regardless of the size of the portfolio. Plus, the KingsleyIndex offers relevant benchmarks that can be used to level-set, compare, and track property performance against industry standards. The recommendations and action plans derived from the survey data improve tenant satisfaction, increase renewals, and ultimately lead to an award-winning property.
The Kingsley Excellence Award is another way to distinguish properties that outperform the competition. This esteemed award recognizes properties that go above and beyond to ensure their tenants are satisfied year after year. Promoting this award helps attract new tenants by eliciting trust and differentiating the property from the competition. Plus, current TOBY award winners have shared that they felt including their Kingsley Excellence award in their TOBY submission helped put their property over the top.
Your destination: High-performing, award-winning properties
Administering a successful tenant survey is only one part of the TOBY award submission process, but the insights and subsequent performance improvements will pay dividends, regardless of whether you earn the coveted award.
However, the ultimate destination is not achieving a static level of performance. Implementing an ongoing data-driven approach to property management will lead to continual improvements in tenant experience and satisfaction. Long-term, CRE executives that focus on understanding true tenant satisfaction will increase renewals, attract new tenants, build asset value, and as an added bonus, have the opportunity to earn prestigious industry awards that showcase those achievements.
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